My Soul Safari

By Jan Hughes

All of us engage in our soul’s journey - our Hero’s Journey.  We come into this world as royalty, the God Within, but like the Star Wars character Luke Skywalker, we close off and only remember that we are peasants - we become the Child In Hiding.  Sooner or later, we meet the Wise Man and realize that we must slay the Dragon to remember who we are. We slay the dragon to get our treasure and bring it to the world.

My Soul Safari was a hero’s journey in miniature.  We set out for Johannesburg on August 1st in the usual place of unknowing that is air travel, the dullness of the prospect of 14 hours sandwiched in a plane. We flew south from Sydney and further south until we were over the polar ice cap with the sun shining brightly on the ice. An extraordinary sight, a one in 25 flights occurrence!  All of my Soul Safari companions on the plane were catapulted into their heart space. We had met our first wise man.

At the official beginning of the Safari, we linked up with our leader William Whitecloud, the African-born Australian author and self-transformation facilitator, and set out for Swaziland. Here we began the soul workshops that would continue for the whole Safari. Workshops designed to wake us up and enable us to find our treasure and bring it to the world.

Our cultural days connected us with the people of Swaziland - to the crafts people in the little market, the gogos (grandmothers) who create beautiful things to support their orphaned grandchildren, to the orphaned families eking out a living on tiny rural properties, to the sugar cane and pineapple farms. We became true journeyers.

From our beautiful guest house we travelled to meet the next wise man - the land and the animals. Here we stayed in various private dwellings in a game park where the only predators were crocodiles. The intense workshops continued. Here we met giraffes, zebras, inala and impala up close. The land was dry and still. We became aware of being immersed in the land that gave birth to humanity.

Land, workshops and animals - we were gradually waking up from the deep sleep of unknowing. It was time to slay the dragon and find the treasure. For me, the introverted thinker that I am, often lost in the wilds of my own thinking, in this case about the geography and history of southern Africa, I wondered what would happen to me if I could just let go and just BE, if I could discover the treasures of my own heart.

Our last venue was a beautiful resort “Idube” in the Sabe Sands which adjoins the KrugerNational Park. Here we were in the presence of the “big five”– the predators. The workshops continued but to a lesser extent.Here we would slay the dragon by sitting in the game vehicles seven to eight hours a day. In the game vehicles we got very close, within a couple of metres, to lions, leopards, hippos, painted dogs,  hyenas, elephants, rhinoceros and herds of buffalo. They were all our Wise Men forcing us to be still, to confront their power, their energy and their utter presence. The leopard with her kill, feeding her baby is absolutely connected to her task. The lion waiting on the top of an ant hill is just as powerfully present, waiting for the emergence of the wildebeest, his next meal.

In the Sabe Sands, did I slay my dragon? Did I go inside to the deep powerful place, be in my heart and know the Unlimited One - the God of my soul? Given that the hero’s journey is cyclic, I can say that I did - for now. As we became more and more still in the game viewing trucks, got more connected to the animals and reflected in the workshops, I descended further and further into my soul. I was able to identify with my Christianity and know myself as the Christos called to ground compassionate love in the world, to connect with the God within. This is the treasure I can bring to the world. There is a new knowing, a new power, and a new path into my Inner Space. I have slain the dragon for now.

At the ending of the Soul Safari, a new me emerged from the cave of the dragon. As we left the Sabe Sands, I knew I would never be the same again. The soul work had been done, the cycle would begin again, and the Soul Safari had achieved its purpose. I would bring my treasure to the world anew.

Janet Hughes is a long-standing ICA Australia colleague.