CS Alumni Blog
Dancing at the Contemplative Semester
by Angela Futch - July 28, 2025
Note: Angela offered this blog post in audio form which we recommend <3. You can also read the transcript below.
Hi, my name is Angela Futch, and I’m going to share about the time that I taught my first dance class during the Contemplative Semester.
One day after small group, I was having a conversation with a peer, and we were talking about our love of music and our love of dance. I just remember feeling so inspired and so awakened creatively—and just super energized.
So I spent the next two hours planning a couple different dance classes, and then next thing I know, within a couple weeks or so, I’m teaching my first ever dance class.
I remember lighting incense and blessing the room and calling in light and love and goodness, and my ancestors, and just all the guides that support movement and support healthy communal spaces for movement.
I was so excited—I was going over the choreo and the structure of the class I had planned—and then people started to roll in.
I basically just taught this class in sheer flow state. I had never taught a dance class before, and I just remember feeling so energized. I felt like a burning ball of white, yellow, golden light energy.
Looking back on it, I’m just so proud of myself. I even feel so excited thinking about the way that I started the class and called in my ancestors, acknowledged the land, and acknowledged the teacher who taught me the particular form of movement.
Just honoring all that came before me so I could be there with those people, teaching.
And we just came alive—like, everyone just came alive. It was so much fun.
People were like, “Oh my gosh, was that your first dance class? So you’ve taught dance classes before?”
And I was like, “No, that was just the first time.”
It was just this series of very aligned events, where inspiration struck, and I took action, and we were all able to bask in this goodness together.
And it felt like, for the first time probably ever in my life, “Oh—if I’m going to do anything on this planet in this life, it’s going to be that.”
It’s going to be to bring people together through movement.
It’s going to be to bring aliveness, joy, and expression and spirituality into spaces—and to expose people to that.
And it changed my life.
Ever since then, I’ve been taking myself a lot more seriously as a dancer, as a teacher, and as a movement practitioner.
I have a really deep sense that I will continue to grow into that practice. And the work that I do going forward will very much incorporate embodied movement and embodied community building.
And it was all because of a conversation I had at CS, and the ability to teach classes and explore what it meant for me to be with people in dance spaces—and to teach people in dance spaces.
And it’s still a blessing in my life, ten times over.
So - very grateful for that moment.
Being with change
by Ella Sloss - July 5, 2025
As I began my journey to Copenhagen, I felt untethered. It had only been a month since the Contemplative Semester ended, and I was leaving behind the intentional container that had held me so fully. Now, I was surrounded by unfamiliar faces, in a city speaking a language I didn’t understand. The study abroad program offered a few tools—but then we were on our own. I felt more independent than I ever had, and simultaneously, more unsure. I worried I would never find something like CS again. I kept asking myself: How would I hold the memories and wisdom from that time while stepping into such a different space?
And then I remembered the teachings on ease and compassion—on offering ourselves gentleness in hard moments. Maybe I didn’t need to grip tightly to every insight from CS. Maybe I could let the memories return in their own time, softly and gently.
I remembered how much I loved journaling during CS—the day my friends and I spread a picnic blanket, wrote letters home, and journaled. So, I made time abroad to journal again, using it as a mindfulness practice to stay present. The worries didn’t always disappear, but I was able to greet them with more intention and kindness.
Zac’s lesson on “sit spots” came back to me too—how choosing a place in nature could open us to the interdependence of all things, and the deep ways we are connected to the earth. In Copenhagen, I found my way to Frederiksberg Gardens and chose a tree that became a quiet source of support. Even halfway across the world, the teachings from CS continued to meet me.
Ella connecting to her “quiet source of support.”
Cooking also became a grounding practice. My friends and I tested endless vegetarian bean recipes, picked up delicious pastries, and gathered weekly to cook together. In a way, it felt like our own kind of sangha, or Buddhist practice group—letting go of our phones (except for a recipe), making space for being present with each other, and truly connecting.
Through new countries, new friendships, and the internal work of adapting to an unfamiliar environment, I kept remembering a core CS teaching: what’s happening right now is just as it is meant to be. I practiced letting go of the “should’ves” and the urge to fix or change the moment. I let myself hold both awe and joy, fear and anxiety—and meet it all with compassion.
I wondered: what if this semester abroad didn’t need to be perfect? What if its gift was teaching me how to be with change, in all its complexity?
As I softened and returned home to myself, the practices of CS returned, in a more embodied way. In the beginning, I tried to cling to the experience of CS. Now I’ve learned that these practices are still with me, through all that I do, and to let them come back to me gently.