There are 24 known species of scorpions and over 40 known species of frogs in Botswana. You will find them with UV light at night - they glow green.

The giant African bullfrog - a favorite “pet”when I was a child. They would eat the gold fish or at least get a big bite our a tail - but as long as they croaked at night in the pond outside my bedroom window, I knew there were no terrrorists around. The bush veld gets quiet when people come to close. My symbol of safety!

Mkadi Mkadi

Once a great and perennial inland lake, the ancient Mkadi Mkadi pans of central Botswana are now seasonal reservoirs of water. They are home to countless species of birds. The pans themselves are vast shallow crucibles of salt rich Kalahari sand extending further than the eye can see. In the driest times of the year, the midday glare from the white sun-baked clay is blinding and the ‘lake’ and ‘trees’ are a distant mirage. It is the quietest place I have ever been to.

Here

in this sacred house of silence

I can lose myself -

the sky is as endless

as it is containing

and here the water teases land

Here

in the nearness of where I stand

there is always a distance -

a space,

an in-between

and here I am alone,

but I belong.

Here

in this great crucible of dreams

the scattered feathers

and the dried out prints of hoof and pad

stand as sacred signatures …

an ancient contract.

Here

in this vast and visible in-between

is the birth place of fire

urging flight into footprints

and wings out of scales.

Here silence becomes free.

~Ian McCallum

Chapter 24 - Seeing deeply

Here are two stories of how we fail to see reality because it is so deeply obscured by emotional memory. As you encounter the wild’s of Africa, new people and cultures, and are part of a group of people that do not know each other well, I encourage you to live in the “I wonder”, instead of the “I know,” because my feelings tell me so. We have to learn when our feelings reflect the current situation and when the current situation is being obscured by the emotional memory of childhood.

When I first came to Minnesota, I was driving over the Minnesota bridge - and as I always do, I was scanning for wildlife. This is second nature to me and what I learned at a very young age in the African bushveld. It was essential to be safe near water and I went on lots of fishing trips with my father. I learned to be very vigil ant of danger.

As I scanned the water, I saw what looked like a large Nile crocodile. Of course, in my intellect I knew this was not possible, but my immediate emotional response to the stimulus, interpreted it as DANGER. There was a startle response of momentary fear/excitement and then a cognitive interpretation. 

 It looked like a crocodile, it was the same color, texture, size, and shape as a crocodile - and yet, it was just a rotting log on the edge of the water. Consider the size of my emotional reaction in relationship to a piece of rotting wood. Consider how this emotional response could have resulted in an accident right there on the bridge, far away from the actual "crocodile," both imagined and real. Consider how my life could have changed in a second due to an emotional response to a stimulus that evoked a past emotional response in me. I could have died and caused others to die in an accident because of a memory in my cells.

 What my emotional response could not register quickly enough is the facts - I live in Minnesota, and there are no Nile crocodiles in Minnesota. However, the emotional response was so convincing that my brain started working at a solution to make the emotion fit the perception. Perhaps it was an exotic species released by some crazy person who had a crocodile. I had to mull over the facts and probabilities before I could stop my brain from obsessing about how a crocodile happened to be in the Minnesota river and to see that my perception and emotion were just memories superimposed on the present moment.

 This happens every time we "take something personally. “We are superimposing an emotional memory onto the present moment. Sometimes it is correct. I have mistaken a crocodile for a log of wood when I have been in Africa! This is indeed dangerous and could have been a very personal experience! However, the emotional responses, perceptions, interpretations, and resources of a child are very different to the adult we now are, and so by imposing memory on the present moment we are merged with a young state that precludes the possibility of using our current knowledge and capacity to cope with the present which is not as terrifying as it would have been to a vulnerable child. Without recognition and relationship to memory states, we are endangering the present moment emotionally and physically.

Responding emotionally to a stimulus without finding out the reality of the current situation, is to live in an altered state of reality – not the reality of the present moment. We respond emotionally to "a crocodile," before we even find out if it is one, or if it is hungry and dangerous, and we think it is personal, when in fact crocodiles are indiscriminate and eat anyone in their path when they are hungry. If we do not see reality, do not respond to reality, do not see through the depths of our own misperceptions and emotional memories, with destructive results in our relationships.

Sometimes, we over-react because of memory, and sometimes we under-react because of memory. Read this short fable:

One day, a scorpion looked around at the mountain where he lived and decided that he wanted a change. So, he set out on a journey through the forests and hills. He climbed over rocks and under vines and kept going until he reached a river.

The river was wide and swift, and the scorpion stopped to reconsider the situation. He couldn't see any way across. So, he ran upriver and then checked downriver, all the while thinking that he might have to turn back.

Suddenly, he saw a frog sitting in the rushes by the bank of the stream on the other side of the river. He decided to ask the frog for help getting across the stream.

"Hello Mr. Frog!" called the scorpion across the water, "Would you be so kind as to give me a ride on your back across the river?"

"Well now, Mr. Scorpion! How do I know that if I try to help you, you won’t try to kill me?" asked the frog hesitantly.

"Because" the scorpion replied, "If I try to kill you, then I would die too, for you see I cannot swim!"

Now this seemed to make sense to the frog. But he asked. "What about when I get close to the bank? You could still try to kill me and get back to the shore!"

"This is true," agreed the scorpion, "But then I wouldn't be able to get to the other side of the river!"

"Alright then...how do I know you won’t just wait till we get to the other side and THEN kill me?" said the frog.

"Ahh...," crooned the scorpion, "Because you see, once you've taken me to the other side of this river, I will be so grateful for your help, that it would hardly be fair to reward you with death, now, would it?!"

So, the frog agreed to take the scorpion across the river. He swam over to the bank and settled himself near the mud to pick up his passenger. The scorpion crawled onto the frog's back, his sharp claws prickling into the frog's soft hide, and the frog slid into the river. The muddy water swirled around them, but the frog stayed near the surface so the scorpion would not drown. He kicked strongly through the first half of the stream, his flippers paddling wildly against the current.

Halfway across the river, the frog suddenly felt a sharp sting in his back and, out of the corner of his eye, saw the scorpion remove his stinger from the frog's back. A deadening numbness began to creep into his limbs. 

"You fool!" croaked the frog, "Now we shall both die! Why on earth did you do that?"

The scorpion shrugged and did a little jig on the drownings frog's back. 

"I could not help myself. It is my nature."

Then they both sank into the muddy waters of the swiftly flowing river.

Self-destruction - "It's my Nature", said the Scorpion...

Take this little fable in and see how often you have ignored and denied your common sense, your intuition, your reason, and gone with the opinion, needs and feelings of someone else, who has then exploited you, used you, and stung you. How often have you been the frog? How often have you been the scorpion. Both live within you. But once you can see what is within you can hold it all in love and wisdom and self-discipline. Discipline to not sting others, discipline to not allow others to sting you because they are not yet awake to who they really are.