The room pulsed with breath and bass. Bare feet brushed the wood floor like whispers, hips remembering something ancient. Thirty-plus women moved together—some wrapped in costume, others still wearing the day. There was no choreography, no performance to perfect. Just bodies speaking the language of truth.

Ecstatic dance has always felt like prayer to me. Like yoga, or a sound bath, you don’t have to understand the practice for it to reach the places that words cannot. The body simply knows. But when you enter it with intention—to meet what’s buried beneath the surface—the experience becomes alchemical.

That night, the DJ invited us to dance with our shadows. To move through anger and grief. Forty-five minutes in, I paused and walked toward the altar, where a Kali oracle deck waited. I drew a card, and before I even read the message, tears came—fast and fierce.

When I lifted my eyes, I saw the circle of women around me, thirty houses of breath and heartbeat, each one a mirror. And in that moment, I realized how much of my life had taught me to avoid this exact scene. The gathering of women. The shared power of sisterhood. I felt the ache of that conditioning—the way patriarchy fractures us, convincing us to compete instead of connect. A wave of sadness and joy rose together in my chest, two currents flowing in the same river.

From that moment, something in me broke open. The dance became ceremony.

Later that night, I came home and wrote what had moved through me—the only language that could hold it was poetry.  I then re-wrote it several times to capture it just right. From my initial journal entry, this is what emerged: 

The Guest House Dance

A modern embodiment of Rumi’s teaching—where rage, grief, and joy find rhythm in the same body.

We gathered—thirty women and more, barefoot and brave,

some wrapped in costume, others still wearing the day.

We placed our masks at the door and stepped into the circle—

a room pulsing with breath and possibility.

The lights were low, the music soft,

like the beginning of a heartbeat.

One by one, we began to listen with our bodies—

hips remembering something ancient,

hands tracing prayers through the air.

There was no choreography, no need to be beautiful or right.

Each movement was a confession, a question, a doorway.

I felt myself sink beneath the surface of my own skin.

My Luna Moth costume held me like a cocoon—

fleece wings wrapping the parts of me that had learned to stay small.

When the music swelled, I unzipped, stepped out.

The air was cool against my arms.

And then—

the guests began to arrive.

Joy was first—gold and light, spinning like laughter.

Then Anger burst in, uninvited but insistent,

slamming the door open with her thunderous feet.

Grief drifted behind her, pale and heavy,

fogging the windows with her breath.

Rage came last, sacred and wild-eyed,

tearing the curtains down so light could finally enter.

My body became the house;

each emotion, a roomful of sound.

They danced through me, rearranging furniture,

shaking the dust from old corners.

Tears streamed.

Breath broke into sobs.

And still I moved—

because movement was the only language big enough for this story.

At some point I looked up.

Around me, more than thirty houses shook in rhythm—

women spinning, trembling, roaring.

I saw how wrong the old stories had been—

the ones that taught me to fear other women,

to believe we were competition instead of constellation.

The patriarchy had built that lie to keep us from this:

a wildfire of truth burning in our chests.

Something broke open in me then.

The place where silence had been sealed cracked wide.

Rage surged through me—bright, electric, ancient.

Rage for the girl I once was, and the woman who carries her.

Rage for my own assault,

and for the countless women whose stories echo mine.

Rage that this violation has been normalized,

woven into the fabric of a world that calls it acceptable.

Rage for every man who disrespected me,

even if not in this exact way.

Rage for the silence expected of us—

for how often we are told to bear it quietly.

And beneath it all, grief.

Grief for the years I mistook endurance for strength.

Together they rose, rage and grief intertwined,

a storm that stripped me clean.

Inside that storm, I found something holy:

my own voice—steady, unbroken, free.

The music softened to a hum.

We gathered again in circle,

faces wet, hearts thundering,

a quiet that felt sacred.

My house stood emptied, walls glowing.

Every guest had come and gone, leaving behind their gifts.

I touched my chest and felt it there—

the hum of love, steady and ancient.

Once, I was taught to fear this kind of gathering.

Now, I know why they were afraid.

Because when women dance their truths,

the world begins to tremble.

When I read those words now, I can feel the truth vibrating beneath them. That night, I didn’t need to do anything with my emotions. I didn’t need to fix them, name them, or make them smaller. I simply let them move through.

For years, I mistook numbness for peace. I believed healing meant never feeling pain again. But healing isn’t the absence of pain—it’s the capacity to hold it with love.

At a retreat this summer with Jeff Foster and Matt Licata, one teaching stayed with me:

“The essence of this path is to be able to hold two apparently opposing forces in our lives without any wish for resolution.”

That’s what yoga really teaches.

To stay grounded while the storm rages.

To become aware of what moves through you without trying to control it.

To allow that awareness to transform you.

I can now hold my trauma with compassion and still let grief and rage rise when they need to. I no longer confuse emotional silence with strength. I choose life—the whole of it.

Yoga, at its heart, is not a practice of perfect poses or serene smiles.

It’s the remembering of wholeness.

The willingness to feel it all and still stay rooted in love.

When I stand on my mat now—or step onto the dance floor—I remember:

this is what yoga really teaches.

To be the witness and the wave.

To breathe, to move, to feel.

To hold it all.

Reflection prompt:

• What emotion is asking to be danced through you today?