BEGINNING INTUITIVE TRACKERS
OVERVIEW
The enthusiasm and humility you bring to tracking as a relative novice can be a real asset to “walking with the animal."
While it’s important to learn and apply practical tracking, you can begin integrating that with the intuitive from day one, learning how they can fit together dynamically. We have found that approaching a trail with freshness, unburdened by the sense of “already knowing,” will actually engage intuitive impressions that are quite accurate.
So, there is every reason to try intuitive tracking, as long as you begin with some very good, visible tracks, and perhaps seek the help of a teacher or mentor.
“I just think intuitive tracking is intriguing. That is part of tracking. I don’t think you can seriously track without some aspect of that.”
~ Marge
“Intuitive tracking…has totally changed my way of tracking and I look at tracks differently now. They are alive. My tracking went from black and white to very vivid colors.”
~ Alice
RESOURCES to help you get started
HOW TO LEARN TRACKING ~ by Jim Lowery
This 7-page monograph by Jim Lowery offers methods, examples and resources for learning track identification, track and sign interpretation, and trailing.
Free PDF Download - CLICK HERE (coming soon)
THE TRACKER'S FIELD GUIDE ~ by James C. Lowery
This essential guide book is designed for field use. It contains thorough notes and technique about track identification, and also takes you into the animal's world with extensive illustrations showing how tracks reveal speed, motion and behavior. There are comprehensive "notes for the tracker" and "track windows" for each species, based on the author's field experience and distillation of nearly a thousand primary sources. This guide book will help you relate the tracks you find to animals' biology, behavior and habitat.
To learn more and purchase the book CLICK HERE (coming soon)
STORIES from Beginning Intuitive Trackers
Seeing the Coyote
“I was in Crystal Cove State Park by Laguna Beach, doing some homework for the class. It was real early in the morning and there were not a lot of people around. And I SAW the coyote I was tracking. I mean I didn’t physically see it but in my mind I was able to see it vividly. It was standing in the road and the Santa Ana wind was blowing and hair on its back was standing on end because the wind was coming from behind. It was a brief flash but I was convinced that this was the animal I was following.”
~ Sue
Pull to a Mountain Lion
“There is a mountain lion who goes through periodically by the area where I often go into this valley. About 15 yards beyond, I found mountain lion tracks and spent time with the trail one day. I got down and was trying to connect and started moving with it and asked the question, "Where did you go?" and boom! My head looked right up across the highway and up onto a hillside. That was a real strong connection with the mountain lion.”
~ Gary
Asking the Bobcat
“I am not a skilled tracker, so when I heard about intuitive tracking I was intrigued and came to a workshop. On the first day I’d been discouraged with my tracking skills but then got rid of some distractions, and the next day had a good coyote tracking experience while blindfolded. Later that day I was doing an assignment from Jim to connect with a bobcat trail. These bobcat tracks were pretty fresh. I’d never gotten extensively into technical track interpretation before, but looking at the tracks and their spacing I got a sense of its mood: slowly winding up the trail, looking around. So, as long as I could see the physical track on the ground I followed it, until – until it seemed to disappear. Well, because I was following the tracks trying to move like the bobcat, I just kept moving in the curving direction it had been going. That was an assumption. After following the unseen about 15 feet, I stopped. Now, needing help, I somehow had the thought, “Where did you go, bobcat?” Immediately I ‘heard’ back, “I crossed over.” What?! So I walked back to where I had lost the track, and looking more closely the tracks curved to the right and crossed the path! I called Jim over, and he confirmed the tracks were the particular bobcat in question. It took a moment of desperation and surrender to truly ask the animal for help. And get it.”
~ Cheja
SUGGESTIONS to Improve Your Skills
A Routine Of Introduction
“Begin by taking some time to walk fluidly in the natural area you're in, wandering a little as it were, meanwhile shedding the busy mind and distractions by simply pushing them away as they present themselves. As you notice noise or activity, freeway sound, noisy hikers, etc., just push that into the background and maintain your attention to the subtlety around you. Introduce yourself to this place with a thankful heart and be open to what the place will teach.”
~ Jim
Be Playful
“Play, trust the gut. We come from a far too rational and empirical a culture to track entirely intuitively and not feel like you’re insane. The backup of logic is grounding and reassuring.”
~ Kelly
Do Your Practical Tracking Work
“You have to do the work. There may be people who have a special talent who can just step into the intuitive but I think these are few and far between. People like me have to do the work. I have to understand the animal, and know who the animal is and what it's about. And I think the indigenous cultures who use intuitive tracking, they lived with these animals, they depended on them for life. So when they were tracking in spirit, if you will, they were connected to that animal, they knew that animal. Most of us have to earn it.”
~ Gary
Make The Switch
“My job is very left brained, thinking and analytical work, so when I go tracking I have to find ways to make that shift to the intuitive. Actually, I use my sense of smell. I ask what did it smell like when the animal went through? It gets me out of my typical way of thinking, because with smell I can’t put a shape or number on it, it’s hard to define, it just is what it is. It helps me get into that frame of mind.”
~ Lori