Stories we carry underneath

Moth is hiding

In my cupboard

All the muddiness

Calling to be looked at

I have sat in circles with women —beautiful, brave, open —sharing stories stitched into skin, memories held like sacred fire beneath layers of survival.

We spoke of hidden parts, of courage discovered in the dark, of the sacred fragments that never made it into daylight.

As I listened, I began peeling back my own layers. Paint became my companion. A language I trusted to speak what my voice once couldn’t.

Grief spilled onto canvas. Rootlessness. Silence. Shame. The pieces of myself I had pressed down started to rise like breath.

I stared into the face of discomfort, and let it teach me.

Healing Through Storytelling

The art of healing, I’ve learned, is not about erasing pain —but revealing it. Letting the old skin fall away and stepping softly into the light of one’s own becoming.

We are all layered. We are all luminous beneath.

The revealing of all these layers helped me to start fully embracing what was hidden underneath.