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Gathering the Ingredients Hi, my name is Ruby Josephine Smith and I am a dancer. I have blonde hair and blue eyes and magical powers.

I kid you not that is how every single one of my partially-finished middle school novels started. I have dozens of old notebooks full of that opening line, describing different heroines, different hair and eye colors and continuing on into various fantastical scenarios involving dragons, fairies, pirate princesses and girls who just happen to be blessed with every super power imaginable

I wrote about these heroines because I wanted to be these heroines. Now that I am in my 20s I may not personally have developed magical powers exactly, but I am steadfastly determined not to let magic leak out of my life.

How am I defining magic, you may ask?

Magic is the stuff that leaves us in awe. That makes us question, find an answer, and then realize the answer is in the form of a new question. Magic is what brings opposites together, connects ideas and gives us “aha moments,” as a very dorky old math teacher of mine used to say. Simply? I think magic is art, and I practice that magic in the form of dance. I may be going a little too far into this analogy since I recently devoured the book Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert, but I stand by it. It reminded me that creativity and this artistic magic are things bigger than ourselves. As Gilbert muses, “…the truth is, I believe that creativity is a force of enchantment—not entirely human in its origins.” Creativity may be God-like in it’s force (note: an idea to explore deeper in the future), but it is constantly attainable if we are in full awareness of it.

-Elizabeth Gilbert, Big Magic

Okay so all of this is to say that the goal of my writing and posting here is to combine these ingredients and accumulate all of the inspiring and magical things that I continue to discover. Posting mostly from my little space in Tangier, Morocco, I will be drawing lines between my love of writing, traveling, experimenting with baking & cooking, amateur photography, reading a vast variety of books, sketching, poetry, music that hits you deep, and of course my work in contemporary dance. I am in fact trying to find a center around which all of this revolves and share the journey with you. Can’t wait to see who’s with me.

Books, Creative LivingRuby Josephine SmithJuly 15, 2016art, beginnings, big magic, books, dance, inspiration, life8 Comments