I’ve been tossing the B-word around here quite a bit, ancient Bards, Bardism, Bardic arts . . . And I feel a need to offer a definition of what this word means to me and why I am adopting it.
A Bard is generally agreed to be someone who is of a creative nature, a poet, a harper (although these days the guitar is the new harp), somebody who uses language and often music to inspire, instruct, enliven, soothe, teach, and heal. Bards are usually part of a Druid order, like the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids (OBOD) in the UK, or the Reformed Druids of North America (RDNA) here in the States. The OBOD traces their lineage back a few hundred years, at least to the 1700s, while the RDNA was born in the 60s as part of a college protest movement that grew into a thriving community of peaceful introverts that send each other beautiful emails and sometimes show up in the same place at the same time. I’m an RDNA girl, myself, which probably shocks no one.
The old Bards, now, it was said that they could control weather, confound enemies, call up a mist, cause someone’s skin to break out in boils, all by the power of their words. Grain of salt, here; people were (and remain) highly suggestible and the brain will do its damndest to carry out whatever instructions it is given, no matter how irrational or inexplicable. If you believe that a certain person of authority has the power to cause your skin to explode with boils if you piss them off, it is likely that, 1) you will go out of your way not to piss them off, and 2) if they look at you sideways you’ll break out in hives. (Consider this: a Witch might make you believe you’ve been turned into a frog because she hypnotizes you, and you hop around going “ribbit ribbit” until the effect wears off, which is a far more likely interpretation of that particular legend than either 1) “She turned me into a newt!” or 2) it was all made up.)
As for the weather, well . . . Everything is figureoutable, to quote Marie Forleo.
Whether or not you believe there was anything supernatural or magical at work, there was no doubt that these people, both women and men, carried great knowledge, were capable of extraordinary things ordinary people could not imagine or understand, and knew how to induce mass hypnotic states. They were educated to speak and sing with total command, and were so revered and valued that it was illegal to draw a weapon in their presence (of course, the Druids were the ones making the laws, but . . . nobody was willing to protest that one). The Law of Attraction has been well-known by mystics for thousands of years, having evolved from the teachings of Hermes Trismegistus, as were the principles of mentalism, As Above-So Below, vibration, astral projection, and even phenomena like strange sounds coming from nowhere and manifestation of objects from thin air.
Truth is, trained minds were far more highly trained thousands of years ago than our minds are today. There were fewer distractions for one thing. The urgency to make a living, keep up with the Jones’, and catch our favorite television show were all unknown drives. When a Bard went into training, the tribe supported her unconditionally. She had food, shelter, clothing and whatever she needed, and the tribe knew she would repay their investment a thousand times over. There was nothing standing in her way to become an intensely powerful being capable of extraordinary feats of a seemingly magical nature.
In America, and much of the rest of the world today, we remain impressionable and easily conditioned. The TV says, “Buy this!” and many obey. The man on the TV with the big teeth says, “Send me money or you’ll go to Hell!” and far too many people believe and obey. Many women grew up ashamed of their bodies because they were too whatever, and Madison Avenue types use that fear to sell them so much shit, billions of dollars of shit. Tens of billions if you count pharmaceuticals.
The point is, this power may look really different now than it did then, but it is alive and . . . well. It’s alive.
So take a leap. The power is real. We can actually use it for good. We can use it to heal each other. We can use it to inspire greatness, increase compassion, and speak truth to power. We can use it to make real changes in our lives and the world, changes for the better. We can sing our truth, our desire, our intention into a star-drenched sky and watch as the Universe bends and twists and makes things happen. I have spent most of my life learning how to do it (well, not the raising boils and turning people into frogs parts), and I am willing to teach you.
Of course this power can be used to perpetrate great evil. That’s always a risk. But I choose to believe that the energy of love, which is much higher and more refined than the energy of hate, will triumph. Learning to do it right, learning to lead with your heart, learning to own your shit and work on being a happier person are not things evil is attracted to. Learning to sing the music of your Light is not something the Darkness can handle. Intrigued? I hope so.