Our need to Collaborate
This is the 2nd of 3 blog entries elaborating on the recent IG Live* I did with Meg Brackett, my marketing genius.
2. Tell me about the role collaboration plays in fostering your creativity?
I’m at ease creating on my own, making art or writing just for myself. But I’m never really alone in it. In creating and healing, I am a Hollow Little Bone that allows Spirit / the Muse / the Universe to move through me and to be of service. I feel frustration when I as the channel get clogged, but yet I do trust that something will come. That is the process of making. Yet when my finished works want to go out into the world to interact with others, I need human partners.
Two becomes Three when the Unknown can emerge
For instance, I had a friend who loved doing the research and matchmaking necessary to submit my short stories to the appropriate literary magazines. She’s why I’ve been published. She made a bridge between me as writer and others as readers.
When I’ve performed in live literary readings, my voice and body are the bridge for my characters and their story to connect with an audience. I need these attentive strangers to receive the story, to take it in as an interpretative collaboration, to make what they will of it. I can feel in the moment, their response to this new material. It’s a profound sense of belonging as one voice in community.
Another example of collaboration is Meg, a great creative partner. First, we built my Deep River Healing website together. Our creative collaboration took a whole new direction once we featured my collages to set the tone for my offerings. By going along and taking a detour, we made the website that the spirit of Deep River Healing wanted.
And ever since, Meg’s encouraged me to pursue new ways to get my creative and healing work out there, including doing some IG Live dialogues. Since working with her, I’ve created some group offerings like an online masterclass that included collaborating with the host and her marketing team. I’ve offered seasonal healing circles, teaching with a colleague friend. Our collaboration has been very fruitful, the generating of our offerings has been fluid, and the sharing of leadership back and forth has been with joy and ease and good humor.
From Meg I’ve learned some marketing skills and am constantly in Beginner’s Mind with trying to discern what my healing practice and my creative practice want to be. Now with Meg’s help, Now I’m starting to transform some of my art works into limited edition prints for sale. See the mockup below.
Framed ‘Discover’ print
So, we are never meant to do it alone. Some of us grew up overly self-reliant, and I’ve learned so much this past year about what can grow when I make space for a creative partner. I can transcend my limitations by inviting others to share their gifts with me and vice versa. Collaboration is how we get things done together!
JOURNALING
Where in your life do you experience fruitful collaboration?
What makes it easy to work with and co-create with someone? A shared intention? Listening and being heard? Openness to outcome? Non-attachment to one’s own way of doing things?
What stops collaboration? A diverging sense of purpose? A rigidity or unwillingness to try new things? A mismatch in perspective?
Is surprise, inspiration, and positive outcome more likely on your own? Or with a good collaborator/s? Or both in different ways?
I’ve tried to discern when it’s time to work on my own and when it’s time to collaborate, for which parts of what projects. Knowing I’m part of something larger than me either way is helpful.
