By Clinton Martin (Wolf in the Shadow).
A very close friend asked me the other day why I considered myself a Druid, and
how it all started. I had to think about it, and this, dear reader, is how I first started on a path
called Druidry.
My first introduction to Druidry was as a child. My family and I were driving down
from London to Cornwall for our summer holiday. As we passed Stonehenge I was spying at it out of
the window of the camper. I asked my Father my favourite question, “What’s it
for?”
Dad replied, “I don’t know, no one really knows.”
“Who built it?”
“It was built by the Druids.”
“Who are they?”
“That’s Merlin’s lot, he was a Druid”
“What like King Arthur?”
“Yep like King Arthur.”
So there I was in the back of my Dad’s old camper van, face pressed against the glass, and my
Dad’s words echoing inside my head. I was about 7 summers old and I knew what I was going to be
when I grew up.
I was going to be a Druid like Merlin.
So the years roll on and, unlike many things that get left by the wayside, my
interest in Druidry never wavered. I took to finding all I could about the path. At first my only
contact would be in early summer when I would wait for the TV & radio news to broadcast on the
protest at the Henge at midsummer; it was the only way I felt I could get close to “my
people,” and believe it or not those news bulletins helped, but on the flip side I used to get
incensed by them. There I was, this little boy not even in long trousers, getting angry at the TV
because the Government felt a need to control everything from the miners to the hippies and, if you
didn’t like it, that was tough. Maggie was in charge and she did not take well to discourse
at all.
At about 14 I found God. He, his son and their ghost lived at my secondary school,
along with their “mate” Father Richard. And between the four of them they had me
convinced that I could put on the dog collar and become God’s mate too.
God himself was in my head and, so I was told, everybody else’s. His aim,
it appeared at the time, was to make me feel guilty for pretty much everything, and, as if to prove
his point, his son, who never had done anything wrong, was nailed up by his hands and feet in the
main hall. And, to top it off, it was MY sin that had put him there.
For a time I truly did believe, or rather I felt I had to believe, to fit in at
school (I came from an atheist family) and the only thing near me in a spiritual sense was the Roman
Chaotic Church. Whenever I tried to discuss my calling for Druidry I was put down or, worse,
dismissed. But for some inexplicable reason I never gave in, nor did I go through with the
“Holy communion.” Somehow the thought of eating Jesus’ flesh and drinking his
blood always made me feel ill. But in the end it did not matter a jot. We got Sky and I found out
about the atrocities committed through the ages that had been done in the name of Jesus Christ.
At 15 (despite my best efforts and my dutiful prayers), I still failed my GCSEs
and one of my best friends died. With his death any hold the church had on me died as well; I
started see it as an organisation that controlled what everyone was supposed to think and do.
So there I was 16 summers old, lost, alone, and not a bloody clue. That was when I
started calling myself a Druid proper when asked what my religion was. It was then only a word and
I’m still learning the meaning of it to this day, but it has a resonance that is timeless and
still stokes the fires of my soul in ways that nothing else can. My conviction to the Druid path has
been tested over the years, be of no doubt. The amount of charlatans I’ve come across is
staggering. How these amoral gits feed off of the inexperience and the gullibility of others still
angers me. But still I’ve trudged on searching for people to share my views and experiences
with, and, at the most perfect time, I found the person I have needed since always. My partner: she
is following a path so similar to mine it feels at times unreal.
It’s taken a long time for me to get to this point on the path. Next year
I’ll be 30 summers and, if I’m honest, I feel I’ve only just started. That said
I’m still very much enjoying this most particular stroll, down this most particular path. The
path they call Druidry.
By Clinton Martin (Wolf in the Shadow).
07/11/2005
