Triad

Three necessities for transformation: tending a fire; dreaming deeply; trusting the tide to carry you.

Llyn Tegid / Bala Lake (author's own photo)

In each of his three gestations, the boy Gwion Bach is given the three things he needs for his transformation:  He spends time - the traditional year and a day of apprenticeship - doing hard work, tending the fire, stirring the cauldron, chopping wood and carrying water; he grows in the darkness of Ceridwen’s womb where he can explore his dreams of the future and recreate himself before being reborn; and he has faith enough or sufficient resolve to let the simple vessel, in which he is cast adrift into the world, carry him across the waters to where he is destined to be. 

Then he emerges as the great Bard, Taliesin. Radiant, inspired, transformed.

For those not familiar with the Story of Taliesin, Kristoffer Hughes gives an excellent reading of the tale from his book From The Cauldron Born.