The Journey Within – Ian Player

Voltaire once remarked that he loved the man who sought the truth, but hated the man who claimed to  have found it. I am now at seventy, and  on the last lap  of life. My search  for the truth  has been a lifetime exploration, both internally and externally. I make no claim to have found it, but there have been insights.  When I travelled to the 8th World Wilderness Congress in Alaska in September 2005, my flight from South Africa took me over the Drakensberg Mountains: Ukuhlamba of the Zulu people. I looked down and pondered, saw the red grass glowing luminously in the afternoon sun.

 

These mountains were the last refuge of the San  or Bushmen  people, who  painted their exquisite art on cave walls and recorded the history of our country, the coming of the Nguni people, the Boers on their horses, English soldiers and the vast array of wild  animals. By  1870  there were no  San  people left. They  were shot and  killed without mercy and with them went vast tomes of wisdom and knowledge.

 

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