Becoming a bard

(Nimue)

Everyone should have the time and opportunity to be creative and to express themselves. The first step onto the bard path is to make time for your creative self. That means being creative on your own terms and in whatever ways speaks to you.

However, becoming a bard calls for more than this, and there are a number of things I think are necessary parts of the journey.

You have to be interested in things. It doesn’t really matter what enthuses you, but you need to be engaged with the world, and curious about it. Learning is part of being a Druid. The more we learn, the more we have to work with. To some extent you can just mine your own experiences for raw material, but that will only take you so far. The more of the world you let in, the more there is to be creative with and inspired by.

There’s a lot to be said for using creativity to heal and grow. It’s a great way to process your own emotions and to make sense of yourself. However, I think one of the things the bard path calls for is considering an audience that isn’t you. When you create for someone else, it becomes a conversation, and an exchange. No two people read a book in exactly the same way. When your creativity impacts on someone else, it becomes more than whatever you originally made.

It’s good to ask what others might need from your work. What good can you do? What can you share that would uplift, inform or inspire other people? These are very powerful things to do.

Money is not part of this equation. You are not invalidated as a bard if someone pays you for your work. Spirituality is not defined by an absence of payment, and you do not have to create as a form of sacrifice or service if that doesn’t work for you. Equally, the value of your bardic work is not measured in cash, and your economic success is not a measure of how you impact as a bard.

This is a process and a journey – there is no end point, no finish line. It’s a way of life, a way of being. You can step off the path if it doesn’t suit you, and you can take breaks. You don’t have to be constantly focused on your bardic journey in order to consider yourself to be on the bardic path.