How did YOU start the Path?

[Twig]

The Gods call people in different ways. Or, do we call them!??

A person asked me recently how I decided to walk the Druidic Path. HA! You shold have seen his face when I told him! So that got me to thinking and I was wondering, how you got your start? Did you make a concious (sp) decision or what?

I'll post mine when I more time. ;)

Peace,
Twig
:elf:

[mol]

Nothing ever felt right. Every 'path' or religion that I took part in left me feeling empty. So, one day I just decided to stop trying to follow other Paths and just started cutting my own.

[clef0628]

I started down my path on my own. I didn't read up on anything, I just followed my heart. Though, I did feel a calling from Mother Nature. At the time I was depressed. I needed something to believe, something to help me think things would get better. I turned to the Christian beliefies of my parents and found nothing. One day when I was walking in the woods, I was just feeling the wind blowing though my hair, listing to the water run down the river, watching the trees move in the wind, and it just hit me. It seems that it was all alive. It was at that time I knew in my heart I had a deeep love of Mother Nature so, I decide to worship her. And my heart now feels full. I worship Her on my own for all most three years, in my own way before I read my frist book on paganism. I still seem to find my own path these days. Guide by Mother Nature and my Snake Spirit Guide.

[MistOfTheSea86]

I wish I could answer this question, Things keep on changing for me:( The only thing I am positively sure of is that the Universe calls to me. The energies, the nature, the wonderful warmth:) But I just dont know what to call it! Everything on earth just seems to have SO MANY limitations. Like you can't do this without this, you can't do that without that. I just want something that doesn't have so much damn baggage. I just want to be able to fly free with the universe and shoot out whereever I want to. No good, no evil. Just contentment, just Fantasy. Where impossibility doesn't exist... Where the laws of physics dont stop me... *le sigh* Okay I am finished:)

[WynnJera]

Early 1991 I was a Roman Catholic as I was born and baptized by my family ~ I was in High school and in a VERY ABUSIVE relationship since Jr High ~ Anyho Grad was on it's way and I prepared like all girls do ~ Grad night I made the mistake ( so I thought then ~ now upon reflect on was not ) of opening my mouth and asking HIM not to drink too much and smoke up with his friends as that is when the beating got really bad ~ I wanted to try and enjoy Grad w/o being scared ~ HE blew a friggin' fit ~ until this point I only got hit in the stomach / back of the head and the back places no one would ever really see ~ but on this night HE went for broke ~ He beat me to a bloody pulp and left me on my apt living room floor ( I was living on my own since 16 ) knocked me out cold ~ 8 hrs later I am awoken by the sound of my phone ringing ~ I pick it up and it is one of HIS friends telling me to sit down that he has some bad news ~ He while being an utter Asshole while drinking and driving killed himself and 4 of my friends ~ at 1st I thought it a ploy of HIS to get back at me for speaking up for myself and I hung up the phone ~ only mins later to have HIS mother call me and share the news ~ As day broke I drove to my scared place ~ a little wooded glen near my apt ~ I had always felt 100% at home within her embrace ~ when I was very little always going camping and such ~ I ran and ran within this wooded glen until I couldn't run anymore and I sat down and began to cry my heart out ~ Yelling and screaming ~ While I did this the world still went on without HIM in it ~ then a bird ( small and brown ~ a sparrow I think ) landed on my knee ~ I tried to shew it away and it just sat there ~ So I figured what the hey ~ I talk to my stuffed animals at home ~ So why can I not talk to a bird ~ I sat there and poured out everything to it ~ and it in turn chirped as if to say " go on I am listening " I told it everything ~ I held nothing back I let it all go in that very moment ~ after I was done so to speak I thought to myself " what now " ~ where do I go ~ what do I do ~ Who am I without HIM ~ and then it hit me ~ I AM ALIVE ~ if I had not asked him to behave so to speak he would have not beat me before leaving and I would have been sitting in the front seat right next to him and be dead too ~ HIS God in His Families Eyes took away HIS life and The Goddess gave me in turn a right of passage thru that bird to my life I live now and have done so since that day in my forest glen ~ I still go there ~ I still sit and visit and talk and I am very thankful I was shown the way ................

BB ~ WynnJera ~

[Mita]

i was born a baptist-not strictly though... just a religous classification

although i always found my self close to nature... expescially as a small child

as i got older i learned that there were other religions in the world that suited me

i also have found the strange corespondances about myself might have a reason

- strange connection to plants and animals
- conception- on Samhain Oct 31 '82-- birth on Litha or midsummer June 21 '83
- very old soul
- unique abilities for music and the arts
- strange dreams conected to upcomming events

family heritage British, Scoch, Irish, Gypsy, American Indian

[Myst]

I was bored. I was raised without religion, had been Christian for a few years, and had always been interested in learning about theology and philosophy, the occult, etc. I was browsing Yahoo! one day, found the Wicca & Witchcraft section, and voila! It seemed to make sense, I started studying Paganism, and here I am about 5 years later.

[Twig]

How did you slip in here without me seeing it??? I must be gettin' slow in my old age! ;)

Peace,
Twig
:elf:

[LadyWinter]

I know this is an older thread but hey its late and I am bored lol. I got into Irish Druidry because I was researching my family tree at the same time my husband was discovering Wicca. I was raised Methodist but never seemed to connect with Jesus or God. Consequently I went searching for some kind of inner peace. Well after hearing about Wicca I knew it wasnt for me so I started researching the other ones and hit upon Druidry almost immediately. It contained my ideals, gave me the sense of peace I was craving and made my life and me a much more spiritual person. So take your choice...I found it or it found me.

Slan Astar,
LadyWinter

[Alua]

My entering of the druidic path was emotionally intense for me. I happened during a dream that advanced itself over 3 nights ending in a waking dream state, the dream was a house i had never been to, with people i knew and not known, a person was persuing me more of a stalking up on me in the dream, winding staircases that wove in corcles towards a bedroom where i laid on the bed face down with a pillow over my head, only to wake upon feeling 7 daggers being placed into my back. after being awake for nearly half an hour i could still feel like what could be explained as a rush of blood flowing away from me from those seven points where the daggers had entered me in my dream still. When the feeling of all the blood leaving me had passed it was like a door had opened to my subconscious and the knowing reality of the path that was chosen for me to follow which was the fundamentals of druidry. Unknowingly until 5 years later did i find while talking with my father when expecting to get a lecture concerning my path of druidry did i get a response that was shocking in a sense. the words he used were: "...well its about time you got down to your roots...", found most of my family on my fathers side have been french druids for generations and unknowingly we all live by the family motto: For Three.

[widukind]

I was raised a catholic, but somehow it all seemed... distant to me. I felt it couldn't be right to base your beliefs on a book that's:

a) two thousand years old
b) been written by so many people and somehow still is thought to be the word of God
c) been edited numerous times (the chapter of genesis, etc.)
d) been translated three times before it ever came out in my language (greek => latin => german => dutch)

I went to all the cathechism classes and somehow this Jesus person seemed to be nothing special - I in fact considered him to be an avant garde hippy (although that might seem harsh, it is how I felt back then). I rarely went to church as it was, and I didn't feel one God could be what he was made out to be - male, the creator of all, the ultimate judge and caring about humans above all other creatures.
I thought about it a lot when I was thirteen, and came to the conclusion there was no God - or so I thought.
When I was fourteen, around April, I went to camp in Spain, in a remote tourist village between sea on one side, mountains on the other, and forest on top of those mountains.
I shared a bungalow with four other people, who were all older than me - the youngest was eighteen. One day, when we didn't have much to do, we sat down, lit some incense and started meditating. One of those guys, Tom, told the rest of us to close our eyes and 'go beyond' the darkness we saw.
I began seeing something. It was vague at first, but then I saw it clearly - stone henges in the middle of a forest clearing. What's more, I din't only see what I saw, I heard it too: the sound of birds singing, the wind blowing through the trees, etc. It remained still for a while, and then the view shifted. It started moving right, to where a green vortex had just appeared. I felt it vibrate with life's energy, colours of green and white, twisting and turning. My view shifted and went through the vortex. In an instant I was at the other side, feeling refreshed.
I saw a big square in front of me, inlaid with beatiful mosaic, and to the left there were mountains.
In the middle of the square was a three layered fountain made of shiny metal, and the highest layer there was a flower bud, made of the same metal, and from its top sprung the fountain's water. The metal flower started to bloom, unfolding its petals gradually, to reveal a thin row of sharp teeth on the petals' edges, and the flower bud resembled a shark maw.

I then 'woke up' and rose to my feet and told the others what I'd seen. They thought I was spazzing out or something, but I assured them I was serious and they then told me to find out what the images meant to me. I did, and over the last few years I discovered a lot of different meanings in them, and they got me on my path towards Druidry.

[bansidhe]

i was born and grew up in northern ireland and was baptised a presbyterian by my grandma, who i lived with pretty much from birth til i came to australia about 4 yrs ago. i was a strong xtian until the age of about 10 when i got tired of my questions not being answered. so, i got a heap of books and started exploring. up until then, i didnt even have any idea of the old legends, even tho i lived in ireland, because my grandma saw it as being too "catholic" for me to learn about. but i got my hands on those eventually, and after looking thru heaps of other religions, it sorta clicked internally, and now im stuck with it! ;)

[Twig]

There IS no such thing as an "old thread" round these spaces. ;)

Peace,
Twig
:elf: