The Threads That Tie Us

The Story of Crossties and the Quiet Faith of Danna West

By Jessy Paulson as published in Gritty Faith: Wild (c) Purpose + Grit, LLC 2025

Some stories begin with a single spark of calling. Danna West’s began with a loop of yarn and a little metal loom.

She was just a girl then, perched at her grandparents’ fruit market, learning to weave potholders from a neighbor. Her grandparents hung them on display beside the apples and tomatoes, selling each one for a few coins. It wasn’t about profit; rather, it was about the simple joy of creating something beautiful and watching it bless someone else.

That early rhythm—the making, the giving, the quiet pride of handmade work—wove something into Danna’s spirit. It would take years before she understood that what God was planting in those small, colorful squares of fabric wasn’t just a love for craft. It was the beginning of a lifelong conversation between her hands and her heart.

High school brought beads instead of yarn. As Danna started stringing bracelets, again her grandparents’ market became her storefront. Beads led to hobbies, hobbies to side businesses, each one another small act of faith in the creative process.

Then came yoga.

Eighteen years ago, as her kids were graduating high school, Danna found herself drawn to movement and breath—a new kind of stillness she hadn’t known she needed. Her yoga teachers were retired schoolteachers, and when they asked her to substitute teach the class one day, she laughed it off in fear.

“I wasn’t a teacher,” she remembers. “They were. I thought, how could I possibly lead them?”

Her husband, steady and practical, suggested something simple: “What if you got certified?”

So she signed up for yoga teacher training. But before she could begin, she broke her leg—another interruption, or maybe a divine redirection.

While she waited for her leg to heal, Danna stumbled upon a Christian yoga certification. Something in her heart lit up. “I thought, this is it,” she says. “This is the bridge between what I love and what I believe.”

She went to Arizona for two weeks of training and immersion. “Before the first week was even over, I knew I didn’t just want to study this—I wanted to share it with others.”

When she returned home in 2010, she began teaching out of borrowed spaces until she opened her own studio—Crossties Yoga—a name that speaks to both her faith and her mission: connecting hearts through Christ, movement, and stillness.

Learning to Be Still

Stillness didn’t always come easy to Danna.

“I’ve always had a running conversation with God,” she says. “‘Thank You for this. Please help with that.’ But sitting quietly? Taking fifteen minutes to just listen? That never came naturally to me.”

Like many of us, the rise of technology made that quiet even harder to find. “Those little check-ins with God throughout the day were being replaced by scrolling or email,” she admits. “I realized I was missing Him in the noise.”

That realization led her deeper into the practice of Yoga Nidra, often called yogic sleep—a meditative rest that reaches into the deepest layers of the soul. She studied a Christian adaptation of the practice, weaving Scripture into the gentle rhythms of breath and body.

“The first time I really practiced it,” she says, “I felt like I’d slept for hours. It was the deepest peace I’d ever known.”

Soon, she began writing and recording her own guided meditations, sharing them online for anyone who needed rest but couldn’t make it to a class. “Some people are intimidated by yoga studios,” she says. “This gives them a safe space—a place to experience stillness in their own homes.”

The Beads Return

Somewhere along this journey, the circle closed in the most beautiful way.

“I kept seeing malas and prayer beads,” Danna recalls. “But I wanted something that didn’t feel threatening to Christians.”

A friend introduced her to Protestant prayer beads, and something deep inside her stirred. “She handed me a pattern and showed me how they were made, and I just knew I wanted to do this.”

Workshops began, one bead at a time. Then came evenings of quiet stringing at home, each bead a small prayer, each knot a breath of surrender.

Those prayer beads became another form of ministry for her—a way to hold prayer in her hands when words are hard to find.

“They haven’t sold as quickly as I hoped,” she admits with a smile. “But maybe they’re meant for me right now. Maybe God gave me this work so He could slow me down, not speed me up.”

Hope in the Quiet Places

Today, Crossties is both studio and sanctuary—a place where faith and movement meet, and where Danna and a small team of teachers guide others toward healing. Not every class is overtly faith-based. Some are trauma-informed for those still tender from church wounds. But all are grounded in gentleness and grace.

“There’s hope,” Danna says, her voice steady. “We all have something we’re walking through—heartache, questions, loss—but there’s always hope. It may not look like what we expect, but it’s there.”

For her, that’s what Crossties is about: finding God in the in-between places—between breath and prayer, between movement and stillness, between what we create and what He calls us to.

“I’m just trying to help somebody, somewhere,” she says quietly.

And somehow, in the quiet rhythm of her breath and beads, you can see she already is.

Because the beauty of Crossties runs deeper than a name—it’s the way Danna’s life ties faith, art, and hope into one steady thread.