Druidry and Inspiration
I remember back in my twenties having a conversation with a Very Important Druid about how inspiration works for me. I had come to recognise that it depends a lot on relationship, but I was finding it hard to hold the kinds of relationships with people that enabled the flow of inspiration for me. The Very Important Druid told me that I should be seeking those relationships not with humans, but in the natural world and with the elements.
Twenty years later, I can say with total confidence that the key to creativity for me lies in my relationships with people. It’s when inspiration flows from one person to another that I do my best work. I make things for people. I make things in response to people. Without people to engage with, I do not create.
The hills are indifferent to me. The rain is disinterested. The ground barely notices my passing. The sky does not see me. I find solace in this, there is something oddly comforting about being irrelevant. I go out and I spend time with the land and the sky, but I don’t make anything out of that unless someone else needs me to. I can see how a person dealing with more personified aspects of nature, or working with deity might find it meaningful to create for them and offer that creativity only to them. But honestly, I’ve never found a pond that cared whether or not I wrote a sonnet about it.
I can do the most good with my creativity if I can take it to people and change something for them. If I can help someone else experience the land as alive and precious, then that might do some small thing to help the land. The water does not need me to throw words at it, but it might benefit from me persuading people to treat it with more care and respect.
Other people may of course have totally different experiences. What I’m for, is talking to people about stuff. If your bard path means that you sing to foxes, or dance for the moon, or make art with the falling rain and that works for you – excellent. But it’s not me, and it isn’t what I do.
Of course it was tricky being young, and new to all this and being told by a Very Important Druid that everything I thought about how my inspiration worked was pretty much wrong. But here I am. I make Hopeless Maine stuff with and for Tom Brown. I write Wherefore with and for Bob Fry, and Robin Treefellow. There are a number of people I write poetry for and because of. I’m exploring collaborations with Dr Abbey again. I write for steampunks. I write for people who give me feedback to say that what I do is helpful. I write for Patreon supporters. I write this blog for you, dear readers. All of you. For you and because of you. Because enough of you are subscribed, and leave comments, and like and share what I put up that I know it has value.
And I do not write anything at all any more for the Very Important Druid.
