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“Bella Ciao” in the embodied narrative film, BACK UP, conceived by @hiponymous in collaboration with @leilawa.aa . In honor of Italy’s Liberation Day, I am making the film available for viewing for this week. To my fellow Southern Italian-Americans— there is a scene with a pizzica-inspired score, which accompanies an impassioned symbolic Columbus statue take-down 😏. Link in bio. https://vimeo.com/743736368?share=copy&fl=sv&fe=ciSpecial thanks to second camera @thomados for this gorgeous final shot.

Renée here, trying my best to get the word out to such a sweet range of people who knew and loved my mother, the mighty M. ♍️🐯

2025 was a whirlwind, but 11/22/25 will always be a joyful, grounding day in our book. ( Photos by @wowitstreasure )

2025 brought kitty culture and love into the home and my heart. Thank you, Nica Bedda, for a year of delight. So sorry your brother Caiu had to become an angel playmate so soon. 🪽🐱

The chorus “Look How Far The Light Came” by Bruce Cockburn came to mind this morning. These lands and waters I related to in 2025 that held me and collaborated with the Sun to sustain us all….I am grateful to have been reached, even as grief receded me to new depths and voids.

Sewing mums, ritual fires, observing crows, trees that let go, remembering vital laughter, wailing, screeching. The drum, the dance, the song, the cycles…
One of the best weeks building the altar with @pjroduta in observance of Il Giorno Dei Morti. A cultural observance part of my lineage. Sitting in reverence to Samhain and Dia se Los muertos as well, parts of all my relations heritage…in mourning for what is lost, stolen and abandoned. In hope with those who co-create renewal beyond our wildest dreams.

Honored to be in concentric vibrations with some Sicilian/Southern Italian folks I have never met in person but who shape, and call-in my practice and thoughts, and plump my heart regularly with the familiar and affirming aspects of their sharing. I extend my deep gratitude to
@cimarutaremedies
@therootcircle
@marybethbonfiglio
@thelandoflila
@mediterranean.dance
@belloni.alessandra
Salvatore Salerno

And those who I have shared embodied space with please know how I love you and appreciate all you’ve cared me through :
@raffosusan
@xtaffi
@nonnaterra
@amydigennaro_artist_therapist
@pasqualinocacciola
@simona.digregorio.397
@giorgio_maltese_
@juliapatinellavox

There are many more to name. Some know who you are and others, I am holding silent prayers for our encounter when the time is right.

Ps- This song is from an album I am absolutely soul-stirred-attached to these days: Rachele Andrioli’s “Leuca”. Pure brilliance.

Baci e abbracci 🔥🕯️🍂

@pjroduta doing PJ things 🎙️🥁🎧 while @rendoublee87 and @david.bernabo also keep it weird 🎸🪗 in the first official recording session as we begin scoring YDKMN in The Pitt 😉🎶🎵🎼
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#ydkmndoc #documentary #film #bts #endprisonbirth #independentfilm #pittsburgh

@pjroduta doing PJ things 🎙️🥁🎧 while @rendoublee87 and @david.bernabo also keep it weird 🎸🪗 in the first official recording session as we begin scoring YDKMN in The Pitt 😉🎶🎵🎼
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#ydkmndoc #documentary #film #bts #endprisonbirth #independentfilm #pittsburgh

@pjroduta doing PJ things 🎙️🥁🎧 while @rendoublee87 and @david.bernabo also keep it weird 🎸🪗 in the first official recording session as we begin scoring YDKMN in The Pitt 😉🎶🎵🎼
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#ydkmndoc #documentary #film #bts #endprisonbirth #independentfilm #pittsburgh

@pjroduta doing PJ things 🎙️🥁🎧 while @rendoublee87 and @david.bernabo also keep it weird 🎸🪗 in the first official recording session as we begin scoring YDKMN in The Pitt 😉🎶🎵🎼
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#ydkmndoc #documentary #film #bts #endprisonbirth #independentfilm #pittsburgh

@pjroduta doing PJ things 🎙️🥁🎧 while @rendoublee87 and @david.bernabo also keep it weird 🎸🪗 in the first official recording session as we begin scoring YDKMN in The Pitt 😉🎶🎵🎼
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#ydkmndoc #documentary #film #bts #endprisonbirth #independentfilm #pittsburgh

@pjroduta doing PJ things 🎙️🥁🎧 while @rendoublee87 and @david.bernabo also keep it weird 🎸🪗 in the first official recording session as we begin scoring YDKMN in The Pitt 😉🎶🎵🎼
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#ydkmndoc #documentary #film #bts #endprisonbirth #independentfilm #pittsburgh

@pjroduta doing PJ things 🎙️🥁🎧 while @rendoublee87 and @david.bernabo also keep it weird 🎸🪗 in the first official recording session as we begin scoring YDKMN in The Pitt 😉🎶🎵🎼
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.
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#ydkmndoc #documentary #film #bts #endprisonbirth #independentfilm #pittsburgh

@pjroduta doing PJ things 🎙️🥁🎧 while @rendoublee87 and @david.bernabo also keep it weird 🎸🪗 in the first official recording session as we begin scoring YDKMN in The Pitt 😉🎶🎵🎼
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#ydkmndoc #documentary #film #bts #endprisonbirth #independentfilm #pittsburgh

Your 37 was the most spiritually-transformative year your soul could possibly undergo. Today amid the grief you enter 38, a bonafide healer. Mo mhilseán, your compass guides you all the more steadfast toward health, even in the harshest of seasons. We’re all lucky to know you and we thank your newest ancestors for bringing you into this world, an absolute blessing in a lineage of blessings. Happiest of new moon solar return birthdays to you. I love you more every day. I’m amazed by you, and I will support you through it all.

Your 37 was the most spiritually-transformative year your soul could possibly undergo. Today amid the grief you enter 38, a bonafide healer. Mo mhilseán, your compass guides you all the more steadfast toward health, even in the harshest of seasons. We’re all lucky to know you and we thank your newest ancestors for bringing you into this world, an absolute blessing in a lineage of blessings. Happiest of new moon solar return birthdays to you. I love you more every day. I’m amazed by you, and I will support you through it all.

Your 37 was the most spiritually-transformative year your soul could possibly undergo. Today amid the grief you enter 38, a bonafide healer. Mo mhilseán, your compass guides you all the more steadfast toward health, even in the harshest of seasons. We’re all lucky to know you and we thank your newest ancestors for bringing you into this world, an absolute blessing in a lineage of blessings. Happiest of new moon solar return birthdays to you. I love you more every day. I’m amazed by you, and I will support you through it all.

Your 37 was the most spiritually-transformative year your soul could possibly undergo. Today amid the grief you enter 38, a bonafide healer. Mo mhilseán, your compass guides you all the more steadfast toward health, even in the harshest of seasons. We’re all lucky to know you and we thank your newest ancestors for bringing you into this world, an absolute blessing in a lineage of blessings. Happiest of new moon solar return birthdays to you. I love you more every day. I’m amazed by you, and I will support you through it all.

Your 37 was the most spiritually-transformative year your soul could possibly undergo. Today amid the grief you enter 38, a bonafide healer. Mo mhilseán, your compass guides you all the more steadfast toward health, even in the harshest of seasons. We’re all lucky to know you and we thank your newest ancestors for bringing you into this world, an absolute blessing in a lineage of blessings. Happiest of new moon solar return birthdays to you. I love you more every day. I’m amazed by you, and I will support you through it all.

Your 37 was the most spiritually-transformative year your soul could possibly undergo. Today amid the grief you enter 38, a bonafide healer. Mo mhilseán, your compass guides you all the more steadfast toward health, even in the harshest of seasons. We’re all lucky to know you and we thank your newest ancestors for bringing you into this world, an absolute blessing in a lineage of blessings. Happiest of new moon solar return birthdays to you. I love you more every day. I’m amazed by you, and I will support you through it all.

Your 37 was the most spiritually-transformative year your soul could possibly undergo. Today amid the grief you enter 38, a bonafide healer. Mo mhilseán, your compass guides you all the more steadfast toward health, even in the harshest of seasons. We’re all lucky to know you and we thank your newest ancestors for bringing you into this world, an absolute blessing in a lineage of blessings. Happiest of new moon solar return birthdays to you. I love you more every day. I’m amazed by you, and I will support you through it all.

Your 37 was the most spiritually-transformative year your soul could possibly undergo. Today amid the grief you enter 38, a bonafide healer. Mo mhilseán, your compass guides you all the more steadfast toward health, even in the harshest of seasons. We’re all lucky to know you and we thank your newest ancestors for bringing you into this world, an absolute blessing in a lineage of blessings. Happiest of new moon solar return birthdays to you. I love you more every day. I’m amazed by you, and I will support you through it all.

Your 37 was the most spiritually-transformative year your soul could possibly undergo. Today amid the grief you enter 38, a bonafide healer. Mo mhilseán, your compass guides you all the more steadfast toward health, even in the harshest of seasons. We’re all lucky to know you and we thank your newest ancestors for bringing you into this world, an absolute blessing in a lineage of blessings. Happiest of new moon solar return birthdays to you. I love you more every day. I’m amazed by you, and I will support you through it all.

Your 37 was the most spiritually-transformative year your soul could possibly undergo. Today amid the grief you enter 38, a bonafide healer. Mo mhilseán, your compass guides you all the more steadfast toward health, even in the harshest of seasons. We’re all lucky to know you and we thank your newest ancestors for bringing you into this world, an absolute blessing in a lineage of blessings. Happiest of new moon solar return birthdays to you. I love you more every day. I’m amazed by you, and I will support you through it all.

This 8th year of loving each other brought the deepest smiles, the ones born from new depths of grief. We stood at new shorelines, our beings illuminated with full-spectrum awe at the hardships known, the losses now imaginable, and a love polished by all of these harsh forces, as we keep emerging from the pummeling with miraculous strength. This year of 8 aptly depicts the infinity symbol— I know our souls will intertwine for as long as that. You, me, the ancestors.

Happy heavenly 75th birthday to tiger mama, Em.
I’ve been cherishing this video taken on her last interactive day with us. She shimmied her shoulders, danced happy feet and smiled with complete peace, joy and love. It was a radiant day full of warm energy from so many beautiful loves coming and going, bringing gifts to the improvised parties that were those last days.
I’m grateful for this particular impromptu collab with the remarkably inspiring @eriklawrencemusic . I’m playing a flute Mom had bought me when I was very young from a musician friend and flute maker she admired. The wood is from cypress trees in Louisiana that have since been demolished by Hurricane Katrina. I tend to think of this flute as a particularly spiritual flute and I was so glad to have the chance to play it for her again.
For those who know and love, Mom, I’m so happy to share this truth of her days with you. And for those who were in the room, thank you for witnessing and holding these pure moments: Aunt Jane, @ericajovs , @tremendosolazo , @bidney.bop.cabeca.de.bebe , @pjroduta 💓💓💓

It’s been one month since my Mom took my Dad’s hand and journeyed on up through the tunnel toward the infinite. Time is confounding. I’m astonished to look back and even more witless when I look toward the future. I learned how to plan from my Mom, now I’m learning that she also has also taught me how to surrender. I’m learning to trust. My dad would encourage to keep faith. Now, left with just my own life to take care of, dread, confusion and anxiety bob and weave with relief, contentment and gratitude. Is it a fight? Is it a dance? Most days everything feels too fast. One thing I know is how I always wish to savor more.

Today I can feel I am finally detaching from the caretaker identity. Something I grew attached to, clung to, as though I were her actual lifeline and she mine. When I look back at the last 8 months of Mom’s life, mourning her husband, leaving her community of 40+years and enduring cancer, I am in awe of her strength, bravery, good will, patience, forgiveness, surprising humor, and spunk like no other. We shared moments that are etched into my soul, requiring other forms of writing I long to write, with patience. Poems. To savor. How sweet we were becoming.

Ps- I think I’ll be trying out Substack for my lengthier writes. You can find the unabridged version of this post over there 💜

we’re performing all of STOP MAKING SENSE, live & in its entirety at @thunderbirdmusichall on september 20! don’t miss celebrating this iconic album from Talking Heads plus a lot of surprises as we put our own spin on the album we all know and love ✨

Featuring a band of eight and original instrumentation from some of Pittsburgh’s finest including Read Connolly (@readconnolly), Brandon Kaltenbaugh (@brandon.kaltenbaugh), MARS (@mars__cast), Mila Shadel (@milashadelmusic), PJ Roduta (@pjroduta), Ryan Hizer (@ryanhizer), Margot Jezerc (@m.a.r.g.o.t.j), and Renée Copeland (@rendoublee87).

Don’t miss it! Come sing and dance senseless with us. 🎟️ Tickets available at thunderbirdmusichall.com

🎨 by @twowandsdesign

we’re performing all of STOP MAKING SENSE, live & in its entirety at @thunderbirdmusichall on september 20! don’t miss celebrating this iconic album from Talking Heads plus a lot of surprises as we put our own spin on the album we all know and love ✨

Featuring a band of eight and original instrumentation from some of Pittsburgh’s finest including Read Connolly (@readconnolly), Brandon Kaltenbaugh (@brandon.kaltenbaugh), MARS (@mars__cast), Mila Shadel (@milashadelmusic), PJ Roduta (@pjroduta), Ryan Hizer (@ryanhizer), Margot Jezerc (@m.a.r.g.o.t.j), and Renée Copeland (@rendoublee87).

Don’t miss it! Come sing and dance senseless with us. 🎟️ Tickets available at thunderbirdmusichall.com

🎨 by @twowandsdesign