K is for Knowing

From the memoirs of Billie Harper, looking back on her learning journey.

There is a difference between belief and knowing. Belief hopes. Knowing trusts.

I didn’t always understand the difference—until I read Diana’s journal from 2029. She’d written, “I want to believe the world will be okay, but I don’t feel it in my bones yet.”

That line stayed with me.

Knowing came slowly, not as a bolt of truth, but as a settling. A deep exhale. It was the day we re-seeded the saltbush fields after a long dry. The soil cracked like tired hands. There was no rain in the forecast, and still—we planted. Not from faith, but from knowing: rain would come, because it always had. And even if it didn’t, we would adapt.

During the Rebuild, there were countless stories like this—people acting with quiet conviction in the absence of proof. Building learning trails. Starting community kitchens. Returning to Country. They weren’t waiting for signs. They were becoming them.

We often say “all will be well” as comfort. But in Knowing, it becomes something else. It’s not about certainty in outcomes—it’s the certainty that we are equal to what life brings. That we hold enough wisdom, together, to meet the moment.

This kind of Knowing lives deep in the body. It hums beneath fear. It rises in stillness. It’s what steadied my mother as she raised me. It’s what guides me now—and fills me with quiet joy as I watch my children, Bo and Lena, step into their own lives with grace..

If you’re still in the place of hoping, that’s okay. But when you’re ready, sit quietly with yourself. Beneath the noise and doubt, you may feel it too—
A quiet voice saying:
You know.
You always did.