Know how you just know?
I know.
Yet, I don't know HOW I know, just THAT I know.
And as it turns out, the only time I am truly interested in knowing "how" I know is when I feel like I'm not knowing something I want to know.
You know? (I know you do.)
I met Kaitlin Wiza years ago in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin, as part of an incredibly vibrant group of creatives out to change the world. I was writing a song with someone who was close with her, and while she and I never wrote anything together, we just knew. You know? We KNEW. We were kindred spirits. Meant to be friends.
Fast forward a decade or so. I knew she was teaching, I knew she was an excellent writer, and Facebook let us keep in touch so we were at least minimally aware of the major events in each other's lives, or at least, the ones we cared to share on social media.
If you're reading this, you very likely know I'm a singer, songwriter, and poet. I take a photo and set it to haiku most every day as part of this Haiku Milieu series (and more recently, the #IAmTristanHearMeRoar series, which reaches into life's darker crevasses via the expressions on my cat Tristan's face.)
So of course I love to make things by myself. But I also really, really love making things with other people.
Kaitlin had the most incredible response to one of my photo and haiku. As I read it, I just KNEW. I was not at all interested in how I knew, only that I knew.
I asked if she wanted to make something together.
Thrillingly, she said yes, sent me audio of her speaking the words she'd written, and this Collaboration Blog was born.
NOW.
Care to experience the force-multiplier impact of collaboration?
Read what Kaitlin wrote. Then, watch the video.
If you feel like it, tell me what you experienced.
BONUS POINTS if you express it in haiku. :)
Ready? HERE WE GO:
The photo and haiku:
Kaitlin's response:
"🙏Yes, owning (big action verb here) our own garbage, admitting fault, and not reacting emotionally from old, worn out thoughts is nothing but cathartic.
We cannot always be in the “right”, and intentions are not action- hence, not “right”. Magical thinking is theory until put into practice and met with grit.
Actively listening to the critiques of others allows us to break the cycle of habitual, programmed behavior that keeps us stuck. There may be a greater life lesson to learn; a lesson which is re-learned through every difficult experience we encounter.
I believed I had conquered this notion three years ago, but surprising illness has a way of teaching our already learned lessons on deeper levels.
We are called to re-integrate and do so often."
Click here for the video.