What makes a bard?
How is a bard different from any other creative person? For me, it has always been about a spiritual dedication which is intrinsic to the work. A regular creative person may have all kinds of reasons for doing what they do. For a bard, creativity will, to a significant degree, be an act of spiritual dedication and expression. The creative work is not simply about making money, achieving fame or getting to ponce about in public whilst wearing a nice dress, either. Part of the point of the work is to serve the community, and part of the point is to serve the land.
So, how do we serve? By bringing magic into the world. Inspiring and uplifting people. Expressing the numinous. Offering insight into what it means to be human. Expressing our relationship with the land. Sharing history of place and tribe to ground people. Keeping traditional forms of creativity alive, holding threads that connect past to future. Giving voice to that which cannot speak and yet needs to be heard. Making sense of human experiences. Celebrating, remembering, imagining, exploring, honouring, satirising, offering alternatives, creating perspectives….
The most traditional methods revolve around the voiced word – poetry, story telling, and song. I think these three threads are vital, and it is important to acknowledge that traditionally, these were at the heart of what it meant to be a bard. However, if you are able to do the work in other forms, if you tell stories in images or sound, if you share the voice of hill and forest with you dancing, if you make tunes that evoke the ancestors or pots that embody sensuality…. Or whatever it is that you do with your whole heart and soul, for your land and tribe… you’re a fellow traveller.
Not everyone will apply the term ‘bard’ in exactly the same way (and rightly so!) but for me it’s all about the giving, the sharing and expressing the work made of soul, passion and vision. There are a number of people who particularly inspire me with the work they do, and I think I will be doing other little showcases and shout-outs along the way, because I am a firm believer in sharing the good stuff.
Today I’d like to sing the praises of Lorna Smithers, a bard from the north of England, sharing poetry most days through her blog. The beauty of her word craft, the clarity of her insight, the power of her intent and her capacity to capture glimpses of otherworldly wonder make her a remarkable writer. http://lornasmithers.wordpress.com If you subscribe by email, her words will flow into your inbox, which I can heartily recommend as a thing to add to your day. There’s an explanation of what she does and why, here http://lornasmithers.wordpress.com/about-from-peneverdant/ . Lorna is also Bardic Co-ordinator for the Druid network, and is a resident poet on the Moon Books blog… http://moon-books.net/blogs/moonbooks/category/poetry/
