Many Druids consider service to be part of the path.

I’ve done plenty of that along the way, giving time to charities, local organizations, and Pagan outfits. I’ll give what I can, and as I’ve never been massively affluent, giving my time and work is often more effective than giving my money.

Over the years, it’s got worse. Venues struggling to stay open are unable to pay for performers. Magazines unable to afford print runs. Events that can’t afford to put speakers up for the night or cover petrol. People on tight budgets unable to afford tickets, books, or CDs, or anything else that might make things more viable. I do what I can.

It’s increasingly difficult to make things work – this is true for event organizers, small publishers, writers, musicians, artists, small businesses of all kinds. I’m a fan of gift economy but I also know how terrifying it is to have a business model that is basically hoping someone will chip in. Not that this is any more irrational than hoping to sell tickets, or books or whatever you’ve got.

This situation is not an accident. Not everyone is struggling economically. The ‘cost of living crisis’ is a consequence of corporate greed, and those with power using it to leverage more money out of everyone else.

So, what’s the Druid take on this? Give what you can but be alert to situations that would exploit you for someone else’s profit. Support small and independent business where you can – your money makes a huge difference. If there’s a free thing, and you can afford to throw some coins in the bucket, that makes a huge difference, too. Many important things only happen thanks to volunteering and donations, so if you can get in for any of that, it’s a valuable thing to do. At the same time, a reminder that the existence of charity represents a failure of government.

No matter what resources we have, we can help push back by valuing unpaid work, and recognizing it. Too often at the moment there’s the double-whammy for creators of not being paid for work that has a discernible economic value, and then being treated as some sort of failure because of not earning much. If we lose our small venues, where will the gigs of the future happen? If we lose our magazines, our events, and all those other valuable resources we will all be poorer for it. Support for the people trying to keep things going is worth a lot.

If we had universal basic income, there are a lot of things we could afford to be more relaxed about paying for. As it stands, we’re going to end up with a situation where only people who have support from partners or family can afford to work in the creative industries. This worries me greatly – and I say this as someone who is currently supported and more insulated as a consequence. I can afford to give my work away, and to say yes to the gigs that can’t pay me. I do so because I know there’s a lot that wouldn’t be viable right now without this kind of service. I also don’t want it normalized. I don’t know how we get things on a better footing without some political changes, but I do know that we need to keep talking about this.

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