Big Magic – by Elizabeth Gilbert

‘Creative Living Beyond Fear’

In Big Magic, Elizabeth Gilbert refers to magic, literally like in the Hogwarts sense.  She is referring to the supernatural, the mystical, inexplicable, the surreal, the divine, the transcendent, the otherworldly. Because the truth is, she believes that creativity is a force of enchantment that is not entirely human in its origins.

Gilbert believes that our planet is inhabited not only by animals and plants and bacteria and viruses but also by ideas.  Ideas are driven by a single impulse: to be made manifest, and the only way an idea can be made manifest is through human efforts that an idea can be escorted out of the ether and in the realm of the material. Therefore ideas spend eternity swirling around us searching for available and willing human partners. When an idea thinks it found somebody (like you) who might be able to bring it into the world, the idea will visit you and it will try to get your attention.

Grab a copy of the book here: https://www.bookdepository.com/Big-Magic/9781408881682/?A_AID=ADAMSBOOKS

In Big Magic, Elizabeth Gilbert tells the story about the most magical thing that ever happened to her. It’s about a book she failed to write.

One day she was speaking to her sweetheart Felipe about something that happened in Brazil in the 1960s and then out of nowhere, the book idea came to her

Felipe told her how the Brazilian government got a notion to build a giant highway across the Amazon jungle during an era of rampant development and modernisation. The Brazilians at the time went forward and poured a fortune into the ambitious plan. All was going for a few months, progress was made, but then it started to rain and it seemed that none of the planners of the project fully grasped what rainy season means in the Amazon. The construction was immediately inundated and rendered uninhabitable and the crew had no choice but to walk away leaving equipment behind. After months of rain, they discovered the jungle had devoured their highway project, all of the equipment was missing or stolen and the bulldozers sucked into the Earth and disappeared forever.

When Elizabeth was told this story – chills ran up her arms, the hairs on the back of her neck stood up for an instant, she felt a little sick, a little dizzy, like falling in love, or just heard alarming news. She had experienced these symptoms before, so she knew immediately what was going on. Such an intense emotional and physiological reaction doesn’t strike often, but it happens enough (and is consistent enough with symptoms reported by people all over the world, all throughout history) that she believes she can call it by its name: Inspiration. This is what it feels like when an idea comes to you. This is Big Magic.

Big Magic: How ideas work

When she refers to big magic here, she means literally, like in the Hogwarts sense. She is referring to the supernatural, the mystical, inexplicable, the surreal, the divine, the transcendent, the otherworldly. Because the truth it, she believes that creativity is a force of enchantment that is not entirely human in its origins.

Elizabeth believes that our planet is inhabited not only by animals and plants and bacteria and viruses but also by ideas. Ideas are a disembodied energetic life form. They are completely separate from us but capable of interacting with us, albeit strangely. Ideas have no material body but they do have consciousness and they most certainly have a will. Ideas are driven by a single impulse: to be made manifest, and the only way an idea can be made manifest is through human efforts that an idea can be escorted out of the ether and in the realm of the material. Therefore ideas spend eternity swirling around us searching for available and willing human partners. When an idea thinks it found somebody (like you) who might be able to bring it into the world, the idea will visit you and it will try to get your attention.

Mostly you will not notice because you are consumed in your own drama, anxieties, distractions, insecurities, and duties that you aren’t receptive to inspiration. You might miss the signal because you’re watching TV or shopping or brooding over how angry you are at someone. The idea will try and wave you down, perhaps for a few months, perhaps for a few years, but when it finally realises that you’re oblivious to its message it will move onto someone else.

But sometimes – rarely, but magnificently there comes a day when you’re open and relaxed enough to receive something. Your defences might slacken and your anxieties might ease then big magic can slip through.

The idea sensing your openness will start to do its work on you. It will send the universal physical and emotional signals of inspiration. The chills up the arms, the hair on the back of the neck, the nervous stomach, the buzzy thoughts that feeling of falling in love or obsession. You will start to notice all sorts of signs pointing you towards that idea. The idea will not leave you alone until it has your fullest attention. In a quiet moment it will ask “do you want to work with me?” At this point you have two options on how you respond.

What happens when you say no

The simplest answer of course is to just say no, because then you’re off the hook. The idea will go away – congratulations – you don’t have to be bothered about anything! Mostly people say no. Most of their lives people just walk around , day after day, saying no no no no no.

What happens if you say yes

If you do say yes, it is now show time. Now your job becomes simple and difficult. You have officially entered into a contract with inspiration and you must try to see it through all the way to its impossible to predict outcome.

An idea grows

Back to Elizabeth’s story of big magic. She had been visited by a big idea: that she should write a novel about Brazil in the 1960s. Specifically, she felt inspired to write a novel about efforts to build that ill-fated highway across the jungle.

The idea seemed epic and thrilling, but also daunting. What the hell did she know about Brazilian Amazon, or road construction in the 1960s? She proceeded, agreed to enter into contract with the idea, to work together. They shook hands and she promised she would never abandon it and she’d cooperate with her best ability.

A few months later however a real life drama derailed her from the project. She put Evelyn away promising to return to her, flew halfway across the world to work out her personal issues and she wrote her new memoir based on her life experience – ‘Committed’. Over 2 years passed with this new project and Evelyn wasn’t finished.

This was a long time for an idea to be unattended. But despite grabbing her notes from storage and being eager to get back into it she noticed right away… That her novel was gone.

An idea goes away

She doesn’t mean to say that somebody has stolen her notes, or that a crucial computer file was missing. What she means is that the living heart of the novel was gone. The sentient force that inhabits all vibrant creative endeavours had vanished, it swallowed like bulldozers in the jungle you could say ;).

She knew what had happened because she’d seen it before. The idea had grown tired of waiting and had left her. She could scarcely blame it because she’d broken her contract.

Thus the neglected idea did what many self-respecting living entities would do in the same circumstance: it hit the road. But fair enough right? Because this is the other side of the contract with creativity. If inspiration is allowed to unexpectedly enter you, it is also allowed to unexpectedly exit you.

Big Magic wizardry

This should be the end of the Amazon jungle story. But it isn’t. Just around the same time that the idea for her novel ran away – in 2008 – she made a new friend ‘Ann Patchet’, a celebrated novelist, on one afternoon in New York on a panel discussion about libraries. They became friends and began writing each other long thoughtful letters every month.

But in Autumn in 2008 – Anne casually mentioned in a letter that she had recently begun working on a new novel, and that it was about the Amazon Jungle, for obvious reasons it caught Elizabeth’s attention.

She mentioned she had a similar idea but the idea went away because she neglected it.

When they met up… Elizabeth explained hers first concisely as “about a middle aged spinster from Minnesota who fell in love with her married boss. She gets involved in a harebrained business scheme down in the Amazon jungle. A bunch of money and a person goes missing, and the character is sent down there to sort things out. It is a love story”

And then Ann replied “you have to be fucking kidding me……. Mine is about a spinster from Minnesota who’s been quietly in love with her married boss for many years. He gets involved in a harebrained business scheme down in the Amazon jungle. A bunch of money and a person go missing and she is sent down there to sort things. It is also a love story”

That is not a genre people!

This is an extremely specific story line. One cannot go to the bookstore and ask about books for Middle Aged Minnesota spinsters in love with their married bosses who get sent down to the Amazon jungle to find missing people and saved doomed projects. After the revelation, the counted backward on their fingers to the day when Elizabeth lost the idea and Anne found it. It turns out those events occurred at the same time. In fact, it might have been officially transmitted on the day they met. In fact it they think it was exchanged with the kiss. And that… Is Big Magic.