I wasn’t sure if I’d ever want to share the more personal story behind
Lune Liner. At launch I shared breadcrumbs – that it’s named after my daughter Lune who, while I was pregnant, shared her name with me through my dreams. But I didn’t want to go much further because even though everything I create comes from a place that is very meaningful to me, there are still things that I don’t want to be turned into a promotional tool for a launch. Having had some space from that now, and being that December is always an emotional time for me, I feel moved to share more.
Many of you know that my father passed in December 2012 from cancer. He wasn’t the most present parent in my childhood but during the last few years of his life he was my best friend. There was so much we were catching up on and working through at that time, so when he died it felt quick and traumatic – like there was so much left to do and say. 12 years later it’s still raw and painful. I’ll talk about him and suddenly feel this immense wave of sadness and tears – like my body’s crying before I even know what’s happening.
But his death turned into a larger trauma that would continue to live with me. My father’s brother died the year before he did, and then his sister died soon after. My grandparents lost all three of their children to cancer in the span of 3 years. A completely inconceivable heartbreak for any parent. Then the following year, my grandmother also died of cancer, and the year after that my grandfather took his life—it was an unbelievable tragedy.
The idea that a whole family could just disappear in such a short period of time deeply shook me. This feeling that life is unsafe, fragile, and uncontrollable took root in my psyche, and it turned into a deep fear of death that's taken many, many years to work through. You can imagine, it came up in a big way when I started my own family.
When Inès was born I had never loved anything so much before, but was suddenly devoured by fear that something would happen to her. I had postpartum, and it felt like I was being constantly harassed by the thought of every danger she could get into. I was obsessive and couldn’t sleep, but I was really working on myself to find my way out of this labyrinth of fear, and slowly I got better.
When I became pregnant with Lune I knew it immediately. I felt energetically connected to her and she often visited me in my dreams, giving me messages. One of those messages was that we all come to this world with a gift for our parents. Inès came with the gift of showing me that I could be a good mother, one who knows boundless, unconditional love, which healed many fears from my past. Lune, I now know, came to heal me from my fear of death.
So many of my early dreams with Lune revolved around her showing me where she came from. It was this desert with golden sand and a dusty pink sky… There was orange, copper, purple… Golden butterflies. The sun was always rising or setting. And she said, my name is Lune. But I’m not the silver moon – I’m the moon that absorbs sunlight. I’m the golden moon.
It was incredible to know her name, but the thing that really struck me about these dreams was how she kept saying, this is where I come from, this is where I come from… And through these dreams I was able to feel that this is where I’d come from too. That we’d been together before. In my heart I had always believed in a life before this one, and a life after, but my fear of death had clouded this feeling. Lune helped me remember, showing me the cycles of life. We leave, we come back, but it’s a cycle, life isn’t over. I understand this is not everyone’s belief. On my journey, it’s felt true and it’s felt healing. My hope is that by sharing I can validate a feeling or an experience I know many others have had.
All of this emotion and meaning was wrapped up in my experience of making Lune Liner, which was inspired by my dreams with Lune. I took the experience and translated it in the best way I knew how—creating colors and a little bit of magic for people. It’s what Lune did for me. In my dreams she was always taking me to nature—showing me birds, flowers, and forests—reminding me that magic is not in some other world, it’s in nature. It’s always just under your nose, you just have to pay attention.
It’s like that feeling you have when you’re a kid and you really believe in magic, and that belief makes your life wonderful. Lune reminded me that magic may look different as an adult but that doesn’t mean it’s not there. It’s in the everyday beauties of the world, and in the astonishing ones—the fluorescent corals, the fireflies, the lightning. Sunrise and sunset. Aurora borealis. Lunar eclipse. That these things exist in the real world is completely insane. How could we not believe in magic?
I just wanted to share this personal story with my community because you’ve given such warmth and love to Lune Liner since it launched, and now you can see why it’s so meaningful to me. It’s amazing because it’s almost like you could feel it without me having to say anything. So, thank you for being the best community there is.
As always, I’d love to know what this newsletter brought up for you—just reply to this email to connect.
Avec Amour,
