More than kisses letters
mingle souls.-John Donne
Dear friends,
Meet Luna
Luna, The Letter Bus, is on a mission to hit the road this summer as a mobile space where underserved populations—in particular, women, children, the elderly, people of color, indigenous people, and those who struggle with homelessness and socioeconomic barriers—can give voice to their heart-centered stories and harness the benefits of letter writing.
The lost art of letter writing is an underutilized reflective process that anybody can benefit from outside of a therapy office. When we slow down to physically compose a letter, this act opens up space to explore, contemplate and integrate important experiences. Letters give us permission to share true, yet often silenced thoughts and feelings, and help us to more authentically connect with ourselves and others. Letter writing is a tool for meaning-making, reframing life’s challenges and improving emotional and psychological health.
Help Give
The Letter Bus Wings
Luna is in her chrysalis stage of manifestation. Quill Counseling has created a GoFundMe campaign for financial gifts to get Luna on the road. If you’re interested in helping launch this innovative project, your contribution is appreciated beyond words. Your generosity directly supports the creative health of individuals and their communities.
The Letter Bus is imagined to be an outreach vehicle that invites folks to partake in letter composition in order to share their stories and be witnessed in a safe, supportive space in hopes of connecting humans to humans and strengthening the bonds between each other and our communities.
“Luna” affectionately refers to the luna moth. Moths are amazing creatures with the most sensitive hearing among insects and represent Luna’s traveling goal: to encourage, hear, hold, and uplift delicate, inspiring, difficult and resilient stories authentically and fully through letter writing facilitation. Luna is also about bringing people closer together in a time of political and social division.
Though not therapy, this accessible drop-in project aims to bolster emotional and psychological wellness by encouraging expression through an easily accessed writing practice and its tangible result, which is, of course, having a mighty letter one can send!
So often, barriers prevent people from attending to their inner world and relationships. Feeding one’s creative life and prioritizing self-expression can be difficult for those who live in poverty, do not receive the privilege of education, cannot afford to take art or writing workshops, work full time, live in an isolated manner, and, or have childcare or caretaking responsibilities that turn their attention outward.
Letter writing is falling to the wayside due to our culture’s digital lifestyle. Luna aims to highlight the special, timeless value of ink on paper correspondence. The rich stories that flow from the pen to the page reverberate in the common elements of our humanness. When we receive, read or hear another’s letter, there are invariably universal themes that normalize experiences, helping us to feel less alone.
What Will Luna Offer?
For those wishing to write a letter on the bus either alone or with support:
- Thoughtful letter writing prompts
- Collaborative brainstorming for letter content
- Hand-picked, high quality stationary, paper and postcards
- An old school, vintage typewriter
- Colorful pens and colored pencils
- Art supplies for snazzing up letters or envelopes (we’ll have those too)
- Aromatherapy options
- A personal, private quiet space or instrumental music selection
- Take-home handouts for self-directed writing-based wellness exercises
For those with a letter (or draft) in hand:
- Validating feedback on letter content from a skilled supporter
- Letter editing assistance for structure and content
- International and local penpal matching
- Recorded sessions and technology assistance for personal digitalization
- Interviews and letter readings for the future “Luna, The Letter Bus” podcast
- Nifty stamps
For the community:
- Outdoor writing-based group therapy and letter reading ceremonies
*These are therapy offerings and require clinical screening and sign up* - Letter reading open mic nights
- Multimedia artist collaboration events
- “Write By Sunlight” early morning gatherings for all ages
- ”Letters for Peace” collective letter writing events aimed to promote political nonviolence, social justice and governmental change
Luna Questions & Answers
Summer 2022
All sorts of reasons! Write a letter to:
✧Reconnect with family, friends or loves
✧Reframe a chapter of our life-story
✧Brighten and feed our relationships
✧Prepare for an important conversation
✧Ignite a new knowing of another or ourselves
✧Forgive and be forgiven
✧Enhance understanding
✧Articulate struggles, frustration, pain, grief and loss
✧Say goodbye, honor the past, seek closure and move forward
✧Increase acceptance and gain perspective
✧Get clarify about how we feel about a situation
✧Release negativity, lower stress and manage mood
✧Share gratitude and positive feelings
✧Contribute to social change
✧Create a lasting legacy
Sometimes we write letters that are never sent as a means of cathartic openness, a rare chance to be uncensored in articulating whatever lives in those secret, shadowed parts. Unsent letters are an opportunity to be explicit and purely focus on our own needs, knowing that internal dialogue won’t be judged and is without consequence to convey.
Check Luna’s online calendar (coming soon) for schedule and location details. Using the calendar, self-book a solo letter writing retreat or a facilitated writing and sharing session.
Community events will be posted online and on social media. Information on the “Letter Writing Therapy” group will be available on the main webpage.
For sure! Find Luna’s location on her online calendar and come on by in-person to see if a walk-in time is available. If not, you can still sign up for a time later that day.
Follow Quill Counseling’s Instagram @quillcounsel for news, progress and updates on The Letter Bus project.
At $10 for a half-hour 1:1 appointment, sliding scale rates for letter writing therapy groups, plus free community events, all of Luna’s offerings are meant to be affordable.
Recognizing that not everybody has the ability to financially help keep Luna rolling, participation in this project is worthwhile in itself, so anybody is welcome to come compose or share a letter, regardless of finances.
Quill Counseling does not have non-profit tax status, so all financial contributions are considered gifts instead of donations, despite the verbiage that GoFundMe uses. If you’d like to give money, you are an incredible human for growing this grassroots project, and you can do so here:
https://gofund.me/58f97c1f
