Big Magic Elizabeth Gilbert

I read Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert and wow, I am in love with this author. I’ve read 2 of her other books, “Eat, Pray, Love” and “The Signature of All Things.“

If you haven’t read “Eat, Pray, Love”, you’ve probably been living under a rock. It was wildly popular for years and an international best seller selling over 10 million copies (much to the author’s surprise, according to her).  “The Signature of All Things” is very different. It’s a historical novel depicting the history of horticulture, agricultural trade (mostly herbs and spices) and the story of a woman growing up in this environment who fell in love with moss. (Yes, moss). It’s a really different read, but it’s so well written that I couldn’t put it down. I kept thinking, “this should be so boring, why do I love this so?” as I was reading it, but I couldn’t put it down.

Her latest book, “Big Magic” is like “Eat, Pray, Love” in that it’s Gilbert telling her experiences with creativity and how ideas come to fruition.

It’s a fascinating exploration of the concept that ideas are alive and look around for someone to help them come to life. They actually have willpower and will take up residence in the mind of those who are capable of bringing them to life.“Ideas have no ma­teri­al body, but they do have consciousness, and they most certainly have will,” she writes. However, if the person who’s mind the idea is rattling around in doesn’t take action, the idea will flit off and find another worthy soul. She shares an example of an idea for a book that she never started, even though she knew it was a great story based in the Amazon. As it turned out, another writer, Ann Patchett who Gilbert greatly admires, ended up writing the exact same story. The amazing part is that while the idea was still brewing in Gilbert’s head, she had a conversation with the other writer and was thinking of how much she admired her, but did not mention the story.

“Big Magic” is broken into six sections: Courage, Enchantment, Permission, Persistence, Trust and Divinity.

I of course LOVE that she includes “Divinity.” Just as I state in my book, creativity is our divine right. I put it like this, “I don’t care if you’re a bean counter who wears grey clothes and lives in a grey apartment, you have the Creative Divine force brewing inside you.” Gilbert says, Creativity is “your birthright as a human being”; “Even if you grew up watching cartoons in a sugar stupor from dawn to dusk, creativity still lurks within you”; “You are not required to save the world with your creativity.”

I have given this book to a few people, who in turn have given it to others. I find it intriguing as I am constantly getting ideas for great companies and websites (at any given time, I own between 10 and 50 great domain names that I hold onto in the event that I bring an idea to life!)

I highly recommend Elizabeth Gilbert’s “Big Magic”! If you have any inkling of wanting to get your hands dirty with paint, write a book, throw a pot, tie die a shirt, plant a flower garden – get this book. Being creative isn’t foolish or a waste of time – it’s a way to enhance every part of your life!

I’m Kathy Rausch, and I approve this message:)