EXPERIENCED INTUITIVE TRACKERS
OVERVIEW
As an experienced tracker, you are well positioned to bring intuitive tracking into your repertoire and expand what you can do.
You can easily engage technical tracking skills to verify intuitive impressions you get.
The rhythm and mood of an animal that you read in tracks, through its gait, speed and soil movement, can lead directly to an intuitive connection with the animal.
The heightened awareness and openness you must use to read great subtlety in tracks - for example faint compressions - already puts you at the very threshold of the intuitive.
If your training and field work have primarily emphasized track and sign identification, then it will help to begin visualizing animals’ movement through the tracks, rather than merely assign a name to a track pattern. This enables you to picture and feel the particular personality of the animal you’re tracking, thus allowing an intuitive reading (see the link to Gait & Track Interpretation below). Also it helps to practice marking every track on a trail, especially in challenging terrain, to engage your awareness of subtlety.
“I would tell technical trackers that intuitive tracking would enrich their tracking practice because it would allow them to track the animal farther over more difficult terrain and also to develop a more heart-felt relationship to the animal, so that the animal is not so much a problem to figure out but a companion or a teacher. It makes the entire tracking experience so much richer.”
~ Kelly
RESOURCES for enriching your Tracking Skills
WALK WITH THE ANIMAL. A TRACKING METHODOLOGY ~ by Jim Lowery
Any tracker encountering a fresh trail is tantalized by the prospect of following it to enter the animal's world. How can this be done? How is it possible to follow a trail across difficult terrain? To keep on the trail of even a mouse? To follow a trail that is weeks old?
Veteran tracking instructor Jim Lowery spent two and a half years perfecting practical and intuitive methods for trailing animals. He tracked humans, bears, deer, kit foxes, kangaroo rats and cottontails, among many other species; some trails were minutes old and some more than a month. He discovered that the secrets of such tracking reside in one's initial contact with the trail, as well as in one's mental attitude. Techniques to "walk with the animal" rather than just look for tracks are discussed and then illuminated through 30 case examples.
Intuitive tracking is discussed and illustrated at length, a subject touched on by few contemporary tracking references. Stunning illustrations by Maura Jess are included in the book.
HOW TO WALK WITH THE ANIMAL ~ by Jim Lowery with Mary Brooks
From working with thousands of tracking students, we know that each tracker brings unique perspectives and approaches to the art, so we spent five years honing the trailing methods described above in walk-with-the-animal workshops, watching, listening and experimenting as we established their accessibility and value for any tracker. This volume presents more detail about how to learn to “walk with the animal”, from students’ perspectives accompanied by many stories.
MAMMAL TRACKING WORKBOOK II: Gaits & Track Interpretation ~ by Jim Lowery
The full richness of a trail emerges when you can visualize precisely the speed, gait, posture and body language of your animal from its tracks. With the right approach, any dedicated tracker can do this, and Jim Lowery designed this workbook to show you how and provide a lot of practice with examples, assignments and high-resolution photos to interpret. This is a truly unique resource in today's expanding world of track study.
To learn more and purchase these guides CLICK HERE (coming soon)
STORIES from Experienced Intuitive Trackers
Finding the Pronghorn Trail
“I was at work in the Carrizo Plain area checking water sources. As I walked down a dirt road, behind a locked gate, I observed pronghorn antelope tracks. Normally, I do not see pronghorn in this particular area. The road was dusty and the tracks were textbook.
I asked the pronghorn for permission to follow his tracks and felt nothing but welcome. As I followed the tracks, I found myself bending down lower and lower to the ground as if to see them better. This made no sense to me as the tracks were so perfect and easy to read. Going along with the obvious draw downward, I knelt beside a set of tracks. I cupped my hand over a track but still felt the draw so I gradually lowered my hand into a flat position, touching the earth that held the track. It was very warm! This made no sense to me either as the air temperature was quite cool, almost cold. The pronghorn track was made over truck tracks made from a co-worker. I knew he had been there 2 days before. I also knew it was his truck as I have studied the tire tracks left by the few people that have keys to access this remote area by vehicle. I quickly pressed my hand against the soil in the track of the truck. It was very cold! Once again, this made no sense to me as the tracks were on the same dirt road on top of each other. I found myself touching the pronghorn track, then the tire track, back and forth, back and forth, warm then cold, 4 times in disbelief.
I quickly emptied my logical mind and continued to follow the pronghorn track into an area where I quickly lost track of him. Although his hooves were sharp, the ground was rock hard. I could not find any more tracks. At this point, I sat down, closed my eyes, and asked the question, "What do you want to tell me? I will listen." I sat and I sat and sat, eyes closed, mind empty. Through my closed eyes, I saw a shadow pass. I quickly opened my eyes, stood up, looked both right then left, then without hesitation walked over a rolling hill and there, at my feet near a badger den, were his tracks. I did not go any farther as I knew this was where I was to stop. I thanked him for what he had taught me that day then made the long walk back to my truck.”
~ Alice
Walking with the Opossum
“I went in to my tracking area with a total sense of openness, tracking an animal whose identity was confirmed, so that rather than worrying about being right, I could just spend time studying the animal itself. I returned to some of the same intuitive techniques I had practiced earlier in the summer, including getting a sense of color, and a pull from the animal. I was able to really see the landscape through the eyes of an opossum, and to feel a deep sense of connection to the animal and land, as well as a sense of creativity and freedom with tracking. I felt comfortable with where I left my opossum and her offspring - we had overcome a wall together, and left things without physical verification, but a bond and deep understanding of what their story had continued to be. I felt a renewed sense of the importance of developing and using my intuition when tracking.”
~ Ellie
Walking as a Deer
“I bypassed rich bear, deer, fox, bobcat, and other tracks in an unsuccessful effort to find mountain lion tracks. Seeing particularly interesting deer tracks - meaning there was a lot of expression/action in them - I said "Okay, I’ll think like a mountain lion and follow these tracks." I realized we were definitely on our way someplace so I said something like "I hope you don’t mind if I walk with you" noting that I was not, in fact, a mountain lion. I got something close to "Do what you want, I’ve got some place to go" so I took off with my new friend, the deer.
The tracks were not particularly difficult to follow, it was moving on a well-used trail and were, without a doubt, the freshest tracks there. I had fun going with the deer up a couple of hillsides, back down and up again, not really losing the trail at any point, but always having a confirmed track nearby. We then hit the top of a hill. I wondered, why come here, nothing to eat. We were now off any worn trail but I did discover a very comforting day bed nearby under a tree. I continued on the trail and then found that my clear deer tracks continued right through a heavily layered set of pine needles, pine cones and other debris and I could not see a single track or indication of any movement after my last confirmed track right before the heavy area of debris. So I asked "Where did you go?" and got a clear straight ahead, around the rock and onward. I must have worked on this for a good 30-45 minutes, not finding a single track anywhere to confirm any possible avenue through this area. I said as strongly as I could that I was not leaving until I confirmed the next track. I checked what appeared to be the only three avenues through this area numerous times, circled around, crawled through the debris, everything I could think of to no avail. I took a deep deep breath and walked to where I thought the deer told me it went and continued to the clearest soil I could find. And there was its track! I tracked it backwards where it seemed to go up over a rock and back through the debris. I said "Okay, you do have some place to go" and off we went.
From that point on, I have no words to describe what was going on, but I was walking as if I were the deer. Something happened after I recognized the deer’s intent and we became one. I didn’t track the deer from here, I just walked as the deer. Every once in a while I looked down and there were its tracks. I never thought about it, I moved as naturally as possible through the landscape going where I was to go, up and over another hillside and back onto a well-worn trail. It would be challenging for me to recall a time I felt either more relaxed in nature or more a part of it. It was my home. And I had someplace I was going.”
~ Mary
SUGGESTIONS from Fellow Trackers
Begin With The Technical
“If you’re really into the practical and the technical pieces just do it all, do all of that, and get all the answers, look at the pressure releases, do all the measurements, look at the gait and that’s a great way to connect with the trail. And then go to that next step of saying, "OK, can I walk with you longer?" and "Who are you?" and "What’s your feeling and energy?" You can move to the intuitive level by first connecting with practical methods.”
~ Matt
Touch The Track
“My favorite method is actually touching the track. I silence and clear my mind so as not to have any image or expectation in my head as I have my hand over the track, and then I touch the track. Even the analytical side of me likes that because it’s like shaking that animal’s hand. The last thing to touch the earth right there was that animal and it’s like I’m greeting it, I’m shaking its hand and then to feel the individual digits and grooves in the paw. That’s the first connection for me.”
~ Lori
Be Grateful
“The gratitude prayer really helped me get calm and centered. I spent time observing and drawing the tracks. I also spent time with my hand over them. Eventually I came to feel a magnetic pull between the tracks and my hands to my center. I then found some tracks I hadn’t seen originally… this was a beautiful and rewarding opportunity to trust my intuition and I was filled with gratitude.”
~ Ellie
Invest The Time
“If I could say anything to people who were skeptical of intuitive tracking I would just say it works. I know this to be true. It is another tool to put in your tool box. Once you learn to use it, a whole new dimension of tracking will be available to you. It is a process and takes time to learn but well worth the investment of one's time and energy.”
~ Alice
Remove Expectation
“Closing your eyes is really helpful. I have a lot of experience with intuitive work and I can get very visually very distracted. It might be really hard for someone who’s not comfortable with intuitive stuff. Just take your first impression, before your mind starts to play with it too much.”
~ Hannah
Go Through Your Checklist
“Almost always my first look at a track is an intuitive one. And then from there my comfort is in more of a technical analysis and so I’ll go through my mental checklist if necessary. For me the mental preface of some of the more technical details helps me focus on the tracks and notice things I might not have noticed. It’s a way to commit to the track and there can come a moment when I step away and wonder if there’s an intuitive feeling, and then go back and forth between them.”
~ Ellie
Pay Attention To What You Know
“You won’t have a problem melding the practical and intuitive if you pay attention to what you know and how you know it. You can be scientifically rigorous and intuitively connected in the same tracking session; I do this all the time.”
~ Jim