How did you get here today

How did you get here today, that is a question I as all new members.

But how did I get here, well it depends on where here is.

Here is right now, nothing more, nothing less.

The things that happened to bring me to this point in my life, were made by all my choices over the years, some good and some bad, but they all put me on a path, a bit like a motor way with a 100 lanes, each time you change lanes, puts you on a different path.

You may have done things you regret and other things you never did, but wish you had or hadn't.

Don't regret any of it, you made your choose and that cant be changed. it has made you what you are today.

I started off on my journey a long time ago, we lived in the country, on the edge of a  small town in Hampshire.

My parents were Christian by name only and never made me go to church or Sunday school.

 we lived in a cottage up an unmade road, if you walked down the  road, on the other side was a wood that went on for miles, there were oak trees, streams running thought the wood.

In the spring there were bluebells primroses and all kinds of wild flowers.

The wood was filled with rabbits and other wild animals along with all the wild birds.

I can still smell and hear the water running in the streams and often walk thought the woods.

but that was a long time ago, over 60 years and all gone now.

the trees were cut down to make way for roads and houses.

it only excises in my memorise now, but I can still walk there often.

My granddad would take me out in the woods from an early age, showed me all the trees and their names, the birds and animals that lived there.

he had his own ideas, one was never take more than you need and always leave something for others.

All of this set me on a path and I used all the thing he had tort me as I went.

I use to and still do, pick up stones and pieces of wood as I walk about.

A stone or stick has all the memories of the place it came from and its all free.

As a teenager I tried to live by all of this, being in a wood was far better than being in a building to me.

When I was 18, I joined the local Judo club and then when I was 21, I joined the Karate club.

This was more for the discipline, than for my own protection, but both were worthwhile.    

I got married to a person with the same ideas as I had, she liked all the wild animals and trees, but unlike me never saw the connection between them all.

I use to see the energy flowing and connecting everything.

Threes use to shout out to me, not in a verbal, but as a kind of thought in my mind, in my head a voice would shout out

"hey look at me I am over here" often it would be an oak tree  doing it.

then one day I read an article on Buddhism, it kind of related to what i believed in.

So I joined the local Buddhist group, got in to some deep serous meditations.

Over two years the meditation got deeper and deeper.

we were all looking for enlightenment, the answer to all things, but it was hard and never came.

Then one day at work, I use to meditate while I worked, it happened, it was like everything suddenly went out through the top of my head, as if a great weight had been lifted.

Up to then I was only seeing thing in black and white, suddenly everything was in colour.

Like driving with a very dirty windscreen and suddenly it was crystal clear.

At this point I was beginning to look for more, Buddhist don't believe in a God or Goddesses, they think they are made up my us all, to give us something to believe in.

Buddhist did have some of the ideas I had, they believed in the animals and the trees and things, so everything was sacred to them.

but they were all vegetarians and I wasn't.

I do Honour all the animals i eat and see them as a living being.

I have walked the path of the Witch and have their degrees.

Drudgery kind of crept up on me without me knowing.

Maybe I had been a Druid all my life and just didn't know it.

I still get my energy from a mixed lot of things, from the paths I have walked all my life.

I say I am a druid because people seem to understand Druids.

As one person told me, we respect Druids, but have  a clue what they do.

I did run a small group called Crow Feather some years back and that kind of turned in to the Dorsetgrove.

 We had about seven people meet up on the Ridge Way at the first meeting and it all grew from there.

I never wanted to be the Arch Druid, but was told by the members, you started this grove, so its only fit you are Arch Druid.

Where did Wildfox come from, I am attracted to foxes or more like the other way around.

Cunning like the fox was one idea said to me.

so there you have it, this is how I got here today talking to all of you.

May you all walk peacefully on your own chosen paths

Wildfox.