Day 71: mapping loss 🗺️

thank you, Fran, and welcome Christina

Hello, friends –

Big thank you to our poet friend

Fran Gardner

for guiding us through the past week on noticing—you can follow Fran right here on Substack at

Becoming

.

Let’s check in:

• As Fran says, “Go slow now. Take time, feel gratitude, forgive. Be authentic.” What feels authentic to you now?

• What are you learning about what works for you? How has that evolved, either through your project or over time?

• What’s your goal, theme, or intention for the last third of the project?

→ Submit your art for the Day 80 Reel here.

Please welcome our guest contributor for the week, my friend

Christina Tasooji

. When Christina suggested the theme of grief, I felt like she was naming something I was in but hadn’t been ready to acknowledge. It’s hard to know how much of myself to share here; the project isn’t really about me. And, like all of you, I’m showing up with all of the things that are happening in my life and around me—which lately includes a surprising injury, a very sick parent, and the general turbulence I think most of us are experiencing. A lot of life is good, but the things that are heavy are heavy.

Thank you to Christina for opening the door. Here she is—

We don’t talk about grief—not really.
We scroll past it, bury it, slap a productivity hack on top and call it resilience.
But here’s the unvarnished truth: every cycle of growth demands a death. Every creative spark is born out of darkness. Every single woman I work with has touched loss—even if she’s been taught to keep it private, to muscle through, to make it look effortless.

I’m Christina Tasooji—writer, executive coach, embodiment guide, and wild feminine alchemist. My work? I help women reclaim their power by living in sync with their cycles. I coach high-achieving, creative women to break out of burnout, unlock self-trust, and align their leadership, creativity, and relationships with the natural rhythms of the body—especially the menstrual cycle. In my world, cyclical wisdom isn’t just a concept; it’s a map for the conscious creation of your life.

If you’ve worked with me, you know I see menstruation as the dark moon of our cycle—a time each month when we’re called to shed, dissolve, and make space for something new. But these “dark moon” phases aren’t just physical. Life throws us into them, too—a dark moon phase is that in-between season when the old order is dissolving but the new hasn’t yet appeared. It’s the gut-wrenching ambiguity, when you’re grieving something lost and waiting for what’s next. Sometimes, it’s triggered by events in our bodies; sometimes, by seismic changes in our lives.

And right now? I’m deep in my own dark moon—navigating the heartbreak of watching my mother fade, piece by piece, to Parkinson’s; grieving a pregnancy loss that rewired my body and my sense of future in ways I’m still discovering.

This isn’t just my story.
This is the story—of women who lead, create, and bleed in a world that wants their cycles invisible.

And honestly? Many of us are here now—grieving the old world, waiting for a new one that hasn’t been born.

Grief is not a problem to fix.
It’s a landscape to traverse. It’s a raw, unflinching portal back to ourselves.
It’s the terrain of reclamation.

So many of us have been taught to grieve in silence. To be productive. To be fine. To move on.

But I believe this with my whole body:
Grief deserves a place at the table.
In our days. In our stories. In our art.
Because when we give it room, it transforms us. It sharpens our clarity. Softens our armor. And yes—it feeds our creative work in ways we may not expect.

This isn’t about turning pain into something pretty.
It’s about telling the truth.
Making a mark.
Letting your hands say what your mouth never could.

Over the next seven prompts, I’ll invite you into a creative conversation with grief—your grief, however it shows up. These are not therapy. But they are a kind of tending. A way to meet yourself, honestly, in the process.

Let’s begin here:

Prompt 1:
If your grief were a map, what would it look like?
A bruise blooming under skin? A river that keeps flooding its banks?
Trace it. Paint it. Let it roar.

With you in the dark moon,
Christina

Photograph by by Inna Shnayder