Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear
Sometimes a book comes along that gets under your cynical skin and takes you to a place where you believe in magic—magic that is waiting to be unleashed through you.
Gilbert’s thesis in Big Magic is that every person is creative, and that each one of us has permission to make something.
If you’re alive, you’re a creative person. You and I and everyone you know are descended from tens of thousands of years of makers. Decorators, tinkerers, storytellers, dancers, explorers, fiddlers…
Gilbert encourages us to believe that creativity isn’t an unattainable quality that some of us are blessed with, and some of us aren’t.
Big Magic is inspiration. Inspiration that waits in the wings for us to listen to it and create. Fear, born from perfectionism, fuels our lives and we are encouraged to follow our curiosity rather than fear.
The universe buries strange jewels deep within us all, and then stands back to see if we can find them.
The hunt to uncover those jewels — that’s creative living.
The courage to go on that hunt in the first place — that’s what separates a mundane existence from a more enchanted one.
The often surprising results of that hunt — that’s what I call Big Magic.
Divided into six parts – Courage, Enchantment, Permission, Persistence, Trust and Divinity – Big Magic is not so much a how-to manual, but more an encouragement to be brave.
If you’re feeling hemmed in by fear, failure or frustration and long to open up the wide-open spaces of your creativity, Big Magic may just give you what you need.
During the month of May we’ll share our Big Magic moments with Amanda on Monday, Jodie Wednesday and Elaine Friday.
Join us on the Big Magic Book Club adventure. Join the conversation as we allow curiosity to take us to new places in our creativity, and in our souls.
Big Magic QUESTION
Do you think of yourself as creative? Do you struggle with that label?
*If you want to get a copy of Elizabeth Gilbert’s Book Big Magic CLICK HERE
Is there a specific reading plan for Big Magic over the month, Elaine?
Thanks for the intro Elaine. I do call myself a creative but the truth is that for many years I struggles with that label. I found it very easy to recognise and label creativity in others but it was much harder to acknowledge it in myself. I don;t struggle with the label now but that is a very recent thing in the scope of my life journey.
I am creative and I love everything this book represents. So excited to go on this journey with you Elaine. Hoping its a little less heavy than our last book club. Ha ha. But it changed us as well. That beginning quote is my absolute favourite.
XXOO
Amanda