danbisroom

[danbisroom]

Ep. 28 - This World Where I Can Reach You

Hello my beloved fellow souls,

welcome back to Danbi’s Room, your weekly dose of safe space. Go grab a cup of something warm and get yourself cosy.

I hope that during the past week you were able to handle hard conversations and to clear your path to a more comfortable and truer version of yourself.

Might seem a bit unusual employing the word “comfortable” when talking about rediscovering the innermost depths of yourself, but honestly why’d you ever move such stormy seas if it weren’t to feel better. We’re not here to suffer. Obviously suffering and pain are part of our life, they certainly have their own place and importance but they’re definitely not the goal are they?

Why do we live?

We just live and feel, the cosier the better.

Hard times are coming anyway, it’s the balance of the universe. Other feelings, too, they always come.

The point is that, in my opinion, as long as we’re not harming and hurting others, we should welcome all of it. We need to feel the feelings you know.

Now, this is naturally gonna look differently on everybody, as always. Different to the extent that a processing method that’s perfect for you might be destructive for me and vice versa. Somebody is gonna need weeks and somebody else a couple of hours. There’s no collective guideline, only what we deem as best for our needs.

For example, I’m very visceral and raw. To me everything is gut wrenching and that can look like a cascade of sparkly bliss but also like an ominous chasm of anguish and sorrow. In the latter case it might look alarming, disturbing even, but that’s my way. I feel deep into my bowels and my womb, it’s a whole internecine war happening in the pitch black of my own abyss. Lots of beasts and mysteries to unravel. It used to be hard, very hard, because I thought it was wrong to feel everything so very deeply. You know, as if there were a singular approach to feel, as if everybody was supposed to feel the same things in the same way. That’s noticeably false.

Now that I know and I am confident in what works for me I’m even comfortable in it. I don’t harm myself, I don’t beat my head until it unbearably hurts in the hopes of numbing myself and making all that disappear.

Now I vent for a few hours, sometimes I cry, and yhen I let it all out. I quite literally expel it, like slag. When I feel lighter I am finally free to assess the situation that caused the distress and to decide what to do with it.

I understand it is rather brutal and in the past, even recent past, people close to me have witnessed this and they were justly troubled by it: it mustn’t be a nice vision seeing a friend in that state. It’s surely isn’t. What does this teach me? That I ought to communicate more about my needs, because that’s crucial not only to respect myself but also to respect others, especially people I love and by whom I am loved.

You see, these are the people I care about the most, the people who hugged me tight even if they hate physical affection, the people who collected my tears.

My angels and my warriors.

My pack.

The people with which I will fly so gloriously we don’t hear nor see the mockery of the past anymore.

Flying gloriously doesn’t necessarily mean flying the highest. Sincerely, to me, it means flying together to chill on the prettiest and softest cloud to rest and chit-chat till the next sublime tempest makes her way into the sky. Till we’re well rested and ready to face another unfamiliar gaze. My suns and stars shining in my life, the humans lifting the corners of my mouth into a smile by just existing, now and forever.

Today’s song recommendation is Human by HAN, which was just released last Saturday. Our ace really never misses. It’s about being human and growing together. Enjoy.

I hope you savoured this episode and that you have a beautiful week ahead of you!

I’ll see you in the next one, big hug!

With love, yours,

Danbi

[danbisroom]

Ep. 27 - The Moment We Touch Each Other Amidst Stardust

Hello my beloved fellow souls,

welcome back to Danbi’s Room, your weekly dose of safe space. Go grab a cup of something warm and get yourself cosy.

I hope that during the past week you had some eye opening conversations. I hope that, like me, you’re surrounded by people who feel like a light and tender kiss on your forehead. I hope you feel loved and that you remember that who loves you does so because of who you are not for what you do.

Sometimes that might feel the same as a collision, as we are not used to that kind of love.

Usually, when stars collide, they give birth to new planets. But not always.

There’s a road not taken, at least not often. It’s scary and tortuous, but it allows you to slow down to your own pace and to witness the most sublime visions, some that only the Gods were able to see before.

You see, sometimes, when a star explodes as a supernova, she leaves behind a compressed core: a neutron star. Half a million Earths in a ball of 20km across.

If fate decides on such a grand event, two neutron stars meet and when they do they spiral towards each other, deforming by the hands of their own tides, shattering and collapsing into the creation of an all-sucking black hole, leaving only some particles to light up the event horizon.

What a beautiful name.

Event horizon.

The bubble between the black hole and the rest of the universe. The fine line where the complete darkness of possibilities meets their manifestation. Where the whirlwind of time and space, of two souls, has bore another world hatched from the filled chasm of lusters making love to each other amidst stardust.

They tear apart the somber eternal sky in order to create.

There’s a new interesting theory, which is the one about white holes.

Reversely, stuff can get out into the universe but it can never ever get inside the hole. Physicists have only theorised them, we have zero clues about their existence but someone has put out the idea that, since we don’t know how black holes die and are reborn into a new life, white holes might be the answer. Some even say the Big Bang might have been a white hole. If that were to be the case we’d basically have the ultimate proof of the truthfulness of eternity. Now, science doesn’t rely on gut feelings, as much as they can be a stimulus to start a research, but like…If I close my eyes and gently place a hand on my womb all of this makes so much sense.

Nothing’s a coincidence.

It's all so beautiful and special.

I am you and you are me, surrounded by each other’s gleams, caressing the specks of ancient stars reemerging on our own cheeks.

Beneath a black hole there’s a white one, always a new cosmos, another universe sewn by doom.

We’re all doomed to be reborn and swirl up the vast emptiness, so that we can go on and shine.

Today’s song recommendation is Black Hole by Bang Chan and I.N. You can definitely guess what it’s about but please, read the lyrics while you listen to the live version, it will make your heart full.

I hope you enjoyed this episode and that you have a beautiful week ahead of you!

I’ll see you in the next one, big hug!

With love, yours,

Danbi

[danbisroom]

Ep. 26 (Half 52) - We’ll Bask In The Shadow Of Yesterday’s Triumph

Hello my beloved fellow souls,

welcome back to Danbi’s Room, your weekly dose of safe space. Go grab a cup of something warm and get yourself cosy.

I hope you got to see a lot of beautiful things in the past two weeks. I hope you had the energy to slow down and look fondly at the positive that will come into your present if you let go of of the negative past. Don’t look back in anger my loves.

I’m sorry, in the end I failed you and ended up being absent for two weeks. I…was a bit sick last Monday and Tuesday and I couldn’t really keep my eyes open…forgive me.

I was thinking about a concept I’ve seen floating around in the past few months, which is that we get to a certain point in life, sooner or later, where we lose all contact with our own perception of life; we become disconnected from reality, alien to the present moment. Anxiety kidnaps our body and soul and we’re deprived of the magic which had been surrounding us. We don’t shine anymore even if deep within the Sun is still inside us.

Now we’re like inside a black hole, we’re swallowed up by darkness, As I’m not a physicist I’m not gonna delve into the specific properties and characteristics of black holes but there’s two things I find particularly fascinating. First of all we don’t actually see black holes: we can observe their silhouette through the “light” emanated by the deadly fate the celestial body around them meet.

That, at least in my view, directly leads me to the second object of my fascination: eye pupils. Black holes absorbing light engulfed and defined by jagged colours unique to each and every one of us. I’m not gonna get too deep with this, it’s just yet another reminder that “as above so below; as below so above”. It’s a very practical and substantive quote. As always what surrounds us and what constitutes us are one the mirror of the other. In my opinion that does add the sparkle of magic back, the magic of the small things: if the cosmos is magical so are our eyes, so is whatever they gaze upon. Everything shines, so shine and laugh and be wild. Embrace and welcome all the facets of the diamonds adorning your skin, all of the layers of your luscious petals. Bask in what others might call delusion but to you it’s the truthful vision of dreams, suggested to you by the gentle whisper of the sea breeze. Look at the Moon and bathe your hair in her silver rays while loving shadows caress your head. Free yourself of perfection ‘cause it doesn’t exist and, most importantly, it doesn’t matter at all. To be honest, as far as I’m concerned, I’m not very fond of symmetry. Given that perfect symmetry on a face is physically impossible there are still many faces around which are fairly symmetrical. Might be ‘cause I love drawing portraits but lopsided faces are so much more beautiful to me. So much more charming. They tell stories. A smile tenderly curving towards the right side of a visage lovely followed by downwardly slanted eyes, paused by a crooked nose decorated by messy curly hair…I’m always going to choose that over everything else.

Maybe you learn to love faces the way you learn to appreaciate food from different cultures and new genres of music. New art. You just need to domesticate yourself to it until you find the key of the immense amount of love you can pour inside of it. Something that completely changes your life and your outlook. Sometimes you don’t even notice its light making its way in your soul like a stream but one day you wake up, you feel it and you just have the sensation of being fuller and lighter and you start seeing colours again. Like good news after a year of numbness.

It might seem impossible but I can guarantee it’s possible. Miracles happen all the time and when they do we must be ready to see them, so we can go to the triumphs of our childhood and lay our bare feet on the soil again.

Today song recommendation is Shine On You Crazy Diamond by Pink Floyd. It’s a favourite of mine and it’s beautifully evocative in all of its parts. Just lay down and spoil yourself with 25 minutes of bliss.

I hope you enjoyed this episode and that you have a beautiful week ahead of you!

I’ll see you in the next one, big hug!

With love, yours,

Danbi

[danbisroom]

Ep. 25 - Run Through The Maze Like A Beast

Hello my beloved fellow souls,

welcome back to Danbi’s Room, your weekly dose of safe space. Go grab a cup of something warm and get yourself cosy.

I hope you had an amazing week where you could learn something new, even better if together with a loved one. Also, I hope you made sure to eat a lot of good food with your closest friends.

Exactly one month ago I was with my sister under the mercy of the Gods of the sky: we got hit by a storm, then the boiling sun ravaged our skin and took our breath, until another storm came to make us bow again, until, finally, the vault above our heads became blue again.

We did it for the pack.

We did it to extol our songs all together.

We did it to show we’re people who stay.

We stay, always.

No matter how deep our wounds get, how harsh the thorns ripping our skin apart are, we stay.

We lick our lesions and we continue to run. We keep running and holding on. We feel the strength of our past pushing us higher, so we can look ahead and fly. We fly over new forests, new mountains, where to set the foundations for our new home?

You may wonder why would we ever need a new home. Why some of us are so restless. We’re so attached to our roots, comfortably looking at the sea under the shadow of our mountains, yet we can’t stay still. We’ll find peace, we will, simply, there’s a force, a spirit embedded in our body and soul that compels us to wander around so that we can find our path towards our new home. I reckon it’s not actually all of us, lots just take care of our homeland. But some of us…we need to kiss the adventure of our dreams. That doesn’t mean we don’t love our birthland. We do, passionately, ‘cause it’s in our veins. It’s in our blood. We take the land with us, for it’s in our DNA, as much as exploring new spaces. As much as our strong and kind ancestors.

They arrived here following a sacred bull sent by the Gods. They stayed and loved this fertile soil. They became plenty, some years famine came, so they made promises to the Gods and ventured into new territories. That’s how we became many sister tribes, all united by the memory of the foremothers who trusted these cold rivers to quench the thirst of the babies who then became some of the strongest warriors the Mediterranean has ever seen. This migration always took place when Persephone comes back to the surface, which is why it’s called Sacred Spring.

Now, this can have various hues in its meaning and interpretations. The key is the need to change and move while staying loyal to our nucleus. During the last Spring, I moved back home. I must say, though, that after four years away it still kinda feels something entirely new. In a way it is, as nothing ever stays the same, be it myself or my homeland.

I made a pilgrimage back ‘cause I needed to, for a variety of reasons. You need to know who you are in order to become something else, you need to stand your ground to eat raw whatever blocks your next step. But I know I’ll move again, not too far in the future. It’s always a challenge, going higher and farther is rough, but it’s me and I’m gonna be okay.

I’ll survive.

We’ll survive, we’ll be faster and stronger and we’ll run like the proud beasts we are: we’re gonna meet a maze anyway.

Today’s song recommendation is (drum rolls) Miroh by Stray Kids (act surprised again). It’s about running, exploring, flying and mazes. Enjoy.

PSA next episode is gonna be in two weeks as on Monday I’ll still be abroad in the land of my boy Christopher Marlowe and his mate William Shakespeare. I pay you my respects.

I hope you enjoyed this episode and that you have a beautiful week ahead of you!

I’ll see you in the next one, big hug!

With love, yours,

Danbi

[danbisroom]

Ep. 24 - Fantastic Chemistry Peanut Butter Jelly

Hello my beloved fellow souls,

welcome back to Danbi’s Room, your weekly dose of safe space. Go grab a cup of something warm and get yourself cosy.

I hope you had a nice week. Even if it was tiring I hope it was still enjoyable. I received continuous unplanned surprises from the past week, a lot of ideas and a couple of epiphanies.

Now, you might be wondering what’s wrong with the title. Sometimes we need to change and with every seasonal shift I’m waking up to this more and more. After a full weekend spent among full-blown street artists I’ve been feeling grounded again, along with having made brand new discoveries about my own path. The point I’m trying to make is that we need lightness, too. Lightness is part of the balance of life and it can save us, too.

I love peanut butter. My fellow Italians might burn me at the stake for stating this but I love it. And it did somehow save me, not too long ago. During the time I took a break from Danbi’s Room I was in a place of great distress and I was also super busy. The perfect ingredients to cook a quite annoying dish: I couldn’t bring myself to eat but at the same time I needed a lot of calories.

So I just bought some jars of good peanut butter.

I was having it with jam on toast basically every morning and that allowed me to function and to avoid having panic attacks for breakfast. Now I’m back to taking half an hour to make myself the perfect breakfast for the day, but now, now I can. Now I have an amount of energy that I couldn't even fathom two months ago. I did what I could and that’s self care, too. That stage was part of the process that let me get to the present moment. I feel strong even with four hours of sleep after running around a town for forty-eight during my period, with the bare minimum supply of food and under crazy weather. Definitely something that shouldn’t be routine, but if you’re not constantly in a fight-or-flight state you can occasionally dwell in these adventures and actually enjoy them despite the fatigue. The street becomes your playground, crowds are your playmates. You have fun, you savour every second of it and you even lick your fingers at the end of it. You feel the community, the harmony it created and you remember why you do it. Why do you birth art? It’s always the connection and once you got that, there’s no turning back. It’s a jam of love, laughter and fun and as you get closer you’re able to see the full picture clearer and clearer. You see that making a kid smile with your antics means much more than getting your precious paintings into elitist white cubes where nobody actually cares, not even yourself. Art is to be shared with everybody. All you need is spirit and courage, to look outside and inside, and maybe you’ll recognise something and then acknowledge that feeling of inadequacy is not yours at all, it was passed down to you like a cruel heirloom. You know, before you see and feel something you can’t really decide whether to keep it or not. But once you do you certainly can. I’m emptying my jar of that feeling of inadequacy, so that I can finally fill it with something more…you know, mine.

Then I can smear it all over my life.

Then I can deepen my breath to give oxygen to those who can’t breathe.

Then I can enhance my strength to sustain those who can’t walk.

In the pack and for the pack, always.

May we all howl together while running through the forest.

Now I’ll go make myself some matcha latte and a bit of PBJ.

Today’s song recommendation is JJAM by Stray Kids (act surprised, pretend). Well…it’s about jam and I’ll leave you to build your own interpretation of it.

I hope you enjoyed this episode and that you have a beautiful week ahead of you!

I’ll see you in the next one, big hug!

With love, yours,

Danbi

[danbisroom]

Ep. 23 - You Wanna Get Down In The Shift Of Seasons?

Hello my beloved fellow souls,

welcome back to Danbi’s Room, your weekly dose of safe space. Go grab a cup of something warm and get yourself cosy.

I hope you were able to spend a beautiful week, where you made memories at which you will look back fondly, you know, nice memories that maybe can substitute ugly ones.

However you might interpret this, I wholeheartedly hope you had time to immerse your ears in the holy water of mother sea and hear her cosmic whisper. That’s silence that speaks, the primeval music of the womb. Water. It’s always water first, it’s always water at the foundation of creation. Even when heavy rain is hitting our face as if she wished to dig holes in it, that’s creation. Whatever sky stream pours on my face I’ll welcome it, I’ll let it carve the lines of the future on my bare face. Carving is one of the closest things we have to perpetuity and timelessness.

Carving.

Every being on Earth does it, somehow.

Rivers carve passages amidst ancient rocks, packs of wolves, walking, carve paths in the forest.

We carve pieces of our souls on metal as much as on people’s skin.

If you look closely, it’s all there.

But what is carving? What does it do?

It removes matter from a surface.

Isn’t it incredible? We excise material and that affirms and often defines our presence. Absence edged by luscious vegetation. A rhythm of fullness and emptiness setting the tempo for the dance of life, beautifully abandoning our bodies to the wind. Sometimes it’s lonely, but then I think that, again, that cavity is, in fact, something I can still cherish. I remember that without presence I could never have the absence and thus, I’m relieved. I know that when I don’t meet my love in my dreams it's because other times I do, I know how to be in the company of other seasons when it’s not Autumn because then he comes to embrace me and kiss my lips at the break of dawn, in between rumbling trees. If I miss someone it’s because they were present and they’re going to be so again.

I came to love the tear burns at the edges of my big eyes and the white acne scars on my shoulders that melanin doesn’t cover. The hint of past stitches on my left brow and the small bump of my once-broken nose that remind me that, had it gone slightly differently, I may not have been here, at least not as I am now.

That’s to say that the unknown is a river surrounded by shores of well known and we just need to find the right ford to calmly cross it.

That’s to say that every leap of faith is an act of trust towards a lapse of space. Great things happen during that short moment in between our breaths, when our lungs are completely empty. Stories begin in the moments of silence, like when the horizon is foggy and the sea and the sky perfectly merge and flow into each other, intertwining in love.

I can still feel the trail of those eyes, the echo of that asymmetrical smile generating entire constellations. I want to see it again and may its absence feed my spirit. May I have the strength to make the engine of my psyche and flesh be powerful enough to move water and direct my ship to the place where the sun rises.

And may you share this strength.

Today’s song recommendation is Don’t Stop The Clock by King Gnu. It’s about love, dreams and seasons. Don’t cry, my loves, and take a leap forward.

I hope you enjoyed this episode and that you have a beautiful week ahead of you!

I’ll see you in the next one, big hug!

With love, yours,

Danbi

[danbisroom]

Ep. 22 - We Don’t Leave This Path We’ve Walked, Even If There Is No Eternity

Hello my beloved fellow souls,

welcome back to Danbi’s Room, your weekly dose of safe space. Go grab a cup of something warm and get yourself cosy.

I hope that during the past week you were gifted with a beautiful core memory. It doesn’t have to be grand or anything flamboyant, “just” something that made you happy and which will put a a big fond smile on your face when you think about it.

I admit that this time around I don’t really know where to start. What I know is that my heart is full of love and gratitude. I can wake up and look east, towards the sea, and every morning witness the red slanted lights of dawn. I can look at the clouds moving, hear the sky in its full rage and majesty and smell the scent of sweet rain. I can immerse my soul in the soft embrace of the blue hour and listen to the sultry whisper of the evening breeze. Right now I can turn my head and look at the same ocean of olive trees I looked at growing up. I have people to love with all of my being in the past, in the present and in the future. People I live for. I am blessed with enough tranquillity to have the time and energy to think about this. To remember Sundays in bed watching Studio Ghibli movies with loads of food, to still feel the fragrance of a gentle touch when dancing with our eyes closed. I can bathe in the gaze whose immense love let me get a glimpse of the future and I can lull myself in the bliss of hearing instrumental music while I draw portraits next to a fairy who’s creating worlds.

Amidst all my anxieties and my break-downs, I still have the privilege to access all of this and I can’t help but stare at it in amazement. In awe. The same awe our ancestors experienced when admiring our galaxy at night. Because, you know, all of that, all of those pictures, those are my galaxy. Not just my world. They’re an entire system of stars and planets and everything else, united in my eyes and in my spirit by the limitless love I have for them. I’m never stepping out of it. This, this is who I am and I’m not stopping. I’m not quitting, ever. There certainly are places still unknown in this bright galaxy, but I know I just need to go my way, even when going my way means going astray on a lonely street.

But remember that even when we’re lonely we’re not alone.

If you need it, come to me. Find your galaxy, let’s make stars collide so that new ones can be born.

I’m sorry if this episode’s shorter, but that's really all I know today. I only know I’m filled with love and that I love you all, with every atom of my celestial soul. I hope you can take some of it and love yourself too.

Today’s song recommendation is Stray Kids, by Stray Kids, about Stray Kids. It’s pure love essence.

I hope you enjoyed this episode and that you have a beautiful week ahead of you!

I’ll see you in the next one, big hug!

With love, yours,

Danbi

[danbisroom]

Ep. 21 - Maybe This Is Outside The Oasis

Hello my beloved fellow souls,

welcome back to Danbi’s Room, your weekly dose of safe space. Go grab a cup of something warm and get yourself cosy.

I hope you’ve had a nice and eventful week and that this one has started with the right foot. I hope you had the opportunity to explore new perspectives. Personally, I learnt more about my own resilience. I learnt that, with and for people I love I can withstand two heavy storms in a day. We might theoretically know or at least guess these qualities within ourselves, but physically encountering them is different, you know. By that I don’t mean it’s more real. Everything is real, if you feel it it’s real. What I wish to imply is that we also need to sense it on our skin, be it in the cruelty of heavy rain or the sweet warmth of the gaze of our most beloved. It’s a whole other shade of perception. It is indeed outside the oasis of our internal and individual mind, in a dimension where the sky could change in any moment. There you see that you can still grow, that you can plow through the storm to then harvest lost versions of yourself. Seeds are planted in darkness and they’re actually also born in darkness. A lot of plants even go back to the underground womb of the soil every year. Going repeatedly back to darkness multiple times does not mean you aren’t growing: if anything, quite the opposite. Sometimes you don’t see it but it’s still happening. After each time you rest in darkness you grow a bit taller, that’s how it is.

Times only stops when it ceases to exist. Actually, time only stops when it is not perceived anymore. That’s why we crave symbols so much, we crave for signs, we crave for a witness of our presence. We viscerally desire something we can leave behind. We long for engraving our breath on the tallest mountains.

Engraved traces.

Our traces are scars.

Scars are paths. Paths are scars.

No walk is easy but each of them is precious and beautiful.

It’s okay if you don’t know towards where you’re headed. I don’t even know if there’s an actual destination.

Maybe not. Maybe it depends. Maybe it doesn’t really matter.

There are always good surprises anyway. One day we wake up and we realise something that seemed really far is actually fairly near.

Some other times being positive becomes tiring. Believing is tiring. Having faith is tiring.

We need to see, we need to hear, we need to touch.

Our souls need to be physically fed as much as our body.

Dreams are the air of the soul.

Our spirit breathes dreams in and out but we undoubtedly have the necessity of drinking love and of eating the flesh of our aspirations. We need to hug the silhouette of our sweat. We need it very much. Like, physically. If your soul is not nourished you’re just an artificial shell. Maybe well decorated and apparently functioning, but nevertheless…

What to do? I would like to have an answer. The only thing I can do is to be here, reminding you that scar after scar the path becomes larger and clearer. I hate to admit I have no other answer. I promise, though, that I am really going to be here, always. You can always come to me, for anything and everything. I will kiss your scars until they start shining. I’ll cover you whenever you need shelter. Whenever thunders are to noisy, whenever you completely destroy the skin of your fingers, whenever you can’t eat, whenever you hate yourself.

I will protect you all.

Promise.

Today’s song recommendation is Maybe by Han. It’s about crossing this harsh and burning world, about looking for and finding trails. We will.

I hope you enjoyed this episode and that you have a beautiful week ahead of you!

I’ll see you in the next one, big hug!

With love, yours,

Danbi

[danbisroom]

Ep. 20 - Let’s Run Together, I’ll Be Your Oasis

Hello my beloved fellow souls,

welcome back to Danbi’s Room, your weekly dose of safe space. Go grab a cup of something warm and get yourself cosy.

I hope you’ve been well. I’m really sorry for my repeated and lengthy absence. In the past few weeks my life has shape-shifted quite a bit and my Sundays have been pretty hectic. I wasn’t in the mindset to hold safe space for you guys so I just went on a break. Now I am definitely on the way to be back on track, and I totally am on this platform, but with a slight change: Danbi’s Room is going to be moved permanently to Mondays. There are two main reasons for this decision: it’s easier for me to be consistent given my weekly routine; secondly, after all, Sunday is still Chan’s Room day, and in hopefully manifesting it will come back someday, I prefer switching to Monday. Maybe is out of respect, or also to differentiate, I don’t know, I’m just following my guts.

So, how have you felt the energies of this Solstice? It’s been two weeks now, so we’ve fully settled into the new season. The Sun is waning in the Boreal Emisphere and waxing in the Austral Emisphere. It’s a time of great changes and I hope you can welcome them all. We have a lot of resistances inside of us. I’m not talking about being strong and resilient, that’s always positive. What I’m referring to is everything which is frozen and tense in our heart: we’re immensely hurt by all of that, yet it is often too hard to acknowledge those wounds in the first place. Let alone loving them. Even more difficult to let them go. Or, better, to untangle them, to untie all of those knots. We’ve grown morbidly attached to these lumps and we’re terrified of letting them loose. What is going to happen? Will we be swept away by the avalanche of awareness the knots were safely holding in walls? We’re numb even to the physical pain at this point. It hurts but we quickly turn our attention away from the blades and the thorns tormenting our muscles, forcing them to an extreme, unnatural tension. I know, everything and anything might happen and that is far beyond terrifying. But I believe there’s a detail that might make it a bit more bearable. We automatically assume we’d have to let go of literally everything, leave all behind, untie all the knots at the same time and come out as a complete new and different person.

Pause.

Why the hell would you do that?

First and foremost, everybody has their own pace and they’re all equally valid. There’s no such a thing as the “right” pace. Even if you run slowly it’s fine. If you crawl it’s fine. If you’re still it’s fine. If you’re stuck it’s fine. This things all have their place in our personal paths. Most importantly, we’re still ourselves. We change, we shift, we find out new things and we rediscover others but it still us. And as diverse as the outcomes can be our steps are still all consequential. Even if we leap over a chasm, that leap is still after the step before. We can’t go and erase something just because. That’s unrealistic and noxious. Everybody has their own particular story. This means that there is a false narrative we can get rid of and we can be able to embrace the fact that we don’t have to abandon our post for something new. We have two hands: we can grab the new while still gently holding the old until we’re able to dance all together in a circle where we become all the same as one. The blur leaves space to the appearance of the oasis, oxygen comes back to our tired lungs and the going in and out, back and forth, inspiring and exhaling, composes a new melody. We go into each other’s heart to warm it up so it doesn’t ache anymore. And since we share the same dreams, if you’re tired, let me be your respirator.

Today’s song recommendation is Respirator by Han and Seungmin. It is about pain that takes your breath away, but that can be overcome together.

I hope you enjoyed this episode and that you have a beautiful week ahead of you!

I’ll see you in the next one, big hug!

With love, yours,

Danbi

[danbisroom]

Ep. 19 - This Is The Beginning Of Familiar Ends

Hello my beloved fellow souls,

welcome back to Danbi’s Room, your weekly dose of safe space. Go grab a cup of something warm and get yourself cosy.

I hope you had a nice week where you received, you know, some kind of revelation. Or where you managed to trust your guts a bit more. That’s really really really important.

Very often we're told to get out of our comfort zone, which is not a bad thing: it is, in fact, very good advice. It’s crucial to explore, to learn new things, to let our soul understand that mistakes are part of the process and that “not being good” at something is the exact reason why we start learning it. Not that “being good at” whatever should necessarily be the goal. I’m an overachiever myself, I crave knowledge more than anything else, sometimes even more than love. Ambition eats me alive every day and more often than not my life feels like a constant race against time to learn everything I can as soon as possible. But there are indeed a few things to break down here. First and most simple: we have all of our life to learn and discover and it’s never pointless. Learning should be pure joy, learning for learning’s sake. Socrates learnt a new tune with his flute, in his prison cell, just a few days before his execution. Why? Well, why not? We’re here to be happy not to be machines. Secondly, it still takes effort and sacrifice to learn: it can be tiring, we might feel like idiots and we might think about giving up. Actually, now and then, giving up could be the right choice to make. Sometimes something’s not for us, or it might be better to pursue it in the future. But there are definitely times where we just need to push a bit more. Motivation alone is not always enough. Be hungry, fight. Sink your claws in the flesh of your dreams, no matter what. Even Odin the Allfather sacrificed his own eye to eat the fish that granted him full knowledge. Last but not least, the former two statements don’t mean there’s a set definition of what all of this means. There’s no hierarchy in knowledge, nor in learning. What does it mean “to be good at”? We’re so used to capitalise on everything we forget that many things are just human things to do. Like eating, drinking water and sleeping. So are dancing, singing, making art and many other things. They’re beautiful, raw and human. Like breathing. Why do we make our life a synthetic product? That itself is not very human and it’s not very nice either. Our curiosity got us to do so many wonderful stuff, why do we let it decay into suffering? Why do we strangle ourselves until suffocation? We can’t breathe anymore, our vision’s blurry, thick fog is hunting our brain yet we’ve become so comfortably numb we don’t notice anymore. We forget we have our own hands pressing furiously on our own throat. Even in the rare moments of clear-headedness we don’t seem to be able to move them. We’ve sunken so abysmally deep into total discomfort that we’re not even gasping for surface, air and sun anymore. What is actually hard now is not getting out of the comfort zone, but rather to be able to go back to it. Letting ourselves be okay, go back home, be ourselves, feel good in our own skin. We don’t know that. We don’t even know where to look for it. Where’s home? Where’s the sky? It’s not even about finding answers anymore, it’s about creating them. Having no path makes you lost and astray but it also means you can go everywhere you want. You can let your instinct guide you home without useless noise. When discomfort is so familiar it might be a very good idea to begin to end it.

Listen and walk.

I’ll be right here.

It’s all good now.

Today’s song recommendation is Abysmal by Hannah Bahng, though I advise you to listen to the full EP from the beginning to the end. The abyss, my loves, has always much to say.

I hope you enjoyed this episode and that you have a beautiful week ahead of you!

I’ll see you in the next one, big hug!

With love, yours,

Danbi

[danbisroom]

Ep. 18 - Shatter my long-frozen heart to carve the proof of my life

Hello my beloved fellow souls,

welcome back to Danbi’s Room, your weekly dose of safe space. Go grab a cup of something warm and get yourself cosy.

I hope you had a nice week where you had the opportunity to slow down, or maybe you received some kind of good news.

I was reflecting on words that start with the letter C. Creativity and creation. Counter-intuitive. Courage. Clay. Colour. Can, as in the verb meaning “to be able to”. Carving. Cycle.

I’ve just been through a death cycle. Actually, I’m still coming out of it. But that’s slow, as it should. Planted seeds need their time to sprout. Nebulas explode during a climax, birthing millions of new lives, but it takes time for new stars to actually form. It takes time for the snake to shed its skin and it itakes time for the caterpillar to shift into its butterfly form. Creation, gestation, birth, growth, death. The constant circular flow, always the same and always different. Death is an act of creation: in fact, there’s a magical moment where the two overlap, intertwining as lovers, holding each other tight.

Now I’m kind of hermiting inside my shell, feeling the first rays of filtered sunshine, until, in a bit, I’ll be able to crack it and fly high and to the Gods again. It’s just how things are, we need to give ourselves grace to love them, too. I know I always end up talking about love, but in all honesty, one way or another, it’s really just about that. And I always, constantly, feel it. Always. Even when I’m out of myself in the pits of desperation, I feel love. I feel love holding my soul and my body. If I think about it, it’s such a nice thing. It’s soft and fierce at the same time. I think there’s nothing like it, it is the ultimate synthesis of everything. So choose love. Choose to direct your energy towards things that serve you and your contentedness. Contradiction might hide truth and treasures. What’s evil can reveal a kind side. Even apparent stillness continuously swings, all the time. Just see for yourself: stand up, close your eyes and observe the little dance your body wisely choreographs. We find warmth in a cup of hot and fuming cocoa, but fresh blood is warm, too. We admire waterfalls, jewels of the forest, then why do we frown upon pearls falling from our eyes? Suppressing flows is always bad. There’s a difference between pause and stagnation. Connect your bare feet to soil, and feel all the earth within you. Whisper to a tree, and hear your ancestral mothers giving you answers. What were you before your current form? Maybe a holy bull guiding a people to their land. Maybe a daisy adorning a bride’s hair. Maybe both. If you look carefully and patiently inside yourself you might be able to see that. Whatever you find, love it. Don’t let go, take a little walk in the world inside, call your own names, rest on the knowledge this will never ever end, for eternity. Walk in, untie your hair, lose your breath, empty your lungs to gain new air every time. Breathing itself is the junction of life and death. Everything’s odd, but all the odds are in your favour, so be extraordinary. There’s no easy part, but don’t let the noise blind your senses, go live and breath in life. Count five stars making a yellow wood and let the levanter wind guide you through the maze, hearing the gentle tinkling of those same rocks we call stars. It grows and grows until you finally understand the sound is from within you. You? This massive accident generating a cascade that tells a neverending story? You? Me? I am not, you might say. I am who, to hold all of the universe in my hands? It’s because you are me, and I am you. If you lead the pack, then let me be the shield of your neck.

Today’s song recommendation is Ichizu (One Way), by King Gnu. As trippy as this episode, but also as deep and questioning.

I hope you enjoyed this episode and that you have a beautiful week ahead of you!

I’ll see you in the next one, big hug!

With love, yours,

Danbi

[danbisroom]

Ep. 17 - If I can meet you beyond the seasons, could I call your name?

Hello my beloved fellow souls,

welcome back to Danbi’s Room, your weekly dose of safe space. Go grab a cup of something warm and get yourself cosy.

I must start with apologies since I disappeared for the past three weeks. I am very sorry, it was a rather difficult time for me, I made some life-changing decisions and I struggled a lot with my mental health. Now I feel better, I’m recovering and facing new things, and, honestly, this feels like a good, big breakthrough. I’ve never felt this fragile and vulnerable in my entire life, my heart is completely bare and as and as frightening as it can be it also feels like a fresh start. I can finally blossom and shine and actually be myself, stripping myself off of the countless burdens that have been stored inside my souls since before I was born. It’s difficult and tiring but I can do it, now, I’m ready. I got some very nice people, some right beside me, some afar, but nonetheless, I know we fill each other with love. Even when it’s hard, even when it’s scary, even when we only want to give everything up. Sometimes you just want to run away, run away from the world, run away from yourself. But run…where to? Where can you go? Is there a safe place anymore? Where do we go now? It seems like the only shelter can be nothingness. Blacking out every three days and sleeping for a year until, hopefully, we can wake up brand new. Then again what’s there to miss when the sun isn’t bright anymore, when it doesn’t caress your cheeks, when you can’t feel the seasons shifting, inside and outside of you. Why bother?

I don’t know.

I don’t have an answer.

I wanna bother because I still want to eat snacks watching Ghibli movies on Sundays, I still want to read stories together and talk about them for hours, I still wanna swim into the sea. These are the small things that make my life worth living. Hopefully, one day, I will get to laugh with my husband about how awkward we were on our first date and I will be able to witness the crazy colour era on my teen-age kids. Maybe I will pick my own tomatoes sipping lemon water among morning dew. I love these little things with all my heart, little things that are like fireflies at dusk in your flower garden. They serve no goals, they’re not slaves to human greed, they’re just beautiful and lovely. Often we hear we shouldn’t rely on little things, we’re told other people can’t be the reason we live and smile. So why should we live then? What other grandiose meaning is there? As much as my ambition demands bits of my souls every day, as much as it eats me alive, I’m still aware that even the Pyramids will turn into colossal wrecks buried by the sand of the desert. How many empires have we forgotten already?

So why should we live? Just to live. Just to experience and cherish these small things occasionally surrounded by revolutions. We already have enough pain, too much to be so eager to inflict more on ourselves. We’re constantly mourning the options we haven’t chosen and there’s no escape from that. But at the end of the day we must get to tomorrow, even if crawling while being hit by a thunderstorm. I’ll do it, so I can feel the wind of October kissing my skin once more.

You can always call my name and I’ll call yours until we find each other, finally being side by side, forever, even when we are specks of dust floating in the universe, I hope we can float together. And then we can form a new star together and shine for a long time until time doesn’t exist anymore. That would be nice.

A nice little thing.

Today’s song recommendation is 白日 (Hakujitsu) by King Gnu. Pure poetry delving into these questions and matters.

I hope you enjoyed this episode and that you have a beautiful week ahead of you!

I’ll see you in the next one, big hug!

With love, yours,

Danbi

[danbisroom]

Ep. 16 - Did I Say That I Loathe You? Did I Say That I Want To Leave It All Behind?

Hello my beloved fellow souls,

welcome back to Danbi’s Room, your weekly dose of safe space. Go grab a cup of something warm and get yourself cosy.

I hope you had a nice week where you could spare some time to be with yourself, relax and get creative, or have a nice day with loved ones.

I know, today’s letter title is pretty long. It’s that I believe it to be very important to ask those questions - it might be to yourself, to someone else, to what you do, to what you wake up for…to your creations. No matter the object of the question, I’m sure that, alas, your answer must have been “yes”, more than once. Maybe even a million times. It’s because it’s what we’re taught, since infancy, to loathe and to leave it all behind. It takes courage to love and stay. Loads of bravery and strength. It is hard. It really is. It’s natural to crumble, it’s normal to wish for an easier path, it’s completely valid to desire to give up. Sometimes we do give up. Maybe forever or maybe for just a second. Admitting these things is hard, too, coming to terms with the depths of our despair is indescribably frightening. Perhaps we get back on our feet countless times, we rise up stronger, even if more and more exhausted. There, there is the breaking point. We can’t take it anymore, we’re scared and tired of crawling back to standing on our trembling knees. We just want to lay down, feel soil sustaining our abandoned body, the wind whispering love poems in our ears, fairies gently dancing on our stomach until we are covered in soft moss. Until we dissolve in a pond gazing at the stars. We can do that. We have to do that. Oh to be a water lily surrounded by a veil of thin mist, adorned by gems of morning dew. Why can’t we just do that? Why can’t we just dance under the Sun, bathe in the Spring rain and sing to the Gods?

Maybe we could. Actually, we can.

It can also be a sort of state of mind. We don’t have to live trampling on others, nor merely being maneuvered through things we don’t want. Deep awareness takes courage and effort, but, in return, it guarantees total freedom. A kind of freedom nothing else can give us. Rising up from the darkness requires strength and bravery, standing tall is exhausting but enlightening.

It’s where you comprehend that love is not just love.

So, to answer the initial questions, I will love you, and I will stay.

I’m sorry if this was so much shorter that usual, I had a rough weekend, but I’m glad because it ended beautifully!

Today’s song recommendation is The Blower’s Daughter by Damien Rice, for times when you can’t take your eyes off.

I hope you enjoyed this episode and that you have a beautiful week ahead of you!

I’ll see you in the next one, big hug!

With love, yours,

Danbi

[danbisroom]

Ep. 15 - To Make Bright And Clear Your Path

Hello my beloved fellow souls,

welcome back to Danbi’s Room, your weekly dose of safe space. Go grab a cup of something warm and get yourself cosy.

I hope you had a nice week and that you’re fully enjoying yourself and the days you spend. I wish this can be a time to refresh our souls and be ready to welcome new things in our daily life, feeling them deeply.

There are places where time doesn’t exist. Or, better, places where you can feel the eternity of things. Where you can feel eternal yourself. Where it’s just you, the universe and the flow of life. The sun and the moon, accompanied by the clouds and the stars, give you the light and the reminder that you’re part of it all. The animals and the wind caressing leaves are your soundtrack. Is time lost? Is time hanging suspended? Is time astray? The truth is that we’re so obsessed with time we don’t even know what it actually is. We can witness its doing but we’ll never comprehend its essence. After all, being obsessed with what we can’t control nor understand is a very human thing. What actually matters is not giving up and giving in to numbness - numbness is deadlier than death: death is the gate to rebirth, numbness is a muddy limbo, a cage. The worst cage. We need to understand that every step must be singular and conscious, that slowness is mindful and fast. It gives you the opportunity to notice every single sparkle in the fire that is your soul, the hearth of your spirit. The fire speaks, it tells stories about the immensity of space, outside and within us. The middle ground to understand it all is our earth, where the mother mountains welcome the streams flowing into the great sea merge and then the sea merges with the sky. When we lay our feet on the bare ground and we immerse our body in the waters of this planet we are the closest to all of the cosmos. We are held. Immersing our ears we hear a sound that can’t be described. I can only say that, to me, that’s the visceral sound of the womb generating an archaic melody. It’s us, the universe and our deep breaths. And that’s actually a lot. Everything, even the most simple gesture, has, in itself, an immense complexity. Also, all things have hidden drawings and concealed singularities waiting to be discovered, precious gems adorning the wings of our soul. Like in the moment between sleep and wake, the dawn of life. Like subtle contact before touching someone else’s skin: the deepest form of understanding and contact. Touch goes beyond anything else: there’s a reason why we say “I feel touched”. Can souls touch? I think they can. In fact, I think souls can touch even before skin does. Why? Because souls are able to touch even from far away. They feel each other, merge, intertwine, in a dance that changes its pace continuously, exploding and pausing like the greatest symphony ever written. This is why we love music. And this is why we despise music that has no soul. And this is why we wholeheartedly love music that’s able to illuminate our way towards a bright path, leading us into the arms of who, as the poets say, is half of our soul.

What is crazy is that this can be scary, or at least it can seem so. Because we wanna be heroes too, and they never let you be both heroic and happy. But if we find enough strength to eat the world raw then maybe we can be heroes and be happy. If we follow our soul attentively enough we won’t be misguided. We will recognise our companion by their breath, blind, without even touching, by the sound of their steps on the ground. We would know them everywhere, even at the end of the world.

Because that’s our most beloved.

Today I exceptionally have three recommendations. A book, The Song Of Achilles by Madeline Miller, from which I got heavily inspired for the last paragraph; a movie, About Time by Richard Curtis, which inspired me to go back, once again, to my frequent reflections on the matter; finally, as always, a song (also part of the soundtrack of the aforementioned film), Into My Arms, by Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds: it’s about souls meeting and walking together.

I hope you enjoyed this episode and that you have a beautiful week ahead of you!

I’ll see you in the next one, big hug!

With love, yours,

Danbi

[danbisroom]

Ep. 14 - Part Of My Design

Hello my beloved fellow souls,

welcome back to Danbi’s Room, your weekly dose of safe space. Go grab a cup of something warm and get yourself cosy.

I hope you had a nice week and that this fourth month of the year has started off well, giving you the benefits of renewed energy.

We have a New Moon tonight. If you’re lucky enough to live away from the pollution of billions of artificial lights, stars will be all you see in the sky tonight. Stars are beautiful, but they don’t light the road as much as the moon does. In fact, you would scrutinize your surroundings only to come to term with the reality that you’re encircled by pitch black. You’re immersed in darkness.

Darkness.

We’re naturally prone to be terrified by it, because for most of our existence as human beings darkness has meant danger. Natural obstacles, predators, enemies. We’re so terrified we associated it with all of what we categorise as “evil”. That’s understandable.

Darkness is also death, or at least we tend to picture it that way. We can’t really know, can we? Now, being intellectually honest we can’t ignore the fact that death is part of life and that birth is actually a portal between the two. We’re scared of darkness and death because we’re petrified by the unknown. Again, perfectly understandable from an evolutionary standpoint. But darkness and death are new beginnings. Well, yeah, we’re generally afraid of those, too. But everything we cherish has been a new beginning spurted out of darkness. Something dies so that something new can come around, physically or spiritually. And as scary as these awakenings can be, we should try to never refuse them. And we must welcome them in darkness. We need to accept the darkness, so that we can die and be reborn. The darkness of the womb that generates new life, creates new worlds, protecting them until they’re ready to see the light, entering the new dimension through a glorious gate, screaming and covered in blood. We wash it away, but still, blood was the first thing that wrapped our little body after coming out of darkness. Our first piece of clothing. Our first scar testifies the physical separation from our dark, cosy first home. This is so incredibly applicable to everything.

Everything is like this. W e just get too scared of dying and seeing that darkness again. But it’s inevitable, it’s just how things are and if we don’t welcome these cycles when they come knocking, sooner or later they will crush on us, whenever they can’t hold their own weight anymore. That unrestrained chaos. Nevertheless I guess we need that too sometimes. You know, like stars and galaxies, they explode and there you have new ones. You need to crumble. You need to destroy the world to fly to the gods. You need to be planted in darkness like seeds. And then you grow and grow, planting other seeds, becoming so tall you think you think you have an overview of all of the world. One day you collapse, feeding new lives, and you start again. It’s always the same and it’s always new. I find that very comforting.

Suppressing our darkness altogether makes us incomplete and increasingly dull. Number every day that passes by, our souls secretly yearning for fireworks in a silent scream.

We really can’t do this to ourselves.

It’s unfair.

We shouldn’t hate ourselves so much as to chaining our limbs and clipping our wings. We really shouldn’t maltreat our essence like this.

We should really love ourselves a bit more, even the parts we don’t like.

Today’s song recommendation is Dark Necessities by Red Hot Chili Peppers. it’s quite on point: our darkness is a necessity indeed.

I hope you enjoyed this episode and that you have a beautiful week ahead of you!

I’ll see you in the next one, big hug!

With love, yours,

Danbi

[danbisroom]

Ep. 13 - If You Believe In It It’s Enough, You Will Find Your Way

Hello my beloved fellow souls,

welcome back to Danbi’s Room, your weekly dose of safe space. Go grab a cup of something warm and get yourself cosy.

I hope you had a chill week and that you aren’t stressing too much. Also, if you’re a Stay, I hope you were able to attend Magic School fan-meeting, whether online or off-line. To be completely honest I’m still positively speechless after watching it this morning. All I can say, putting it into words, is that I love this family.

To be completely honest, I was in dire need of some kind of booster. Yes, I do have some post-event blues, but who doesn’t? To every emotion its counterpart. Anyway…the point is that I’ve been sick lately, both mentally and physically. I’m deteriorating with an astonishing calmness. When you love people so dearly, seeing them fall shatters your heart, even when you’re 100% sure they’re going to get back up and stand even taller. My dad, who’s actually included in this group, once jokingly told me: “It’s crazy, among your friends, there isn’t even one who doesn’t have problems.”. By “problems” he meant life-crippling problems. Stuff that could potentially altogether destroy your life at any given moment. Stuff he experienced as well. There was no reproach in his voice of course. If there was any feeling it was sorrow for my friends and pride for me. I’m very grateful for that. My parents’ biggest aspiration for me is that I can help people. I know that if I suddenly changed all of my plans to help a friend out they would support me. And objectively, without them, I would have never been able to do some of the things I did for the people I love. And, most importantly, I wouldn’t be who I am, I wouldn’t think this way. I do have many dreams. I really wanna do a lot of things but please believe me when I say my biggest dream is to see my loved ones achieve theirs and be happy.

Yes, this attitude got me some fake idiots along the way, but the more you grow, the more you learn how to actually understand who’s part of your pack and who isn’t, who’s there to stay and who’s there just to offer you the opportunity to learn a lesson. I regret nothing.

Because it’s me, I am the “friend without problems”. I have the strength and the time to share heavy weights. You see, these beautiful people I’m talking about believe many horrible narratives about themselves: they assume they aren’t worthy of the love they receive, they shut their dreams off deeming them vain and vile, they silence their own voice, as if it was undeserving to move through their vocal cords, let alone be heard.

Every time I hear their inner children silently screaming I’m always on the verge of sobbing uncontrollably. I’m still sloppy in handling this, I never manage to do everything I’d like to do for my loves, but I feel I’m slowly getting better though - I used to be much sloppier in the past.

Now I just take them in. There’s a secret garden inside my soul, a happy neverland with a happy pond to watch the rays of the sun blink to the sky embroidered with pink clouds. There’s little me, happy to have all of these other kids around. The only sad memory is that the little wolf cub is trapped: he was the first to get here but he will probably have to stay forever. There’s another wolf cub now, and I hope they can become friends with time, he’s been the last to arrive so far. Then there’s a beautiful butterfly with puffy cheeks, and another puffy-cheeked sweetie with black locks, and then there’s little goldilocks me. To be fair fair there’s also another goldilocks, but he’s still a bit shy. They play together and hug each other and laugh watching sunsets. I will protect them at all costs and it’s for them that I live. I don’t care how crazy and mad this might seem. I know it’s the right thing to do. And I’m always amazed at how patient they and their adult bodies are when I crumble under my own weight. Sometimes I’m weak and despite having the world against them, they still collect my pieces, every single time.

I really can’t think of a person luckier than I am.

They don’t deserve this misery.

I’ll make the kids happy, whatever it takes.

Today’s song recommendation is L’Isola Che Non C’è by Edoardo Bennato. A childhood favourite of little goldilocks Danbi. It talks about Neverland and about dreams. Hit me up if you can’t find an English translation!

I hope you enjoyed this episode and that you have a beautiful week ahead of you!

I’ll see you in the next one, big hug!

With love, yours,

Danbi

[danbisroom]

Ep. 12 - Everywhere All Around The World

Hello my beloved fellow souls,

welcome back to Danbi’s Room, your weekly dose of safe space. Go grab a cup of something warm and get yourself cosy.

I hope you had a nice week and a happy Spring/Autumn Equinox! Those of us who are in the North are finally being kissed by the Sun again, while those of us who are in the South are finally breathing the lovely autumnal crispy air again.

Some time ago I had a blast…I learnt something new in the morning and I found it extremely interesting and peculiar - yet, it didn’t hit me until night how oddly mind-blowing small details that again, we take for granted, can be so full of richness and marvelous complexity.

What does your body do when you move a lock of your hair away from your eyes?

How does your body feel when your fingers move to hold a cup of green tea?

Why do you move exactly those parts of your body picking up a a lily of the valley in a field?

Maybe it might seem almost an oxymoron, but all these new things I’m noticing and finding, they do fill my soul even more - but I definitely don’t feel more frantic than before.

On the contrary, I think I finally found peace.

Clearly, everything’s a cycle and there are always highs and lows, but once you’ve got the hang of it, of peacefully enjoying the storm, seeking darkness and laughter…well then there’s home.

Obviously that doesn’t mean it becomes easy.

It’s still difficult, perhaps even more, because you have to take care of your home’s hearth and bring wood to feed it.

Futile hay won’t do.

Just as obviously there’s a certain degree of satisfaction to it.

You embrace yourself, and when you are the first of your kind, the restraint of expectations falls down in debris.

The debris of all the barriers and boulders we carried on our backs, made of hesitation and loss of passion, apathy.

Death.

Feeling as inconsequential as a speck of dust, between a vast desert and the bluest ocean.

The point is always that in that chasm of darkness, inside, deep within, there’s us.

Ourselves.

Seeds are planted in darkness.

Every moment becomes eternity.

In the eternal circle, the past was, honestly, the best.

But the best is what comes is what comes next.

What’s reflected in your spirit?

I see deep mellow black ponds everyday and it’s always a tender feeling to rest in there.

Some seasons ago, I danced with golden honey eyes, clear like an amber jewel adorning the soft skin of an ancient queen. It’s weird - they’re the deepest yet the stillest, like precious fabric. They reminded me of some eyes I will definitely swim into in the future.

Then I recognized that velvety green I like so much, but it was just for a few minutes.

The colour of Nature is always outstanding. It’s our Home and Mother, after all.

And then…something I had believed to be a foresty emerald dark green - and at night, with dim lights, it is - turned out to be a glorious feast of strong blues jagged by strips of land the colour of autumn leaves covering the mountains.

The Nereids must have painted that, I find no other explanation.

But, with all due respect, I will paint something even grander, as soon as my heart will take me to his ocean, waters of the other side that I’ve never seen before.

Eyes are quite evident no?

Even so, we don’t always actually look at them, despite being one of the most mainstream parts of our body, superficially vaunted or not, eyes still hold some kind of inexplicable charm.

And I’m very sensitive to colours.

Looking at all those hues made me feel like I was in a Wes Anderson movie.

In any case this is not much about eyes, and not even that much about colours.

It’s more about the so-called “ordinary” details, small small things, more fragile and ephemeral than a dandelion petal.

Sure, it’s a delicate topic - it’s easy to fall into a cringey cliché - but at the end of the day is that even a problem?

Sometimes it really is about small and trivial and cliché things.

A quick look, so intimate, with a person you’ve known for ages, a glimpse of silent conversation nobody else notices.

Memories you still have to live.

Seeing each other’s presence listening to our own breath.

An almost imperceptible presence of a hand rested between your shoulder blades.

Sitting elbow to elbow on a light wooden floor.

A house full of joy you run to at 9.20AM.

Finally being able to actually see that the sky is Prussian blue and and neon fuchsia and smiling.

Lately these have been the things I remember, fondly.

Actually I believe them to be extremely powerful.

This is a way of its own to perceive the world.

In fact, my paintings have followed.

Recently they asked me to be small and to open windows and doors to let people look at details, visions, fragments of dreams. And to add matter, so that they can manifest their layers. To expand in space together, move through a body.

Who am I to refuse?

Images talk and demand.

Dimensions wait to receive a body.

I try to do my best to listen.

Listening is crucial.

Listening deeply, carefully, attentively.

Not necessarily with your ears.

But we’ll have the opportunity to delve into this more in the future.

Just remember to listen to yourself, you deserve it.

As unrelated as it might seem (it’s not, it just represents another way of seeing these matters), today I must absoloutely recommend District 9 by Stray Kids. Words of love are never enough, so I will just say happy 6th anniversary!

I hope you enjoyed this episode and that you have a beautiful week ahead of you!

I’ll see you in the next one, big hug!

With love, yours,

Danbi