So there I was, standing firmly on rugged ground, watching a world move around me, one familiar and exotic, both alien and near. Travels in Africa are born of a simple human desire to connect more deeply with the earth we inhabit. We all just want to see the Milky Way when we look up at the night’s sky, to see a natural landscape unaltered, to glimpse into the lives of a people unfettered by ideals of a material world. We want to connect with our earth mother, sing to our sky father, in a land that still speaks the language of the heart and knows the song of the wind. This yearning, too, has brought me to these shores many times…
This particular journey, to the Engare Sero mudflats by Lake Natron, Tanzania, was something very special to me. After meeting the villagers and selecting a guide, we were taken on foot, passed a beautiful landscape with zebra and giraffes roaming freely around us, to see some petrified footprints that had recently been discovered. They were created by a clan of homosapiens in this area up to 19,000 years ago; some claim older dates. Imagine, if you will, the pitter patter of footprints slapping into wet volcanic mud as a family moves, barefoot, along the shores of the lake, maybe hunting, perhaps migrating, perhaps fleeing from the erupting volcano ‘Ol Doinyo Lengai’ which still looms over the site, and remains one of the most sacred places of the Maasai Tribe today.
It found it very moving when I placed my foot on a particular imprint and found it to be precisely the same size and shape. It was as if I could feel the passing of the family who made the prints echoing through my own soul; my blood alive with the memory of ancestors. This seemingly-endless cycle of ‘mundane’ life blows my mind sometimes. These footprints remain exposed to the elements and are slowly eroding away, like many things… but life, always, finds its way… and their dust becomes the soil of the future…
These footprints may be small, but their impact on me has been huge. This wild and wonderful cycle of life and death is enough to leave any discerning traveller in awe. What does it all mean, anyway? Is there really any space or time between the lives of these lost ancient people and us? Or, is the separation we experience between things just an illusion? Fabulous and enchanting maybe, but an illusion just the same. Is all life really happening at once, ultimately. Does the earth hold the memory of all times and all powers, near and far, past and future…
Is it all just out there, waiting for us to tap into it… and bring it back to life?
I’m very grateful to share my little thoughts and stories with people from many corners of the world.
I wish you peace and blessings wherever you happen to be reading from…
All my love… a starry-eyed, ever thankful, James x