For this post I’m returning to a thoughtful comment by Lorna Smithers from several years ago:
The division between what remains in the journal and what to communicate is a question I confront continuously as a Bard, for unlike with a path that focuses solely on personal transformation through magic, Bards are expected to share their inspiration.
I find that some experiences are OK to share immediately, others need time to gestate for the meanings to evolve and take on a clearer form, and a select few may always stay secret.
I see good craftmanship to be the key [to] sharing experiences. In contrast to the vomit of ‘compulsive confession’, well-wrought craft lifts the raw material into the realms of art, creating works that affirm the awe and wonder of the magical world.
I can’t simply mechanically transcribe from my journal (or my id — sometimes the same thing) onto the page or screen and expect comprehension, let alone value, or anything remotely approaching art. We’ve all heard about how social media has enervated meaningful communication, gutted nascent relationships, obliterated thoughtful engagement with alternative ideas and perspectives, and helped fuel partisanship, indifference, callousness and a host of our worst impulses. But we also know how much of value we’ve all found online that we might never have encountered anywhere else. There might even be a clue in all of that about where else to look for a solution, a response, a direction, a path to take through the digital (and other) wildernesses we traverse.
Craft, like any choice, applies to our spiritual journeys, too. From the baseline of a regular practice, I find I can achieve greater insight, connection, growth than without it. Craft is care, attention, devotion, dedication to a standard I’ve taken to heart because I understand its value. We used to apprentice ourselves to a master in order to learn not only the technical points — what woods to use, how to mix the paint, what companion plantings work best, how to splint a compound fracture, what to do about obsessive thoughts during meditation, what a recurrent dream can reveal — but also to absorb a set of attitudes and stances and inner disciplines: how to persist in the face of discouragement, failure, boredom, lack of patronage, incomprehension, inner silence in the face of years of effort, and other joy-annihilating experiences.
Cræft bið betera þonne æhta. A craft or skill is better than possessions, goes the Old English proverb. And further, Se cræft ðæs lareowdomes biþ cræft ealra cræfta. The craft of teaching is the craft of all crafts. If I manage to apprentice myself to a good teacher — bird, beast, tree, or even human — I learn not only the craft but the heart behind it. Craft begets craft.
And by a happy synonymy, OE cræft has the same additional meaning that its descendant does in Modern English of “boat, ship” — we’ve enlarged the reach of it with “spacecraft”.
Craft is the craft that will carry us across, to where we want to go.
/|\ /|\ /|\
Image: Pexels. com
A Druid Way 