[The Stage is on Fire] is a page-turner in which, much like life, there are no easy answers and yet each step of the journey yields insight and hope. This work of heart must not be missed!
Melanie Faith
Creative Writing Teacher, Essayist & Poet.
Katie Steedly’s first-person piece [The Unspeakable Gift] is a riveting retelling of her participation in a National Institutes of Health study that aided her quest to come to grips with her life of living with a rare genetic disorder. Her writing is superb.
The Society of Professional Journalists
In recognition of receiving the Dateline Award for the Washingtonian Magazine essay, The Unspeakable Gift.
I thank you … It is the authenticity of your “class notes”; and it is the delicacy and skill with which you present the nuances of classroom life and the actuality of your students’ and fellow teachers’ lives.
Maxine Greene
Philosopher and Education Scholar
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Taking A Walk #27
Taking A Walk with Elizabeth Gilbert
Big Magic
“Create whatever causes a revolution in your heart. The rest of it will take care of itself.” — Elizabeth Gilbert
I have paid attention to Elizabeth Gilbert for many years. I read her books, subscribe to her Substack, and follow her social media appearances. I even traveled to Bali for a yoga retreat and saw a Balinese healer. She speaks to the parts of my soul that seek to understand myself and love all that I am. She has helped me view my complexity as a gift and a blessing.
I have been thinking about Big Magic recently. Mostly because finding Big Magic amidst Now takes creativity, imagination, grace, courage, flexibility, strength and magic. If we know Big Magic right now, we know Big Magic.
Your Elusive Creative Genius
‘Ole!’ to you, just for having the sheer human love and stubbornness to keep showing up!” — Elizabeth Gilbert
In a TED talk, Your Elusive Creative Genius, delivered following the global success of her memoir Eat Pray Love, Elizabeth Gilbert explored the heart of the creative spirit. At this conference dedicated to creativity in all its mind blowing, earth saving, humanity changing, justice delivering capacity, she issued a call to the TED audience to think deeply about what it means to be creative.
Choosing Curiosity Over Fear
I think curiosity is our friend that teaches us how to become ourselves. And it’s a very gentle friend, and a very forgiving friend, and a very constant one. — Elizabeth Gilbert
For Gilbert, creativity is about choosing curiosity over fear. That makes sense to me in the way that building is courageous. It makes sense to me in the way that light drives out darkness. It makes sense to me in the way that I have always been comfortable with questions. It makes sense to me in the way that a new journal, a blank canvas, and a piano sitting in a corner are curious.
The Future of Hope
And if there is one thing that I, if I had the chance to do it over again, could’ve done differently, would’ve been to walk into it in a stance of surrender — arms collapsed, no clipboard, no agenda, no cherished outcome — and to have almost gone limp into it, which is not the same thing as hopelessness, but it is a very powerful stance to take in the wake of something that is bigger than you are. — Elizabeth Gilbert
The idea that surrender as a powerful stance makes sense to me. In particular, surrendering to creativity makes sense to me in the way that doing the thing you must do — that thing that you know you must do — is powerful. When we do the thing we must do, whatever that thing is, we are enlisting our angels, our muscles, our mind, our heart, and our soul in a process that is bigger than we understand. In surrendering, we are not alone on our path. In surrendering, we have the strength of multitudes of real and imagined forces. In surrendering, there is clarity of purpose and quiet resolution of fear and doubt. There is peace in inviting others in. A weight is lifted when hope guides our days.
What if surrendering is the heart of creativity? If surrendering is the heart of creativity, then ego steps aside to practice. If surrendering is the heart of creativity, then gratitude for the presence, attention, joy, and awe are the pulse of the process. If surrendering is the heart of creativity, then love — which is bigger than us all — is our ultimate guide and goal. Love that we can see, taste, touch, and feel.
A conversation about hope between Pico Ilyer and Elizabeth Gilbert
Leap into the Fire
Who gets to decide if you are an artist? — Elizabeth Gilbert
This question hits me right between the eyes. It makes me think about the tension between hobby and profession. I makes me think about who gets to ultimately answer that question. Do we answer it for ourselves or let others have that sacred power? What is the consequence of that label on our creative process? Are we silenced or emboldened? What does it mean to call myself a writer? What is my writer’s responsibility to myself today, to the little girl who would spend hours writing as a child, to my family and others who told me I could be whatever I wanted to be, to a future that ?
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About Katie
From Louisville. Live in Atlanta. Curious by nature. Researcher by education. Writer by practice. Grateful heart by desire.
Buy the Book!
The Stage Is On Fire, a memoir about hope and change, reasons for voyaging, and dreams burning down can be purchased on Amazon.
