Fox Essence

by Tim Besserer

Yesterday I did a 24 hours medicine trail into the wilderness here in Hessia (Vogelsberg). During my last training week with Steve Gallegos my animal of imagery, the bear, asked me to do this. On Friday morning, as I got up, I did my morning meditation and was asked to experience the trail with fox essence. Before I took seven drops of that essence I had bought at the Festival of Animals in Traunstein (I was extremely drawn to them and "had" to buy them from William), I received several images all pointing towards the fox, who is my animal of the 6th chakra. For example I "found" a postcard, a lady gave me during my yoga-teacher training. She does not know at all about the animal work we do, but the card reads: "Experience your wild animal" and shows on the reverse side a picture from Saint Exuperys "Little Prince": the prince with the fox. It took my breath. Then I looked under "fox" in the little book from Daniel Mapel about fox essence, it said: “Good for: indipendent thinking and trust in ones own decisions, wise solutions for problems, personal power and authority, becoming indipendent from social contraints, find your own way in life, wisdom, finesse, planning, self-esteem. This matched exactly where I was and what I am aiming at the moment. Information that perfectly fitted. And there was more, a lot more, pointing towards the fox. So I was prepared to really use the essence a first time. When I dripped it on my tongue, I instantly felt a wave going through my body, a feeling like "he came into me".

Then I packed my knapsack with all I would need during 24 hours, including enough water, a tent and a sleeping bag. No food - as the bear had asked me not to eat during my time. Then I had to take the car to get to the place that had been shown to me. I had to walk in the little town I was born from the house where I lived, all the way to the other two houses where I had lived later in my life until I left my town at the age of 20.

At noon, as I crossed the invisible border from the "civilized" world into the wilderness, I took the second potion of the essence and the same feeling came over me as for the first time that morning. I walked through an old forest and into a valley on a trail, called "The 7 Creeks". It is a very green forest, reminding me at Vancouver Island’s rain forest. I was alone and on my own and I felt very much connected to nature. I went on and on for about two hours until I found a place, where nobody had ever walked, under a beech tree on a little hill, near that creek. I sat there for hours with my bare skin, meditating, connecting with the fox and the Great Spirit, doing yoga and journaling what came.

I put on the magic necless I created in a workshop with Glenda Grandmother Giving Bear Carrying Beads and held my shamanic stick in my hands as I went on a journey to the fox, during which I received the following messages:
I thanked the fox for coming to me and asked him what I should do to enbetter my professional life. fox takes me with him on a journey into the desert and tells me: “You can work where ever. Do Yoga, where nobody did it before. Make journeys to the power animals, where nobody ever journeyed before.” As I asked him what I could do for him, he wanted me to visit him more often in the forest. I thanked him and told him he was a wonderful guide.
I took the 3rd and later the 4th potion. Although the fox had asked me to stay awake outside during the night, I felt a great tiredness and crawled into my tent, as a big thunderstorm came. It was frightning. Outside total darkness, the heavy rainfall and blasts from the flashes and lightnings. I prayed and asked for guidance and received messages that I would be fine (next day I heard that this was the hardest summer thunderstorm since decades and that Frankfurt airport - not too far away - and stations were closed down because of more then 27 liters rain per square meter). I had strange dreams and felt like not having slept at all. I remember to have felt fear and terror during the night and that my heart did beat fast.

I got up with sunrise and found a foggy cold wilderness around me. I sat outside for meditation and yoga and journaled again. I took the essence again. At about 7 o’clock in the morning I packed and went back on my way again through the wonderful wet and green nature. I felt like havíng been away for years. It had been so quiet after the storm. I felt well and very connected with the earth, the forest and all the animals that I had noticed. I crossed the threshold from the wilderness into the so called civilized world, thanking all creatures that guided me for having been there and I took another way back to my car, trying to avaoid as much as possible the usual ways people walk.

When I left the town in my car, at the city border I found a dead fox, killed by a car. He was lying there in the middle of the road streched out. It was gruesome and a vomiting feeling came to me along with a deep sadness. When I came home, my wife Alexandra asked me to check on my skin for ticks. She found more then 15! And - without knowing anything about the fact that I had taken fox essence and focussed my trail on the fox, she mentioned that "foxes have a lot of ticks". It took me some time until I was able to speek and to explain to her what had really happened. Amazingly, although I did know about the so-called danger from ticks before I went on that trail, I had not been afraid of them, nor am I right now.

I don't know what else will happen during the next few days but I am prepared to notice and honour everything. I did not take any more of the essence, because I felt it worked so stongly on me. The journey encouraged me to put more energy into finding new places to work as a yoga teacher: I wrote to a local prison to see if I could work there with the inmates (something I had in mind since months but never made contacts).

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