New Year’s Message & Wish

Dear Friends,

Wow, this year has absolutely astounded me! I have been struggling a lot in the past few days, overwhelmed by anxiety and a swirl of unprocessed feelings and ideas, and whatever my confusing body has been going through. I have been so dysregulated and frustrated!

But when Tara sweetly helped me reflect on my year, and I could get the jumbled thoughts out into writing, I felt the warmth of a sunrise! The dark and difficult parts of my life are real, but so are the blissful and peaceful and joyous parts. I will always struggle in this life, and I will always find and feel beauty and wonder. I am the expanse between the two, as expansive as the universe.

The ability to connect with all of you is such a light in my life. I wish you all a wonderful close to this year, and a new year of hope and health and happiness! Thank you for being my friends.

Love,

Danny

Super Exciting Update: Teva Community (& Matching Campaign!)

Friends! A super exciting announcement: I am a recently-elected member of the board of directors for Teva Community, a fantastic initiative for building community for nonspeaking autistic folks!

We had a wonderful visit to the community site in Prescott, Arizona, last week. I have so much to share, but for now, please read below about a matching campaign running until Friday, December 31, for donations to https://tevacommunity.org/home/donate-now/

More to come soon!

Friends, it is really happening! Everything we have been working towards with building a residential, educational and vocational community for the non-speaking autistic community in Prescott, Arizona is becoming a reality.

Thanks to an anonymous donor we have $50,000 in matching funds to start our initial fundraising towards our phase 1 goal of $1.5 million. Every dollar you donate to Teva Community between now and December 31st will be doubled!

The camp was abandoned 10 years ago and in Phase 1 we will be rebuilding both bath houses, the infirmary, and office, and refurbishing all 12 cabins and the commercial kitchen in the lodge. This will enable us to open our retreat center and run camps for nonspeaking autistic children, adults and their families. We will also be able to run educate-the-educator camps to help teachers and therapists take innovative training methods back to their communities.

Please help us take advantage of this very generous donation.

Please join Joshua and Jake and Kade and Danny and Jeremy and so many others in bringing their dreams to life. Please donate at https://tevacommunity.org/home/donate-now/

From Leo in Bloom: My Christmas & New Year’s Message

Dear Friends,

I am wishing all a Merry Christmas and a happy new year! Wow, I am so full of feelings and memories and ideas; I can’t capture it in words. But I am so absolutely and totally sensing love and hope in the universe. Despite sadness and tragedy and conflict, there is prevailing good.

This year has astounded me! I am in awe of all that I have done, and of the ever-expanding vista of opportunities and community. I am so in bloom, and so absolutely thrilled with my new life. Thank you all for being my friends and allies in this journey!

With so much love,

Danny

Originally posted on Leo in Bloom

The Ocean & Us Ep8: Exploring the Ocean & Myself (SpellX Presentation)

Wow Friends! It has been a busy while! To catch up a bit, here is my video on my recent ocean exploits.

This was for SpellX, an event hosted by I-ASC to highlight stories from nonspeakers like me, and there are many amazing videos by my Speller peers posted here: https://i-asc.org/spellx-2021/! Be sure to check them out, too!

More this week!

For OpenTable: How Dining Out Brings Me Joy as an Autistic Person

Another exciting thing to share! Read it here.

I was asked to write this after a content manager at OpenTable read my Bon Appetit magazine piece. I loved writing this and I hope you love reading it!

I Dwell in Possibility & Poetry

Friends! It is time for my favorite course to start again! I took Modern & Contemporary American Poetry on Coursera with U Penn last year, and it changed my life. It was my first chance to learn in a real course, and it introduced me to my appreciation of poetry and to an amazing community. This year I was invited to be a Community Teaching Assistant, and I am so excited to experience the course again!

Here is my first assignment ever, on the Emily Dickinson poem I dwell in Possibility – (466):

This really spoke to my perspective as an autistic, apraxic, minimally-speaking man. The imagery of her dwelling in the world of Possibility is akin to the constrained yet limitless world of my autistic mind.

The words “A fairer House than Prose” reflect the wonderful universe in my mind clashing with the structure of the neurotypical world. The latter seems so limited in its capacity for other ways of thinking.

The line “And for an everlasting Roof/ The Gambrels of the Sky” is evocative of the infinite wonder in my mind. Yet the notion of the impregnable chambers speaks to the challenges of being understood by the outside world.

The windows, to me, suggest an ability to look outside. This is a heightened ability in autistics. We are able to observe so much of what is around us. Yet the world outside rarely looks in.

The visitors are those thoughts that fly into our minds. They need no doors to open. They freely enter and keep me company.

The gathering of paradise is exactly what I do in my autistic house. The routine, rule-filled, prosaic world outside is so restricting. Yet my limitless world must exist within it.

Years

Dear Friends,

Wow. I am 36 today! It has been the most amazing year. Beyond my still newly accessible words. But I want to express my immense joy for your friendship and support of my astounding journey so far. I am only just beginning!

Love,

Danny

Years

by Danny K. Whitty

So all my all my all my

Time in this form

Spent in mostly

Trapped

Purgatory and only now

Am I arrived

And years seem so

Bright from here.

My essay in Bon Appetit Magazine!

Wow, Friends! I am now a published author! This is so meaningful to me – Bon Appetit and Food & Wine magazines have been an important source of joy and inspiration to me for most of my life! I am over the moon to have my story shared in Bon Appetit!

https://www.bonappetit.com/story/communicate-through-food

(The illustration is by Martina Fischmeister)

Please read and enjoy and share! I am so so so proud and thrilled.

Your Friend,

Danny

New York Triptych

Tara and I had an absolutely fantastic trip to NYC last month. This was our first trip with just the two of us, and so it was a huge milestone for me. We were a bit worried about my regulation, but I usually am so captivated by travel that I am generally more regulated while traveling than at home. This was true for this trip, and Tara was absolutely fantastic at helping me manage my small flare-ups. I feel so much more confident in my regulation and traveling capacity now!

I wrote these poems in Central Park and Bryant Park among such pulsating energy and I hope you enjoy.

New York Triptych

Subways go whoosh

Here energy of crowds

Throbs and heaves

And swirls and its updraft

Lifts spirits and dreams

Above its gritty pavement.

Tourists in a big city

Here I am with you

Far from our native habitat

And in such different surroundings

And immersed in unfamiliar crowds

And yet feeling unifying truths

Whirl around the

Corners of each block.

No time for Times Square

Here we rest among restlessness

Among chaos thinly constrained

By surficial niceties

Among trees that are somehow

Still reaching skyward

Earnestly

Despite their rigid and forced and

Contrived

Habitat.