Big Magic

The care and keeping of ideas

When I visited Bonfire Books & Yarnery about a month ago, my eyes were captivated by a colorful book with the words BIG MAGIC written emphatically in capital letters. I read the blurb on the back of the book and thought that it sounded good - but I didn’t want to purchase the book (budget constraints in a time of high gas prices). So, I checked my local library to see if they had a copy. Much to my joy, they did.

BIG MAGIC is one of the most invigorating books on the creative impulse and process that I have read thus far. Gilbert writes with a throbbing energy that surges ever forward, and the book feels like an extended conversation with her regarding creativity. Almost everything that she had to say resonated with me, but, what grabbed my attention the most, was how she wrote about ideas.

Gilbert posits that ideas are living entities journeying through the universe looking for a willing receiver who will catch them and bring them into tangible forms to share with others. The concept made the breath catch in my throat at first - and I thought that regarding ideas as living beings was taking it a bit too far. But, the longer I read, the more I agreed with Gilbert.

Gilbert shares an anecdote from her own life where she was working on a novel about a spinster from Minnesota who is sent to work in the Amazon jungle. Due to life circumstances, Gilbert shelved the novel for a while. When she returned to work on the novel, she found that the flow of inspiration for it had dried up, and she literally no longer could write the book.

A few years later, her friend Ann Patchett released a novel with an almost identical plot line. As it happens, Gilbert first met Patchett around the time that she shelved this novel. She suggests that, somehow, the idea leapt from her to Patchett, because it knew that Patchett was open to receiving it and bringing it to life, while Gilbert had decided to ignore it. Gilbert had never told Patchett about the novel that she had shelved, so how else could it have happened? This is the essence of the BIG MAGIC that Gilbert discusses throughout her book.

As I pondered this, I remembered that something similar had happened to Charles Darwin. For over twenty years, Darwin had been studying different species, and his observations of finches (and other species) on the Galapagos Islands had led him to conclude that species are not fixed but evolve over time through natural selection. But Darwin was a careful scientist and did not want to publish his findings until he was certain that he could produce a cogent and valid argument for his conclusions.

Then came Alfred Russel Wallace. Wallace was considerably less educated than Darwin and had been collecting specimens for less time than Darwin had. But, he had noticed the same thing: one could see species changing as they adapted to their environments.

Wallace’s observations and correspondence with Darwin were the necessary “kick in the pants” to publish/make the idea tangible that Darwin needed. He and Wallace then co-authored a paper on natural selection that they submitted to the Linnean Society.

After reading what Gilbert said, I wondered to myself: did the idea get tired of Darwin’s cautiousness and decide also to visit someone with less timidity surrounding publishing? I don’t know. But, I like to imagine that this is what happened.

I currently have an idea for a painting series that first visted me earlier this year - but I have not yet fully brought it to life. I hesitate to outline its specifics here, lest it decides that one of my readers is a more vigorous host and takes off with one of you! 😊

So, I am speaking to you, beautiful idea who has come to visit. Stay with me yet a little longer, and I will make you visible to the world. I promise.

And, to anyone reading this who has creative ideas that they have been procrastinating on making happen: stop hesitating, nurture your ideas, and give them space to speak and to be embodied in the world. If you don’t, they will find someone else who will do it for them.

P.S. In case you were wondering about Ann Patchett's magical book, it is titled State of Wonder. I found a copy at the library and am reading it this weekend. 😊