I Vacuum, Therefore I Am:
Magic was in the air in a crowded coffeehouse 18 years ago when I first heard poet Margo LaGatutta read. Her poem, “I Vacuum, Therefore I Am,” gave me goose bumps. It was an electric moment. I had just started writing poetry, and, somehow, I knew Margo was bound to be an important person in my life. When the short, round-faced woman, dressed in a vividly-colored bohemian frock, stood at the barista to get a coffee, I gushed to her about her marvelous poetry and asked where she taught. She pulled a flyer from her bag with info on classes. An ambassador for the Detroit literary community, Margo always carried flyers on events and classes.
She became my first mentor at a 6 week workshop in her home, a hubbub of creativity buzzing with energy. Her walls were a collage of artwork and tapestries, shelves and tables were lined with exotic finds, and nearly every horizontal surface was stacked with poetry books and journals. I was infatuated with her because nearly everything that came out of her mouth was poetic, as she talked about language, music, metaphor, creativity, dreams and taking imaginative leaps. I’ll never forget when she passed around a bag of rocks for us to use as writing prompts.
Sadly, Margo passed away after being stricken with cancer in August, 2011. I will miss her dearly, as will many others. She had the uncanny ability to find something to praise in anything anyone wrote; she opened my eyes as to what a good teacher should do. It was her wisdom and the balance of encouragement and instruction that kept me writing. Her sestina, “I Vacuum, Therefore I Am” (the poem is in comments below) gave writers permission to create magic from the mundane.
The Magic of Creativity
Her signature workshop is titled “The Seven Magic Elephants of Creativity.” I’m not sure where it was first published, but I’d like to share it here because I think Margo would have liked that. Please Do Not Reprint without giving her credit.
The Seven Magic Elephants, by Margo LaGattuta
It’s a new year, and we are given another chance to start our lives anew. We want to be better this year, more creative, more productive. The problem is getting started. Whatever we want to create in our lives can happen if we follow seven easy concepts.
This idea came to me years ago when I saw an ad in a magazine for “Seven Magic Elephants.” For only $3.98 I could have my every wish come true – wealth, health, romance, and happiness. These seven ivory elephants, the ad said, would bring luck to the person who possessed them, so I decided to look for a series of seven elements (or elephants) of the creative process. This way I could remind myself how to be creative when my ideas dry up. Here are the seven empowering concepts I discovered:
Concept 1 – Intention
Creativity begins with a wish and a plan. There must always be a longing combined with intent to begin any creative idea. Holding the elephants in our hands allows us to begin to name the possibilities. We begin with small choices and a bit of magic. This is the brainstorming stage, the “What do I want in my wildest dreams? It’s the blank page or canvas, where anything can happen, but it needs a concrete place to begin. So begin by writing down an intention. What do you really want to create?
Concept 2 – Time
The next elephant is time, and obvious but rarely honored ingredient in creativity. We make time for nearly everything visible in our lives, but this is the invisible. It is the time before any measured outcome. Often we try to take our creative time from what is left when we have accomplished the necessities of life. But we then discover, there is no time left. It helps to commit one day a week, or one weekend a month, for incubation and creative projects, and stick to it. Even if you spend the afternoon staring out the window and doodling, taking the time gives focus, and soon you will have begun.
Concept 3 – Love
Love, particularly self-love, is an elephant of empowerment. It is difficult because with anything that is bold or new there is always risk. The voice of the critic in our head says, “Who do you think you are?” Creativity takes an act of audacious authority, which can only come from self-esteem. There must also be the desire to make something happen, the love of the idea itself. Believing in ourselves and what we are doing is a paradoxical dance of amazement, a kind of love/fear mambo. It is what drives us on to face the elephants to come.
Concept 4 – Energy
This elephant is the firecracker that explodes a project into motion, the leap of faith that overcomes all obstacles. It comes in a burst of electricity or a quiet urgency. It is the red cardinal to a bird watcher, who must sit very still to notice its presence. It’s a zoom, a flash of insight, a theatrical drum roll and should be seized and honored.
Chapter 5 – Fear
Once we’ve processed all the other elephants, this is the big challenge. Fear of failure (or worse, fear of success) can stop any idea cold. This elephant says, “Give up,” and triggers any fear that lingers in the memory bank of loss. This is where most of us stop. Standing up to it takes digging in our proverbial heels. Yet, in this stage of the birth process, the doorway to the delivery room, there is not turning back, no easy way out, and no one else can help. The only way out is through.
Chapter 6 – Letting Go
This is the nothing elephant – the time when it seems like we’ve failed for sure, and we don’t know what to do. It’s the time of total surrender to the process. If we think we had control before, we are now certain we have none. We need to meditate, or clear our mind of all thought, let go of all agendas. This is a very secret place, where something we never expected can come in. This is where a creative leap can take place. We can make a change that makes it work.
Chapter 7 –
The brand new elephant resembles its parents yet has the look of an original. The idea in its infancy still trembles. We need the nothing element to become still enough to even recognize this elephant. We rejoice and stand in awe. The birth of any new project is as painful as it is joyous. And there is hard work ahead, involving wish, time, love, energy, fear and letting go. The circle of elephants goes on into infinity. What a gift to know we hold them all in the palms of our hands.
Margo LaGattuta’s held an MFA from Vermont College. She taught at the University of Michigan–Flint, Oakland Community College and Baker College. She authored four books and edited numerous anthologies. She received the Mark Twain Award for her body of work from the Society for the Study of Midwestern Literature at Michigan State University. She had her own radio show, Art in the Air, on an Oakland County station, and wrote a column for a local paper, Community Lifestyles, in Rochester, MI. Her books are A Word in Edgewise. Embracing the Fall, The Dream Givers, NoEdgeLines and Diversion Road. She also edited six new anthologies: Variations on the Ordinary, Almost Touching, Wind Eyes, Up from the Soles of Our Feet, At the Edge of Mirror Lake, and Beyond the Lines.
Linda K. Sienkiewicz is a writer, poet, and artist.
Learn more about her multi-award winning novel, In the Context of Love.
Learn more about her picture book, Gordy and the Ghost Crab.
Learn more about her poetry chapbook, Security
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