a creation day
on finding sacred spaces and making things
Hi friends, today I write from a liminal space for so many reasons. I am not focusing on the details, but rather the details of what we create for ourselves. This knowledge, the comfort of knowing where to go, what to do.
right now
It is midday. I am standing in the corridor under a fan. Too much in me to sit and hoping that gravity will do its thing. I believe to be in a moment between one explosion and another as I text this. Hope I am wrong. One heated encounter was already more than enough, especially with this heat (thus the fan).
Darn, doing family for real is hardcore. And with all the experience I have with this type of hard, I really don't know how the intensity seems to shock me every time. And I can’t believe that I thought that being in a house again after so many years on wheels would magically make my life like a perfect script, transform us into the family we see in ads for mattresses and laundry detergent where nothing upsets a great night’s sleep and no situation is too muddy or stained to effortlessly make whiter than white and squeaky clean again.
This reminds me of a line from Summer Koester’s Bare HEARTS that made me laugh empathetically.
“Normal would be my daughter not screaming when we eat dinner together or play music. It would be sleepovers and birthday parties, sending your kid to school while you work, getting more than ten hours away from your children in 14 years. Yeah, that’s not our family.”
And this, which comforts me in these moments - “Our daily normal is what Glennon Doyle calls “brutiful”—brutal and beautiful, like Alaskan weather.”
Does doing family for real feel hardcore for you too or is it just me?
Gosh, am I feeling in awe with Alice Kuipers and how she gets any writing done. And remembering one of her best Bare HEARTS lines - “This is the life I have!” You know a line is powerful when it always u-turns you back to gratitude.
Fresh in my mind, the looping of thoughts regarding grief, adolescence, addiction and recovery, and major life shifts. Lots of my humans involved. Me smack in the center of it, trying to hold it all up; it feels like walking on a piece of waxed floss in stilettos with bad knees (oh yeah, remember last year, my other knee is hurting now. No coinky-dink).
And… I am paying so much attention that each of the four parts of every breath are being experienced as clear, in-the-middle-of-atmosphere moments. A non-place aura - what is coming next? Honestly, even here do we ever know what that next quarter of a breath will bring?
But more than reasons, a sensation swooshing over me like a wave. I choose trust, allowing myself to soften, relax enough for my being to float.
I trust that I am safe - inner chaos, brain fog, the momentary moments of helplessness as I extend and extend and extend myself (how far can a human heart stretch before snapping like a molded rubber band?) - saved by deep connection and love.
How is it that I feel myself consistently moving forward to a better place with all this exhaustion? It must be the trust. Allowing myself to free myself of expectations of how my life should be, how my brother should be, that everyone should understand each other and get along, how I should be able to save everything within reach.
(I need to share this - unlimited virtual access does not feel like an asset at times. When is it okay to shut down? Do you feel this too?)
This was never your job sweetie. Being a loving momma, daughter, wife, sister, aunt, human - it is not this. Supporting and saving are two different things. Put that burden down.
Find yourself a fan, stand on the sidelines, and encourage them to create their own sacred space.
I float in faith, in faith of everything. ‘I allow’ is to make me buoyant, to spoon myself. It is beautiful.
Today I would normally publish a new edition of Bare HEARTS, and I had a special one planned to keep celebrating our one year anniversary, but I just couldn't. No justification. Just permission to not follow the plans.
Take a moment to feel these words seep and soak within. Full permission to go outside of the lines, program, routine, rules. Not follow the plan. Create something different. Not because life did not go as planned, but because you are choosing for you. What is best for you honey? Do this.
Breathe it in. Breathe it out. Today I give myself permission to stray with full trust that it will take me exactly where I am meant to be.
Can we do this with our day, our deadlines, our deeds, our art? Instead of creating something that feels like it may destroy a part of you, create from your heartspace? Free your friction and restrictions.
Breathe in. Breathe out. Let your whole body sigh, settle, drop, droop. Can you feel the lift with this loving act?
So no Bare HEARTS today. Maybe next week or maybe next month. It is all perfectly okay. Allowing ourselves a break will never strip away what was built with so much love.
As 🔥Sage Justice🔥 shared with us in her Bare HEARTS, “The people who know you the best, love you the most.”
Yes, they do.
Instead I share this…
this morning
I went to a funeral this morning. A beautiful friend lost his father.
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Last year at this time, we were still caring for my fil, preparing ourselves to say goodbye. I am learning that you are never ready, but you will learn something profound and intimate about yourself if you want to.
A year ago, I thought I was losing my husband too. How terrifying even from a 356-day distance. How to make peace with loss is one of our greatest challenges. Maybe because it touches one of our greatest fears - to be abandoned, left alone. It doesn't matter what causes it. The idea of being only me for too long is worse than almost anything.
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The truth is that I never enjoy going to church. When I first came to Italy, I remember feeling like I couldn’t breathe inside what for most are sacred walls. The 4 walls, the ceiling, and the floor felt as if they were closing in on me. As if I would be crushed and sucked in at the same time. As if a brutal faced man was jumping out of the fresco, pointing his massive sword at me. I would begin to sweat in every season. I felt badly about this. Especially as I took my attention off of myself and noticed the little, old lady with the skirt and stockings singing along as if she was being transported straight to heaven with every collective Lord and mercy.
It still happens. Loss of breath today, as I tried not to look at the paintings that felt like 3D violence for me. Too bad there were no glasses to remove like in the movie theater.
As I heard the word sin repeated 10 times in the first 10 minutes (before I forced myself to stop counting the peccati and replacing this with air in, air out) and as I read the sign, the angels will come to separate the good from the bad, words that my heart chooses not to connect with.
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We are all humans here, some of us wounded more than others. Some of us can work with our wounds to form love. Others cannot and their wounds cause them to do atrocious things. My heart knows that we all took our first breath in the same way… it was innocent, pure, impeccable.
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This is when I began to breathe. I have learned not to sit there in resistance and judgment. Instead I create a meditative moment for myself. I create love.
My favorite part is when we are invited to reach out our hands in peace. I really like this part.
At the end, my friend, barefooted and dressed in wonderful, white linen, went up to the altar and asked us to close our eyes for a moment of silence. We finished with 3 Oms. It felt so right, so nice. I understood that it was never the space, but what we bring to it that matters.
And even liminal is sacred, a sacred space of waiting. Waiting for old ideas and identities to be washed away, for new ones to ride in. So here I am floating.
later this afternoon
“When a story stops serving you the best way to honor it is to lay it down and let it go. A good story will get you where you’re going, but it will also give you room enough to rewrite it entirely.” - Duane Toops
My daughter went to work. My other daughter is working too. My husband is somewhere that is not here. And I am home alone. Settling into silence. I place a cloth over the table and then cardboard. I pull out my ‘tools’. And I start to paint. And life feels good and right and in place again. I am learning to be the artist I have always been. Once again, from a different source, I am reminded that the struggle is just as sacred as the sweet. As I experiment and explore my creative style, I know that even here I am doing important work. So much humility involved. Feeling not good enough. Feeling ridiculous at times. Resisting the urge to compare what I am creating with the masterpieces others make. What I learn about myself through moments of doubt on the canvas will be something I will be able to use when things heat up in my home or in my heart. In moments when I risk losing breath.
I am working on a piece entitled, tears are also water. I close my eyes and feel those 3 last om’s massagging my body, landing sacredly within. It is what we create on the inside as we move through spaces, places, our beautiful lives.
I look down at my art. I see messy. I see gorgeous. Maybe just because I created it. This feels like enough to love something.
Am I still in the thick of it? I am not sure if it feels whole yet. And isn’t this an important thing to feel. Knowing when it is time to say this one is finished. I am finished here. I can move on. A piece of art. A job. A conversation. An argument. A relationship. A life.
I think about something I said to my husband as the two of us continued the argument. He believes I am too soft with her. I believe that I am fair and realistic.
When our daughter is crying and creating tall walls, it is useless to keep pushing. A wall will never budge. It will resist all your reason. And all the ways you attempt to explain that what you are saying comes from love and care are absolutely useless. Walls do not listen. They do not melt. Better to find a way to open a window and let some air flow in.
He just couldn't. She cried. He insisted. I fell silent.
Even after my daughter left, more walls, both his and mine.
And then I said, honey, are you ready to create a window of possibility with me?
(To be honest, he didn’t answer. He left taking his wall with him. I don’t know when or how this will end. My job now, make peace with not knowing.)
Knowing when it is time to say that this one is finished. Not every battle needs to be beaten. Many need to be met, two sides meeting in a liminal space and then hand in hand walking outside together.
The most wonderful thing about when we place ourselves in a state of creation is that we are not destroying. And often we may not see ourselves moving forward, but we are. Because creation leads to more creation. Always.
day’s end
Ugo was a successful man. He worked hard his entire life. He made money. He bought cars and nice shoes. He owned houses in Sicily and The Canary Islands and Bali. The last weeks of life, something shifted. He decided he needed silence and to sleep in his son's RV - with its makeshift bed. He spent hours looking at nothing and grounding his feet into soil. No more houses. No more shoes. He died on the tiny compost toilet. In the water below, floating, he let himself finally go. His son found him. Something sacred made here.
I think about my beautiful, barefoot friend. Fatherless today. So strange. I feel so much for him. Yesterday he was still a son with a father on this Earth. Then, without warning, maybe just a quarter of a breath decided that this life - Ugo’s life - was complete, that other lives would move on.
It happens with death. It happens every time something ends…
other lives must move on. may we move on with memory…
Again, I return to this morning - the echo of 3 primordial hums of the universe and the layer it laid within me.
peace. trust. anchor. creation. i am. i will be.
This thing right in front of you, finished or unfinished, steady or wobbly, clear or fuzzy, heated or cooled down, lost or discovered - what is sacred is up to us. We decide. We create this.
We won’t always be able to create something beautiful. Can we accept ourselves? Not take it as a reflection of who we are. Can we be loving and gentle with the things we are not pleased with? Whatever you create today is simply what you create today. It is just a moment.
Begin, begin again. Begin with one grounding question. Not where am I? Not where am I going? But what am I creating now and what bodily experience is it transporting me to?
So all of this… a series of meditative and not so meditative moments that make up a complete day - every day can be a creation day.
As I told my daughter earlier, through the hard and the easy, this life and all that it makes you experience and feel, belongs as it is. Layers of you making up who you are. Learn this early, learn to love this now, butterfly.
I told this to my brother right out of rehab. I told this to a friend this morning. I am telling this to myself.
I have discovered through painting that layers are important, that what remains beneath the surface has an impact, that it will seem like a mess many times but then it all comes together. And that every act of creation will leave you with something to clean up and scrub off at the end. Something however, will always remain. This something is sacred.
As the sun grows darker, I know that it is time to pack up my supplies and clean my hands off - with all the uncertainty. Still unsure of so much. What is finished, what is whole, and what isn’t ready to end yet? Can I be okay with this? Can I feel thankful?
closing intention
“…And now, look at me floating, my center strong with gratitude, as I hold myself above the water…” - Corie Feiner (from her poem, Boat Pose)
I choose to love my life today, this life that I have right now. Because if I don’t choose who else will choose this for me?
Nobody. It is up to me.
It is up to me to create something. The sacredness of a moment, a day, a life - is in continuing to make things. And float with it.
my heart reaching out towards yours, xo Danni
If you missed this…
We are bare. We are beautiful.
Hi all and welcome to the One Year Anniversary edition of Bare HEARTS. Today we are going to revisit the first 13 Bare HEARTers. Maybe you missed some of them. Maybe you want to go back and reread some of the conversations. I personally love doing this. Maybe you will be generous with your thoughts, experiences, and emotions and breathe new life into the ones that resonate with you the most. And maybe this generosity will extend to a share, a restack, a paid subcription, the purchase of a book or workshop, an invitation for an entirely new collaboration, a beautiful friendship. Know that I would love this last one the most - it is the most lasting.
love this and your painting. also that warm blue is my favorite color of all colors.
Danni, “a window of possibility” gives this day its relational opening: when walls cannot hear, creation lets air return before anyone knows how the conflict will end. Your painting, tears are also water, carries the same movement through color and layers, giving grief, family strain, breath, and unfinishedness somewhere to coexist. Releasing the planned Bare HEARTS issue makes permission tangible; the day itself becomes evidence that straying from the plan can still be an act of care. Thank you for showing how creation can become a sacred practice of staying present while resolution remains beyond reach.