“So this, I believe, is the central question upon which all creative living hinges: Do you have the courage to bring forth the treasures that are hidden within you?”
~Elizabeth Gilbert: Big Magic:Creative Living Beyond Fear
In the last few weeks, I have experienced two big ideas that came to life. They came to life because the creators possibly overcame their fears, their inner critics, the naysayers that likely showed up on their path. These creators followed a hidden desire to bring something to life that had niggled into their brain and would not let them go. We all have them…and some follow that thread that leads to an outcome that may even surprise them in what is born.
The first big idea come to life happened on a trip to souther Wisconsin to a place called Kinstone.(https://www.kinstonecircle.com) Sitting in the beautiful farmland surrounded by the ubiquitous corn and soybeans, Kristine Beck worked several years creating stone circles, a dolmen, prairie gardens and a chapel that is small and so enveloping that it feels like a sacred embrace. Standing in this amazing landscape, I could only imagine the neighbors who watched as flatbed trucks hauled immense stones along the gravel roads to eventually be lifted high and placed into the ground. She must have been constantly questioned and challenged. But the big idea that lived within her and those that worked with her would not be quelled. And now this place welcomes others to come and stand in the amazement that is echoed in places like Stonehenge and New Grange.
The second big idea in which I had the privilege of being present was the Immersive Van Gogh experience that has taken up residence in a warehouse in Minneapolis. What would happen if you take some of the most beloved paintings in the world and allow people to be held in the images as they float up the walls and dance on the floors? This must have been a guiding question that played in the mind of the creators. Add a background soundtrack that moves through jazz and classical music and the participants become a part of a play that never ends whose actors are ever changing and reacting in new and different ways. I can imagine the critics who tried to shoot this idea down for countless reasons. But the big dream that had been born in the creators would not bend to the critics words. In the end, people who might never see the smaller versions of these paintings in museums far away, feel the pulsing color and fluid movement of Van Gogh’s brush as it strokes their faces with color.
These two experiences reminded me of Elizabeth Gilbert’s book, Big Magic:Creative Living Beyond Fear. I was blessed to meet Ms. Gilbert when she was on a book tour and to hear her speak about this inner drive that we all have to create, to make. “Do whatever brings you to life, then. Follow your own fascinations, obsessions, and compulsions. Trust them. Create whatever causes a revolution in your heart.” That night, her enthusiasm was contagious and I think everyone there walked out with the inner coals of creativity fanned. I know I did.
Of course, walking back into the daily, that enthusiasm can get lost or squelched by the outside(or inside) voices that want to keep us dreaming small. Thinking about these times in which we live, it seems to me we are hungry for the big ideas, the big dreams. How do we move on from this pandemic life? What will we do to hold onto all that was good that came to us? How will we resist the urge to try to return to things that seem ‘normal’? How will we change the systems that keep us hostage to a way of ‘us and them’, of the ‘haves and have nots’? All these questions need the work of big thinkers.
Ancient stones lifted to standing is not new. But it is new in the landscape of the southern prairie. The paintings of Van Gogh are not new. But the ability to have them embrace you with their beauty is. Big ideas or big dreams do not have to be particularly new to dazzle or inspire or shift the trajectory of human life. “It might have been done before, but it hasn’t been done by you!” says Liz Gilbert.
What are the big dreams smoldering in your belly today? They might not need a giant crane to lift into place. Or a warehouse to house them. I believe they are there in all of us. May we find the courage to stoke the embers, our big dreams, for our own healing and for the healing of the world.