Unbound
Written by Gabriela - Maryland, USA
The car pulled up to the church on the hill and I stepped outside, shivering in my short white dress. Overhead, the moon hung low in the sky, casting glimmers of silver over the horse pastures and boxy steeple. I was thirteen, and I would be going into the sanctuary alone. It was the first church that I had ever chosen for myself.
Inside the sanctuary, around thirty people were sitting in rows around a podium with two altar tables off to the side. The room was dark except for the flicker of taper candles and all I could see were people’s heads. I slid into a chair in the back row and hugged myself. I needed this church to be different from the others: the creeds recited in monotone, the stiff pews, the sitting still, the silent knowledge that I would never fit in because I’m gay.
A woman in white pants walked to the center of the room. She was covered in sleeves of colorful tattoos, her dark hair styled in a fabulous undercut, and she had the kind of big resonant voice that could fill a whole room. She explained the structure of tonight’s service. On Imbolc, the halfway point between winter and spring, we were going to rekindle the fires of hope by dancing, chanting, and shaking jars of cream into butter. For a second, I couldn’t seem to move. Were they really going to let me dance?
The drums kicked in, and the whole congregation got to their feet. I kicked off my sandals and shimmied down the aisle, laughing out loud with joy. The community was a throng of people, coming together, spinning, spiraling, circling, breaking apart. We were separate and we were one body. As the drums picked up, I shook my long hair from its braid and let it tumble down my shoulders, unbound. Sweat dripped down my arms; the sanctuary became a sweltering swirl of dancers. I was burning alive with the spirit.
When the drumming slowed down, I stopped in the center of the room and lifted my eyes to the rafters, soaking in everyone’s joy. The singing was softer now: Fire flow free, fire flow through me. I couldn’t believe that I had finally found a church that let me come as I am.
All my life I had wanted to worship by dancing. As a little girl in the Catholic Church, I used to dance in the aisles until they told me I was too old for such things. Sitting in a pew and reciting other people’s prayers made me feel like I was reading a bad script. When I came out as lesbian, I researched other paths and fell in love with Neopaganism, a new religious movement that sees nature as sacred and the Divine as many genders. That night was my first ritual.
I think the path of queerness is a lot like dancing. We shift and change; we break barriers; we’re always transforming. When I looked for a new religion, I wanted one that celebrates queer people- and one that would let me dance. Religion isn’t supposed to be staid or stagnant. It’s an eternal spiral dance into the arms of the Divine Beloved.
