Episode Summary:
In the third episode of the Spiritual Dance Podcast, Carla White Crowe recounts her journeys into and out of Christianity as well as the impact that had on her life both personally and professionally. She also shares how astrology and earth-based spiritual practices have helped her repair her relationship to herself, revamp dance and movement practices, and reignite her connection to the world of spirit.
Episode Transcript:
INTRO: Welcome to the Spiritual Dance Podcast. A virtual space for creative souls discovering how to move in sync with the rhythm of spirit. I’m your host Carla White Crowe, also known as The Dancing Oracle. In this podcast, I share openly about my journey of weaving together my two primary passions - spirituality and dance. My intention is to encourage and inspire spiritual seekers in pursuit of a more embodied form of spirituality as well as provide insight and tools for those seeking to expand their creative edges in service to the world of spirit.
Hello everyone, and welcome back to the Spiritual Dance Podcast.
In my previous episode, which was titled “Setting the Stage”, I gave you an in-depth, glimpse into my journeys with both spirituality and dance. I also shared in great detail all of the incredible things that happened in my life when I began to weave those two worlds together.
In this episode, I’m going to share a very different side of my story - the shadow side. I'm going to talk about the way that high control religion negatively influenced me on a personal, professional, and artistic level. I will share the details that led to my church departure as well as the shutting down of Fueled & Aflame - the non-profit arts organization that I founded and ran for two decades. I will also dive into my own spiritual deconstruction and reconstruction processes, and share where I’m at currently on my spiritual path.
This episode is somewhat of a continuation of episode two so if you haven’t listened to that one yet, I would highly recommend going back and listening to that first - otherwise there will probably be parts of this episode that don’t make much sense.
Even though this episode discloses a lot of heavy things, please know that it does have a positive outcome. I am finally to a point where I feel grateful for all of the lessons that I've learned over the last 30 years. I believe those lessons shaped me into the person that I am today. I have fought so hard to heal and to cultivate an incredible, nourishing relationship with myself and with spirit. I am happier, more grounded, more clear, and more fulfilled than I ever thought I could be.
TRIGGER WARNING: Before we dive in, I do want to offer a trigger warning. This episode will probably be the most difficult episode that I share. I will be discussing spiritual abuse and religious trauma. I will share my experiences with purity culture, specifically in the Christian dance world. And I will talk about the ways in which certain theological doctrines that were taught to me inside of evangelical Christian churches, negatively affected my perception of and my relationship with myself, my body, and my craft.
I also want to remind you that this episode, as well as my previous episode, are not the norm for this podcast. My intention for the Spiritual Dance Podcast is to educate and inspire those who are interested in the world of spiritual dance. But it felt important to put my story out there right from the get go so that you can get to know me, and learn about my background, and understand the things that I've been through that have shaped who I am today. However, I am planning to share educational and inspirational content moving forward, beginning with episode four.
I want to begin by sharing the perspectives and the narrative that was offered to me when I was first introduced to Christianity. So let’s go back in time to the late 80s/early 90s…
One of my first memories of being exposed to harmful theology happened somewhere around the age of 13. I would sometimes play at a neighbor's house who’s family was pretty active in a local evangelical Christian church. If you’re not familiar with that particular denomination, well their primary focus is the practice of evangelism. The dictionary defines evangelism as the work of spreading the stories of the life of Jesus Christ and his teachings. And so every time I went across the street to play, my friends mom made a point to talk to me about Jesus and ask me questions such as had I ever read the Bible, or did I know who Jesus was? Had I heard of sin or hell? She seemed super nice but her questions made me uncomfortable. It was like she had planted a small seed of fear deep inside of me. Every interaction that I had with her caused me to grow more and more anxious.
Some of you may recall an author named Tim LaHaye who wrote a very popular book series called Left Behind. That series was centered around an end of times event called the rapture - an event that many American evangelicals still believe will happen someday. The rapture is said to be a secret phenomenon that occurs in conjunction with the second coming of Jesus Christ. During the rapture, all Christians, whether alive or dead, are resurrected to meet with Christ in the air. Those who had given their life to Jesus, would be taken up to heaven to live in eternal happiness. While any of their loved ones and friends that did not make the choice to give their lives to Jesus, were left behind on this earth to perish.
I cannot express how deeply that narrative was driven into the very fabric of my being. And because of that, I experienced this constant undercurrent of fear and anxiety from worrying not only about my own salvation, but the salvation of everyone that I loved and cared about. I would pray the prayer of salvation over and over again for years, because I was constantly worried that once wasn’t enough. I wanted to be absolutely sure I was 100% saved. I also carried this huge weight around on my shoulders because I felt personally responsible to share the gospel with everyone. Yet at the same time I was afraid to talk about it. Deep down I knew my friends and family would think I had lost my mind. So I didn’t talk about it, like hardly at all. And then guilt would set in. And then grief - because I was pre-grieving the fact that when Jesus came I would lose them forever. I think it forced me to emotionally separate from those I loved the most - because the weight of all of that was MUCH too much for me to hold, especially at such a young age.
One more foundational thing that I want to share is around the topic of purity culture and the impact that that had on my life. This movement took off in the early 90s and became a sort of subculture in evangelical Christian communities. It encouraged young people to abstain from sexual intercourse until marriage - reinforcing the idea that sexual purity was a way to measure someone’s worth. Women were made to feel responsible for men’s sexual behavior, and taught that this could be remedied by covering up and dressing modestly. There was also a strong emphasis on traditional gender roles and norms. Some communities even encouraged wearing purity rings and signing pledge cards as a public declaration of their commitment to save sex until marriage.
I experienced all of that in the church I was a part of in high school. But for me, the most harmful part of growing up in purity culture was the emphasis on biblical verses that spoke of humans being inherently bad or sinful. Verses that told us that our flesh, our bodies were evil and not to be trusted. In order to become right with God, we had to overcome the flesh and beat our bodies into submission metaphorically speaking. That led to an additional layer of fear and shame that I had to navigate. Not only was I afraid of not being saved enough to escape the rapture, but I was also afraid of my own body - worried that it would lead me into sin and eternal damnation.
Hearing myself say all that out loud today is really astounding. And it makes me feel so sick to my stomach - to think about this little girl in me that lived under the weight of all that nonsense day after day. I grieve the years I lost hating my body, hating myself - so disconnected. All of that was the foundation on which I built my faith, my beliefs were built. And to this day I’m still unraveling all of those false narratives. I’m still healing my self-worth issues and repairing my relationship with my physical body. And it’s only been in the last 4 years that I’ve begun to look at and process the way those things affected my artistic endeavors, my business activities, and my role as a spiritual leader.
As a dancer, my craft involves my physical body - she is the vessel I use to create art. Dancers often struggle with their bodies for a wide variety of reasons. We spend a lot of time in front of a mirror scrutinizing our shape and performance in the classroom and that leads to comparison, insecurity, and in extreme cases - disordered eating or exercise habits. Dancers are also athletes and often struggle with physical injuries. If an injury prevents them from creating, performing, and/or working for an extended amount of time, there’s often an added layer of mental health issues to deal with. Like most other dancers, I have struggled with all of these things at some point in my career - but I had an additional challenge to work through because dance is an art form that glorifies our physical body and what it is capable of - but my religion condemned her. I felt stuck between theses two conflicting cultures p and that felt impossible to reconcile.
I share all that in order to help you understand that my introduction to Christianity wasn’t really a positive experience. I was motivated to follow the rules of that religion because I was terrified that I or my loved ones would be left behind to experience hell on earth forever or that my body would cause me to sin and lose my “get out of hell free” card. Which was actually a common phrased used to describe salvation in my world. It wasn’t until my late 30s that I began to look at and unpack all of this in therapy. It was heartbreaking realizing how horrendous and how extensive the harm caused by all of this evangelical nonsense was.
So now that I’ve given you some background information about my reasons for becoming a Christian, I want to go through a sort of timeline of my experiences in the churches and other christian communities I was a part of.
In the previous episode, I shared a story about finding my way into church as a high school freshman because my boyfriend had invited me to watch him play in his band at a local Christian youth group. I talked about how I enjoyed the worship time in the youth group services and felt drawn to exploring the more mystical side of Christianity. I also mentioned that the youth pastor’s wife had become one of my closest friends and that she was mentoring me as I grew in my faith.
In my sophomore year of high school, I began dating the man who eventually became my husband (and still is today). Almost immediately I convinced him to start coming to church with me because remember, I was scared he would be “left behind”. Also, there was a verse that was often spoken to unmarried women in the church about not being unequally yoked - because if you don’t marry someone who believes the same things you do it could hinder your faith and cause you to stumble… and I’ve already talked at length about what that leads to.
So he decided to become a Christian too and befriended the church’s youth pastor, the man that was married to the woman who was my spiritual mentor. The four of us became pretty close and would hang out together quite often. They were also kind of mentoring us as a couple because we had talked about wanting to get married and they felt responsible to help us stay accountable, sexually speaking. However, my family wanted me to graduate college before we got married, so we hadn’t planned on getting married until then. That meant we were looking at 7 years of dating, and seven years of waiting to have sex, ignoring the natural urges of our bodies and believing that we were sinful for even just feeling those hormonally charged feelings. To say that was difficult is an understatement - in fact it felt impossible. We tried as hard as we could, but once we were engaged (after nearly 5 years of dating) we gave in - and we lied about it to our pastors because of the shame and guilt we felt. That shame and guilt caused us to put distance between us and them for more than 6 years, which was easy to do because we continued to live out of state after college.
All of that led to some really unhealthy beliefs about sexuality and ultimately caused a tremendous about of challenges in our physical relationship. I found it hard to enjoy sexual intimacy as a married woman. I would mentally dissociate during sex because I wasn’t able to move past the shame and guilt I felt from not being a virgin on my wedding night. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
In the last episode I talked about my frustrations with trying to connect with christian groups on my college campus. Those experiences felt more like they were trying to hire sales reps to sell Christianity to as many people as possible - they were completely void of the mystical worship experiences I had grown to love back in my home church. I didn’t attend church hardly at all in college - but I did have some incredible spiritual experiences during my junior and senior years when I discovered the world of Christian dance. I shared that story in depth in episode two so be sure to go back and check that out if you haven’t yet.
I should mention that the church I went to in high school was sort of pentecostal, meaning it leaned more into charismatic beliefs and practices. There was an emphasis on the supernatural manifestations of the Holy Spirit which included things like miracles, speaking in tongues, and getting slain in the spirit (which means literally collapsing onto the floor while being prayed for). I don’t remember the timing or even the reasons exactly, but while we were in college, our youth pastors left that church and joined the staff of a local Vineyard church. The Vineyard was also charismatic, but had a much more laid back, cool coffee house vibe. Many Vineyards even had fancy coffee bars, and the music was MUCH more modern sounding. We visited a few times with them when we would come home during college breaks and really enjoyed it.
Halfway through my time in college, I took a job working in a local Christian bookstore that was owned by two men who whose beliefs landed on complete opposite ends of the spectrum of Christianity. One was a devout Catholic, a worshiper of Mary. And the other a good old, southern Baptist man. Their vastly different beliefs attracted quite a diverse group of customers which gave me the opportunity to learn from people with different backgrounds, allowing me to expand my spiritual views. My dad’s family was southern baptist so I knew a little bit about that denomination. But catholicism was completely foreign to me. We had a lot of statues in our store because that was something that was important to Catholics. But many evangelical groups consider the use of statues a form of idol worship - which was a sin. In my four plus years of working there, I grew to love both of them dearly - they were like family to me. Watching their commitment and dedication to their friendship, despite their theological differences, taught me some of the most invaluable lessons I’ve ever learned in this lifetime. It truly shaped who I am today and the decisions I’ve made since working in that job.
During my time in that store I also developed a close relationship with a coworker who was gay. When I think back, I don’t remember any other gay people being in my life prior to that. I knew that both of the store owner’s religious paths condemned homosexuality - but I think the particular denomination that my coworker was a part of was affirming. He didn’t keep it a secret, but he also didn’t broadcast it either. I don’t remember feeling scared for his salvation, but I do remember being an awe of how he could reconcile his spirituality and sexuality. He and I worked together for many years and had so many interesting conversations about Christianity. I grew to treasure our friendship so much and looked forward to every shift we had together because of our deep and meaningful conversations as well as our humorous banter.
After graduating from college and getting married - Allyn (that’s my husband’s name) decided to stay and put down roots in Southeast Michigan. He had been offered a job at the university and my dance company that I had started was taking off. It didn’t make sense to move back home to Ohio because we had so much going for us in Michigan. We also had decided that we wanted to rededicate ourselves to the Christian faith and invest in a local church. Because we loved our visits to the Vineyard church at home so much, we decided to become members of the Vineyard Church in Ann Arbor. Allyn has a huge heart of service and he jumped right in, serving on the tech team and becoming a Stephen minister - which was someone who was trained to offer one-on-one emotional and spiritual care.
I on the other hand really struggled to fit in there. I don’t think it had anything to do with the church itself, but rather the unconscious current of inner turmoil and shame I was still struggling with. Most of my spiritual needs were being met within the spiritual dance community I was building outside of my church. Still, I forced myself to go to the Vineyard as often as I could in order to support Allyn. Though I would often gravitate towards the seats that were farthest from the front of the room, in order to avoid engaging with anyone.
However I did really enjoy the worship time there. I was so deeply moved by the music and the connection that I felt with spirit that I wanted to just let loose and dance freely. But that wasn’t something that this church really made space for. I found out a few years later that before I started attending, they had tried to incorporate dance into their worship services - but it didn’t really fit with the particular vibe they were going for. I was given the impression that the church staff were looking for something more modern and less conservative when it came to dance. Which was exactly what I was capable of bringing to their worship services. I had the same frustrations with the Christian dance world that they did (the overly modest attire and movements, lack of training, etc.). But they had pretty much made up their minds due to a previous bad experience and didn’t really give me a chance.
At that point in my life, I was deep into running my own Christian ministry. After graduating college, I founded and ran a Christian dance company which I named Fueled & Aflame. Leading and growing that organization took over most of my free time. I spent a lot of weekends at other churches performing and/or teaching. Even if my home church wasn’t supporting my work, I had become a part of a larger network of churches that did. Week after week I had the opportunity to visit a wide-variety of denominations and other Christian communities that broadened my spiritual views and beliefs.
The majority of the church spaces and other dance ministries that I partnered with were very conservative. Looking back, I can see the obvious ways in which purity culture influenced the Christian dance world. As a dance major in college, we pretty much lived in leotards and tights, which is important because teachers need to be able to see your anatomy in order to correct misalignments and prevent injury. But if I was teaching dance classes in a Christian environment, the staff would often require us to wear baggy cover ups - because showing that much skin could cause others to sin. Even though everything in me disagreed, it was an obstacle that I just had to learn to work around.
I was also constantly coming up against other church leaders who were telling me that the music, costumes, and movement choices I was making could cause others to stumble. I was always trying to push that boundary, to create spiritually inspired dance works that were free and exciting, modern, and maybe a little spicy. I mean I’m a very passionate person, full of fire - heck I named my dance company Fueled & Aflame! It wasn’t like we were twerking or dancing sexy in any way. In fact, I became quite skilled at choreographing jazz and hip-hop pieces that didn’t draw attention to the hips. I always used Christian music too. But despite my efforts, I often had to make modifications in order to be permitted to teach or perform in certain churches or festivals. It was frustrating, but time after time I reluctantly complied.
On a personal level, I think that every time I was asked to make modifications to one of my pieces that I had so thoughtfully created, it only reinforced that deeply embedded shame and guilt I was still struggling with due to having sex before marriage. That particular dynamic felt like an internal volcano just waiting to erupt.
Meanwhile, Allyn had decided to enroll in the Vineyard’s Leadership Institute. VLI was kind of like the Vineyard’s version of seminary. Not everyone who enrolled intended on becoming a pastor, which was good because I told Allyn that I was not at all interested in being a pastor’s wife. I used the excuse of being so busy running my own ministry - which wasn’t untrue… but the idea of being a pastor’s wife both repulsed and terrified me. It seemed so restrictive on so many levels.
In 2005, we gave birth to our first child and quickly decided to move back home to Ohio so that our families could be a part of our kids lives. When we left Michigan, I also laid down my work with Fueled & Aflame indefinitely. It was heartbreaking to walk away from everything I had built not knowing if I would ever have the chance to do that work again. But it didn’t take long for me to find new connections in Ohio. I got a position teaching dance classes to high schoolers at a local Christian school. My classes were popular and I quickly grew a new following.
Another reason for our move to Ohio was that Allyn and I were excited to reconnect with the youth pastors from our childhood. We wanted them to be a part of our kids lives as well. They had recently started their own Vineyard church and we planned to become members and make that our home church. I knew they would be supportive of my dance ministry work and that Allyn would have an opportunity to serve in their community, something that was very important to him. Unbeknownst to us, they had planned to add Allyn to the pastoral staff. He was honored and excited for that opportunity - though shocked when it was announced at the luncheon following our first church service back with them. I was happy for him, despite my reservations.
Eventually I outgrew my dance teaching gig at the high school, not only because of growing interest but because I was frustrated with the limitations of the space and also the spiritual environment. It was clear to me that it was time to build my own school. If I’m honest, I had never wanted to run a dance studio. I much preferred teaching choreography rather than technique classes. And I was mostly interested in working with and setting choreography on young adults. But I was feeling excited by the level of interest in my classes and also, the extra cash was really helpful for our family’s budget.
In recent years, I’ve processed the fact that another big reason for me wanting to open my own studio is that my first-born was really interested in dance and was finally old enough to start taking classes. There’s something about becoming a parent that brings all these deep seated fears to the surface, at least that was my experience. Parenting reawakened my fears about sin and hell and plunged me back into a purity culture mindset. And my pastors encouraged all of my conservative parenting decisions. I kept my kids in such a bubble - even Disney wasn’t allowed in our house, because Disney talked about magic and magic was of the devil. My house was filled with Christian books, and movies, and music. I even got really anxious if my kids were playing with another family who didn’t share our beliefs. It was like all my fears came back with a vengeance and I doubled down. So when my child wanted to dance, I knew that it couldn’t be in a secular studio because their music, movement, and costume choices might cause them to stray from Jesus. No - instead I had to build my own studio, one where I could control the culture and protect my kids from any outside influence that might lead them astray.
Turns out I actually really loved the work of running a studio - especially the business side of it. Which is why I continued to do it year after year. It was an incredibly fulfilling and fruitful experience - each season we nearly doubled in size. I was passionate about offering families like ours access to excellent technical training in a spiritual environment. But I was also attracting families who shared my same conservative mindset, and sometimes even more extreme.
From the outside, our studio didn’t look a whole lot different from other studios. Other than the fact that our classes and performances used either classical or Christian music. The other difference was that we did not participate in dance competitions - our program was more concert-based. This was partly because of the anti-performance mindset I talked about in my previous episode. I was of the opinion that competitions existed only to glorify the dancer and I wanted my dancers to glorify God. For me there was no middle ground. Competitions were worldly, not the type of activity we should be focusing on.
I had started my dance studio in my home. But a few months into our second season I realized that we were quickly outgrowing my space. Because Allyn and I were on staff at our church, the board allowed us to renovate a space inside their building and that became my studio’s home for almost 6 years. Soon I was spending more time at church than I was at home. Which was challenging because I had two small children and Allyn’s day job had him traveling internationally for like 3/4’s of the year. Somehow we made it all work.
A rapidly growing studio meant I needed more help, but interviewing new dance teachers and staff was a little bit tricky because of the spiritual nature of my business. I had both high technical and moral standards for the people who worked in my studio, because my reputation in the Christian communities that supported us was at stake. If I hired a jazz dance teacher, I had to make sure they would skip the hips when doing isolation warmups. It was even harder for me to trust an outside hip-hop teacher because even with clean moves and Christian music, many churches would still draw the line at hip-hop. The minute you drop a sick beat, they would throw up a red flag. So I usually ended up teaching all the hip-hop classes. I can look back on all that now and laugh, but it was serious business back then. Despite my strict requirements, I met some really incredible humans through that process over the years who eventually became life-long friends and family to me.
Shortly after my studio had gotten settled into our church building, Allyn’s youngest brother, came out to us as gay. Him sharing that with us didn’t change how we felt about him or how we treated him in the slightest. I do remember feeling a shudder of fear about what would happen if my studio customers found out. But for me it didn’t challenge my beliefs in any way. I loved him dearly and was happy for him. For Allyn however, I think it cause some deeper stirrings on the topic. After all, he was a pastor in our church that firmly believed homosexuality was a sin.
Back in Michigan, our former church was gaining some national recognition because the senior pastor had written a public paper with his reasons for being LGBTQ+ affirming. Despite being the regional overseer for the Vineyard - that paper led to him being asked to step down. He eventually left the church and started a new church called Blue Ocean Faith. This also had a deep impact on Allyn because that senior pastor had been his mentor, someone he looked up to and cared deeply about.
Around 2015, Jacquie, one of the dance instructors in my studio came out to me as lesbian mid-way through her second season with us. It took me by surprise and launched me into my own inner turmoil on the topic because she had become like a little sister to me. To this day I would still do anything for her, but I had no clue how to navigate that in my business back then. I will always regret asking her to keep it on the down low publicly while affirming her privately. I just needed time to figure things out, but it wasn’t fair to her. I knew my families, and I knew that if they found out my studio would crumble.
Meanwhile, my best friend, who was an elder in our church, confided in me that she had fallen in love with a woman. I had no idea she was queer - even she had no idea that she was queer, until it happened. I think it was at this point that I started to struggle with theology surrounding this issue. The weight of all of these situations had finally created enough pressure that my own issues around sexuality were starting to bubble up to the surface once again.
Let me jump back to college for a minute. There were several moments throughout college that I experienced feelings of attraction towards women. It didn’t seem like a big deal at the time because I was dating Allyn and fully committed to marrying him. I also wasn’t really prioritizing my spirituality at that time. It was just something I noticed and quickly tucked away. But when I was struggling with my sexuality as a newlywed, I often wondered if it was partly because I allowed myself to experience same-sex attraction back in college (as if I could have prevented that). That wondering quickly spiraled into fear, anxiety, and eventually panic attacks. I confided in the pastors at the Ann Arbor Vineyard who referred me to a 12 week healing program called Living Waters. That program was associated with Exodus International - an ex-gay organization that was eventually shut down because they practiced conversion therapy. The point of going through the Living Waters program was to cleanse and heal me of my same-sex attraction, even if I wasn’t acting on it.
Back to 2015… In my current church, the one where my studio was now housed, I was also a part of the healing ministry team. More specifically, I was the person who would get called in to help whenever someone needed healing in the area of sexuality - because after all, I had been cleansed of that sin. But after having three close friends and a family members come out and watching the drama that unfolded in our former church over that issue, I could no longer ignore the part of me that I had locked up and shelved in the back of my closet. Now I was wrestling with my faith, worrying about my business, and scared of confronting the skeletons in my closet. I was also worried about what would happen in my own marriage if I owned that part of myself. To say the pressure was enormous is a massive understatement. It felt like my entire world could come crashing down at any minute. And slowly but surely it did.
Internally, I was on the verge of coming undone. I sought council from the senior pastor’s wife - the woman who had been my spiritual mentor since I was a teenager, the woman who I looked up to more than anyone else, a woman who I had considered my big sister for more than half my life. But she doubled down on the scriptures that proved being gay was a sin. She prayed for me over and over again to stay strong and not falter in my beliefs. The more questions I asked, the more her compassion and empathy towards me faded. Eventually she put so much space in between us that I only saw her once every 4-6 months. And I lived next door to her. My dance studio was inside her church. I would even sing on the worship team with her, though that activity ended pretty quickly.
The moment I knew that that relationship had run it’s course was after a conversation we had where she very carefully suggested that Allyn’s choice to affirm the LGBTQ+ community could cause my kids to end up in hell. And though she never came outright and said it to my face, I was made to feel that at some point I was going to have to choose between my marriage and being a part of that church community. This was also because Jacquie, my studio instructor, had asked Allyn to perform her marriage ceremony to her partner. Allyn sought permission from the board of elders at our church. When they said no, he got his own credentials and did it anyways. She was family and we weren’t going to stand the way of her marrying the love of her life.
Eventually, it was made clear to Allyn and I that we were no longer welcome in that community. And why would we want to stay anyhow, when some of my closest friends and family members had become the source of so much drama - and not because they had done anything wrong, but because embodying the truth of who they were was a threat to the reputation of the leaders and the salvation of the members of their congregation. Our beliefs about who God was and who was worthy of his love and full acceptance had become much too expansive for them to hold. As painful as it was to walk away, to lose the community and spiritual home that we had poured into for almost 10 years - ultimately it was a doorway that led to our freedom, peace, and true happiness.
Meanwhile I was looking into spaces I could rent outside of the church in order to keep running my dance studio. I had fallen in love with a 6000 sq. ft property. It was a huge risk, but my business had an 8 year history of year after year continuous growth. And I also had a solid business plan in which I was going to partner with like-minded businesses to help pay the rent. I was talking with faith-based martial arts, yoga, and gymnastics businesses that were looking to expand. It was all very carefully planned out and I was determined to succeed. But I didn’t account for moral failure in the eyes of my entire customer base.
One of our teen students had found Jacquie online and saw her profile picture - which was a picture of her and her wife standing at the altar with Allyn performing their marriage ceremony. She asked her mom about it and her mom then shared that information with another studio mom. Those two moms had been with my studio since the very beginning. Our kids had grown up together. I loved them both dearly. But one day they ask another instructor in my studio, my youth company director, to meet them for coffee. They asked her about Jacquie as well as about her and my spiritual beliefs on the topic. I was deeply upset that they hadn’t come directly to me with their questions. I felt betrayed from years and years of pouring into their kids both spiritually and artistically.
So I reached out directly and asked them for a meeting. At that point in time I was still very much sorting out my feelings and beliefs about everything. I was choosing to love and stand by my queer friends and family members. But I was also terrified about where my life, my business, and my marriage were headed and I didn’t have a lot of space to sort it all out. I was a mom of two young kids, now managing a large property that needed a lot of maintenance, running a dance studio, dance boutique, and 3 dance companies. We had officially left the Vineyard church behind and Allyn and my best friend had decided to start their own Blue Ocean Faith church with the support of our former senior pastor from the Ann Arbor Vineyard.
In that meeting I could feel the future of my studio and my companies hanging by a thread. It was all so tangible. All I could do was share where I was at, the things I had been through and the toll that it had taken on me. It didn’t matter - I knew when they walked out of my office that it was all over. Word spread quickly and in a matter of three months we had lost more than half of our income. Allyn and I drained our life savings to try and keep everything afloat. When I think about the time and money I lost trying to save that dream, it makes me so sick. I could easily drown in all the should haves and what ifs. But here’s the thing, I can now look back in confidence knowing that spirit was simply trying to rescue me - to snatch me out of an environment that was keeping me from the growth my soul longed for. An environment that, down the road, could have very likely ended one or both of my kids lives. But I’m getting ahead of myself again.
I tried to support Allyn and my bestie in their efforts to start a new open and affirming church. Two of my dance instructors and their families also attended. It was a sweet little small group for a short while. But I was in so much pain and so angry - and I blamed Christianity for all of it. My deconstruction happened so fast once I leaned in to it. I started to really ask questions. I read more books in 6 months than I had in my entire life. Books from people like Sarah Bessey, Rachel Held Evans, and Jamie Lee Finch as well as Cindy Wang Brandt’s Parenting Forward podcast. I even attended the first Evolving Faith conference in 2018 where many of them spoke. Six short months went by and 25 years of devotion to Christianity ended up on the top of a bonfire.
I was forced to shut down my dance studio just 10 months after opening our brand new 6000 sq. ft. facility. I tried to hold onto my companies by renting space from another local dance studio. But those numbers quickly dwindled as well and we decided to plan a farewell concert in March of 2020. Something like 10 dancers made it to the concert which we ended up holding virtually due to the lockdown that began that very same week.
Nine months prior to that concert my bestie and I had started attending yoga classes in a local studio that felt very mystical and magical. Our teacher was also a former Christian. The first time we stepped foot into her class and saw incense coming out of a cauldron with crystals and oracle cards spread out on the floor, all I could think was, “we’re going straight to hell” - even though I no longer believed in hell. Turns out she was an astrologer and tarot reader and also ran moon circles there. So naturally we signed up for the next circle and purchased astrology readings.
I ended up diving head first into her world where I explored an ocean of esoteric beliefs and practices. Her teachings woke something up deep inside of me. She inspired me to call back my power - to reclaim my sovereignty and autonomy. It was such an exciting journey of rediscovering myself and reconnecting to earth-based spiritual practices. I met so many incredible women through that community that I consider my coven to this day, women who have had my back during the most difficult years of my life. Without that season I probably would have given up on spirituality completely.
However, that same season also brought some incredibly difficult lessons as well. I learned that no spiritual community is perfect. Toxicity, manipulation, and spiritual abuse can happen inside and outside of the church - regardless of a specific path or belief system. I learned that not all spiritual leaders are good people. Some are only interested in what they can gain from their leadership role - whether it’s power, money, and/or fame. And by default I learned that the best thing you can do to prevent yourself from becoming a victim in that game is to get to know yourself inside and out. To learn to love and trust your body - because she/he/they will tell you the truth every time.
My kids also went through some major transitions during these years. I’m so thankful for the space that the pandemic created for us so that we could work through issues around gender, sexuality, and mental health in private. That was an incredibly delicate and complex thing for our family to navigate - but I believe we did it well. Allyn and I are so proud of the courage and that boldness that both of our kids displayed in learning to embody their truest and most authentic selves. They are two of the most incredible humans I’ve ever met - and they’ve taught me so many invaluable lesson about life and love. It’s been the most precious honor to behold their journeys. Today they are happy and healthy - and I honestly don’t think that would be the case if we had stayed in church.
So that pretty much brings us to the current day. In the six months leading up to the recording of this particular episode, I’ve been really internal. Reflecting on the entirety of my life’s spiritual journey and sorting out the beliefs and practices that still feel aligned to who I am today.
When I think upon all of my experiences with Christianity, one thing that stands out is the emphasis of the divine masculine - praying and worshipping God the father. Alternatively, my experiences in the witchcraft community focused on the divine feminine, mother earth, and/or the Goddess. When I look back at my connection to spirit throughout my life so far - I don’t believe that my core beliefs have changed much, if at all. During my time in evangelical church communities, I was trying to fit this earth-based, mystical spirituality inside of a box labeled Christian. When I moved into witchcraft and pagan communities, I was trying to fit what I had learned in Christianity into a box labeled witchcraft. Recently I feel like I’ve landed in a place where I’m seeking balance between those two polarities.
Last year I was listening to an episode of the Astrology Podcast where they were interviewing a popular astrologer named Chani Nichols. She talked about using the words solar and lunar instead of masculine and feminine - because that’s what those words mean in astrology. That was such a beautiful perspective shift for me, and I have been working to change my vocabulary when referring to those constructs because there are people in my life who are greatly triggered by the words feminine and masculine. It’s not that I don’t believe those two distinctively different energies exist because they do - but they exist in all of us. Learning to speak in a more inclusive and gender expansive manner is a way of offering kindness and compassion to our fellow humans. But also, using the words solar and lunar to describe masculine and feminine energy has brought an entirely new perspective to my view of the world, of dance, and of spirituality in general.
For me, spirituality is all about energy and intention and I think learning to harmonize solar and lunar spiritual energies and practices can provide a rich landscape for our spiritual journeys.
For example, when I step into the role of DANCER - I am activating my creative energy and directing it in an artistic manner with the intention of conveying emotions or sharing a story that inspire others. To me, that is a very solar (or masculine) role because I’m directing my energy outward in an intentional manner. I’m radiating love and light in a way that serves the world of spirit. Which is also what I loved about my time in church. On the flip side, I use the word movement to describe a more lunar form of dance. To me, movement is receptive, it’s fluid. It’s how I connect with and channel wisdom and insight from the world of spirit. So my intention with movement is often to be receptive to spiritual energy, or to the wisdom of my body - which by the way is only possible now because of the work I’ve done to untangle myself from purity culture.
When I step into the role of WITCH, for me it means that I’m receiving energy from the earth and the elements with the intention of working with that energy in a way that nourishes and heals my body and soul. It includes things like connecting with the cycles and seasons to draw strength, comfort, and wisdom from the natural world. It can also includes divination and psychic development. I would consider those kinds of practices to be very lunar in nature. However, I can also direct the energy and wisdom gained from those practices in an external manner in order to support my dreams, accomplish my goals, or send healing or protective energy to other people or places - which I view as a solar version of witchcraft.
When I step into the role of ASTROLOGER, I am receiving and interpreting energy from the cosmos for the purposes of gaining wisdom and insights that can help myself and others understand why we’re here on this planet, in this moment in time. I can work with astrology in a way that offers a broader understanding of our lives so that we can be mindful when moving through the lessons that we came here to learn and make smart decisions that are aligned with our highest timeline.
At this point in my life, I feel comfortable saying that DANCE, WITCHCRAFT, and ASTROLOGY are my three primary spiritual practices - but I wouldn’t call any of them my spiritual path. They are roles I step into depending on what I want to accomplish. I honestly don’t know that I will ever be able to put a label on my spiritual path. I just know that my connection to spirit is one of the most important things to me. It’s a beautiful, nourishing two-way relationship that brings life and meaning to me day in and day out. I pray all day with words and movement. I journal, pull cards, tend to my garden and my land. I study the cosmos and do my best to love and serve the people that come into my orbit. And to me, all of that is spirituality.
In this moment in time I feel closer to spirit than I ever thought possible and everything just feels right in my world. That doesn’t mean that my life is all sunshine and rainbows. Please hear me on that! There are still many hard things I have to navigate - both in my personal life and with the state of this world. But in a way, my journey has given me a broader and higher perspective. And when my road takes a sharp turn or when I meet an obstacle head on it doesn’t cause me to crumble like I used to. I have meaningful practices that support me. There’s also this beautiful resilience deep within that I’ve worked hard to cultivate, and it serves me well.
I’ve spent more than four years now studying astrology in-depth from several different teachers. I’ve learned that astrology is basically the language of energy and that vocabulary partners beautifully with dance and movement practices - offering us a fresh perspective of the broad spectrum motion and shapes available to us in our human bodies. This discovery helped me to rework and also expand my spiritual dance curriculum in a way that makes it more accessible and inclusive to many different spiritual paths.
My role and work as The Dancing Oracle is to help you awaken to the path of embodied spirituality, build a spiritual dance practice, and learn to move in sync with the rhythm of spirit. I offer 1-1 coaching as well as classes and workshops where I teach on topics such as channeled movement, dance as prayer, movement meditation, elemental dance magick, dance divination, energetic healing with dance, and so much more.
If you want to learn more about my work then I would invite you to explore my website and see if my work calls to you. I work with ALL bodies and ALL skill levels. Whether you’re a professional dancer or someone who’s never set foot inside a dance studio - I can help you fuse dance and movement into your spiritual path or add a spiritual focus to your already-established dance craft. It would be my honor to guide you into a new and embodied way of connecting with the world of spirit.
If you run a dance or yoga studio, a school, a faith community, or host events or conferences of a spiritual or artistic nature - I would love to come speak or teach for you. Please fill out the “Contact Me” form on my website so we can book the class or workshop that will enrich the lives of those in your community.
If you are still listening, thank you so much for hanging in there with me! I know this episode was a long one. Next month, I plan to start diving into more educational and inspirational content so I look forward to connecting with you then.
OUTRO: Thank you for taking the time to listen to my podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, I would greatly appreciate a positive rating and review. This helps others find me so I can support and inspire as many humans as possible. If you would like to learn more about my work, please visit www.thedancingoracle.com - there you can book an intuitive reading or embodied coaching session and find out about my upcoming events. You can also sign up for my mailing list to be notified of my upcoming course and book launches on the topic of Dance Divination. Until next time, be well friends and I’ll talk to you in the next episode.
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