I should’ve known it was a cult when they took my shoes, because there are very few legitimate situations in adult life where strangers remove your footwear and none of them end with personal growth, and yet there I was, standing in front of a converted barn—or, excuse me, the “Sacred Release Pavilion”—holding my rolled-up yoga mat like it was a weapon I wasn’t afraid to use, already wearing the specific, tight-lipped expression of someone who has made a bad decision and is now committed to seeing it through out of spite, when this woman at the door introduces herself as Indigo and smiles at me like she’s forgiven me for something I haven’t confessed to yet, which is honestly unsettling because I haven’t even done anything in this building and already I feel spiritually behind on my apologies, and she’s barefoot, which immediately sets off alarms, because everyone is barefoot, and not in a cute, summer way but in a we have rejected modernity way, and the floor—God, the floor—is made of whatever sadness is, bamboo maybe, but the kind of bamboo that has absorbed years of whispered trauma and passive income dreams, and Indigo takes my shoes like this is normal, like this is a service she provides, and she tells me, very serenely, that I’m just in time for the arrival ritual, and I say, because I cannot help myself, “Oh good, that’s my favorite kind of ritual, the arrival one,” and she doesn’t laugh, not even a twitch, because cults don’t do sarcasm, sarcasm requires perspective and irony, and irony does not survive in beige spaces, and suddenly I’m being handed a robe, beige of course, the color of surrender, and a paper name tag that says “Root Chakra: Tallulah,” which is already incorrect on several levels but I’m too tired to litigate it, and a cup of something called moon-tea, which I am informed is meant to prepare the womb space, and listen, my womb has been through worse, but I don’t appreciate the ambush, especially not in liquid form, and as I’m standing there trying to decide whether refusing the tea will get me exiled or cleansed, I notice a man in the corner with a beard shaped like a question mark adjusting a giant gong, just gently coaxing it into readiness like it might spook, and later I will learn his name is Rain and that he is Indigo’s life partner, and I will never, ever stop being angry about that, because at some point the universe is just showing off, and then they tell us—us, because there are others now, soft-eyed people in layers—to find our energetic pod based on birth moon and personal intention, which feels like astrology speed-dating, and I end up next to a woman named Salix who smells like smoked lavender and tells me her intention is “to be held by the universe,” which is brave, I guess, and when she asks me mine I say, very honestly, that it’s “to not die in a beige barn,” and she nods like that’s valid, like she’s heard worse, and we sit down in a circle because of course we do, and we are invited to hum, and everyone hums immediately, enthusiastically, like they’ve been waiting all week to vibrate at strangers, and I hum too, quietly, cautiously, entirely out of fear, because I have seen enough documentaries to know how this goes, and somewhere between the humming and the first sip of moon-tea I realize that this, apparently, is how my journey toward self-love began, not with a breakthrough or a revelation, but with me being spiritually kidnapped by strangers who use the word “yoni” like a weapon and expect gratitude for it.

So. After the humming comes the Circle of Trust, which is already a phrase that makes my shoulders inch upward like they’re trying to crawl into my ears and hide, and in this particular case the Circle of Trust apparently involves blindfolds, yes, blindfolds, on Day One, which feels less like an invitation and more like a soft-spoken warning label, and I remember raising my hand—because some part of me still believes in procedures and clarifying questions—and asking, very calmly, “Is this metaphorical, or are we doing sensory deprivation already?” and Indigo, who has the smile of a tragic hummingbird, all brightness and sorrow and too much meaning packed into too small a body, smiles at me and says, “Trust begins in darkness,” and in that exact moment I consider faking sudden, irreversible blindness and fleeing toward the light like a morally confused moth, but no, instead we are blindfolded, actually blindfolded, cloth over eyes, vision gone, and we are led around gently, or as they keep insisting, guided energetically, which is a very generous way of saying that someone grabs your ass with emotional intent and calls it healing, and Rain’s voice starts echoing through the barn, disembodied and serene, telling us to let our bodies lead, to let shame fall away, to let someone catch us, and I am immediately aware that I do not know who is supposed to catch me, or if anyone is, or if I am being touched by a hand or a ghost or possibly Salix, who earlier introduced herself by saying she felt “called” to hold other women’s trauma, which is not something you want hovering near your lower back while you can’t see, and I stumble, because of course I do, and someone whispers very close to my ear, “Breathe into your tailbone,” and I realize I have absolutely no idea where my tailbone is in this moment, it has vanished, evacuated, my entire body is now just one continuous alarm system screaming fight or flight, and then, without warning, without a countdown or a consent form or even a dramatic pause, we are asked to speak our first sexual memory into the dark, into the collective void, like it’s spin-the-bottle but for unresolved childhood experiences, and my brain goes completely blank except for one useless, deeply embarrassing fact, so when it’s my turn, when the silence waits for me expectantly, this is what comes out of my mouth, this is what Tallulah, Root Chakra, Barefoot in Beige says: “I think I saw an episode of Friends once where Chandler had a foot thing,” and there is a beat, a long one, heavy, almost wet, and then someone next to me moans, and I genuinely cannot tell if it’s spiritual ecstasy or digestive regret, and at that point the distinction feels academic, so I rip off the blindfold, drop to the floor, and pretend to faint, because honestly, it is the only reasonable thing I have done all day.

So the schedule says Guided Tantric Activation, and I remember reading that and thinking, okay, sure, that sounds manageable, that sounds like breathing deeply while someone with good posture tells me I’m doing great and maybe hands me a blanket, maybe uses the word journey a few times, and instead I’m sitting on a yoga mat, cross-legged but tense, defensive in that very specific way where your body is technically still but every muscle is braced, like a cat pretending to meditate while actively planning an escape route, and Rain—the man, not the weather phenomenon, which already feels like something I should have interrogated earlier—starts gathering us into pairs and says, very calmly, very confidently, “Find your energetic opposite,” and I immediately know two things: one, I do not know what that means, and two, whatever it means, I am about to do it wrong. I end up sitting across from a guy named Joel, because of course his name is Joel, and he looks at me with the kind of intense, unblinking focus usually reserved for cult leaders and people trying to bend spoons with their minds, and I can feel him attempting what I assume is a mind-meld, or possibly a soft reboot, and then he says, very earnestly, “I feel your resistance,” and I say, “That’s just my face,” because it is just my face, this is what it does when I’m confused, uncomfortable, and trapped on a mat I paid money to be on. Rain tells us to mirror each other’s movements, and Joel immediately starts raising his arms slowly, reverently, like a bald eagle in a documentary about spiritual rebirth, all grace and intention, and I raise mine like I’m surrendering at an airport security checkpoint, palms up, shoulders tight, silently apologizing to no one in particular, and then we’re told to breathe into each other, and I need to be very clear here, because this is where the universe lost me: I do not mean metaphorically, I do not mean energetically, I mean he leans forward and exhales directly into my face, full breath, full commitment, like a tantric leaf blower, and my body responds by gagging on instinct, because it has boundaries even when my brain is still buffering, and Joel nods serenely and says, “That was your blockage being released,” and I say, “That was your lunch,” because I am ninety percent sure I just inhaled kale and entitlement. I wipe my mouth, because my mouth needs wiping, spiritually and physically, and before I can fully process what just happened, the moaning starts again, not from Joel, thank god, but from somewhere nearby, a woman two mats away making a sound that feels like an orgasm crossed with a Gregorian chant, ancient and echoing and deeply confident, and Rain responds by hitting a gong, just bang, right into the moment, and no one flinches, no one even blinks, and I realize I appear to be the only person in the room disturbed by the fact that we are now scoring other people’s inner climaxes with percussive punctuation. I consider running, really consider it, the way you imagine leaping through a window in a dream, except then I remember I can’t find my shoes, because at some point they vanished, and I’m forced to accept that they have not been misplaced, they have been absorbed by the process, and I am stuck here, barefoot, breathing someone else’s air, learning things about myself I did not ask to know.

At this point I realize—really realize, with the kind of clarity that only arrives once you’re already spiritually carpet-burned—that I have exactly two options left to me, and they present themselves very neatly, very politely, like a multiple-choice question on a test I did not study for, Option A being that I surrender to the experience, fully, emotionally, metabolically, that I open my heart like a busted French window, breathe deeply into my tailbone as instructed, and allow Joel—Joel with the peppermint breath and the hands that never quite seem to know where they’re going but arrive there anyway—to reawaken my third eye through what I can only describe as interpretive touch, and I picture myself nodding serenely while something ancient and unresolved uncoils inside me and I become one of those people who says things like “this was exactly what I needed,” and immediately, viscerally, every cell in my body files a restraining order, which leaves Option B, the option that has carried me through most of my adult life with remarkable reliability, which is to lie, calmly, efficiently, without flourishes, and I choose Option B with the confidence of a woman selecting the emergency exit she has already memorized, so I haul myself upright with exaggerated dignity, brushing myself off like I’m recovering not only from spiritual trauma but also from a mild but humiliating interaction with the carpet, and I limp—because I am absolutely going to limp—over to Indigo and whisper, in the softest, most reverent voice I can summon, “I’m on my moon,” which in their language is a sacred phrase meaning I am menstruating and must be left alone to commune with the divine feminine and possibly a yurt, and in my language means let me the hell out of here before someone tries to align my spleen, and Indigo bows, actually bows, like we’re in a period drama written by the moon itself, and says “Honor your cycle,” and I say “With pleasure,” which might be the truest thing I’ve said all day, and as I’m making my escape, Rain—of course it’s Rain—tries to hand me a crystal shaped like a vulva, and without missing a beat I tell him I already have one, which either goes completely over his head or lands perfectly and he’s choosing serenity, it’s impossible to tell with these people, and then I retrieve my shoes, which are soggy now, abandoned by the altar like a cautionary tale, and I flee the barn, not running but definitely fleeing, barefoot in spirit, furious in body, spiritually clogged with someone else’s trauma that I did not consent to holding, and I don’t look back, not once, and only after the door is behind me and the air feels like actual oxygen again do I allow myself a small, ironic bow to the universe, because honestly, at that point, what else is there to do—namaste, bitch.