From a friend’s post on Facebook, I learned about animal communicator Anna Breytenbach and a black leopard named Spirit who lives at a sanctuary named Jukani in South Africa. I watched this amazing film about Anna’s work, which ends with the story of her work with Spirit. (Don’t skip to the end, watch the whole thing – it is life-changing.) That film included her mentor, Jon Young, an American tracker and naturalist.
During the film, Young spoke about the intuitive way that he tracks animals, and how at some point, he no longer uses his eyes to look at tracks, but instead begins to see something called “silver lines.” Later, an African tracker spoke of the same silver lines, and described feeling very distinct guiding sensations in his body that told him which direction to move. As Young and Breytenbach moved though the landscape, you could see both of them feeling into and opening to the energetic essence of the animal they were tracking. It seemed that they were harmonizing, letting their bodies, the landscape and the animal come into a single, aligned vibration.
Watching, I yearned to be able to intuit in that way, to feel that sense of connection with the animal that exists at the level of quanta, where we are all just vibration. Then I realized that they were describing the way that I make dances. I feel into the vibrational heart of the character or movement. I let myself be moved. I am listening for a resonance and attunement that tells me when I am “on.” Those are my silver lines.
With the horses, doing can get in the way. That is why I spend more and more time in being, even in the saddle. I love to ride, and I ride every day. I find that more and more my riding goal is about relationship, focusing on balance, awareness and tracking. Tracking is being aware of my breathing, the horse’s breathing, our moving connection and our emotional alignment. Tracking means looking for the silver lines that tell me when we are in sync, where the communication has opened out into pure vibration, below the level of thought and efforting. When that happens, I feel myself vibrating into joy, here now, feeling it all.
