the poem:

your spirituality needs religion.
but you reject your masculine.
instead of allowing him to keep you safe
so you can use your power productively,
you live your life in chaos to rebel his confines.

your religion needs spirituality.
but you reject your feminine.
instead of providing her the structure she needs to just be, and thrive, and run wild & free
you live your life echoing rules that silence her.

oh the things you two could learn from each other.

her gift of expression.
his gift of restriction.

to him she offers wisdom.
to her he offers protection.

how can you not see that you are stronger in tandem?

your divinity is in the co-creation,
but instead
you choose
to wreak havoc
alone.

- Mikayla Rose.

the fracture between spirituality and religion & the cost of imbalance

i wrote this poem the other day and almost didn’t share it.
not because it wasn’t true, but because i knew it would hit people where they didn’t want to be touched.

but that’s what i do. that’s what this house was built to do.

the conversation around spirituality and religion has become so polarized—like you have to choose one or the other. like religion means oppression and spirituality means freedom. like structure is inherently toxic and intuition is always truth.

but what i’ve come to realize is: we need both.

most people follow a religion,even if they don’t call it that.
religion, in its purest form, is simply a system of devotion.
it’s the ritual. the prayer. the consistency. the sacred repetition that keeps our connection to god, to ourselves, active.

what most people actually reject isn’t religion—it’s dogma.
it’s hierarchy. control. shame masquerading as salvation.
but religion itself? it’s how we root the spirit into daily practice.
it’s what transforms a feeling into a path. a moment into a discipline.
it is the order that grounds our spirituality in devotion.

spirituality without grounding becomes chaos: performative, aesthetic, lacking purpose.
religion without spirit becomes dogma: rules without breath, ritual without presence.
what’s missing in both cases is union.

in my own practice, i’ve had to re-learn the beauty of masculine order. not control, not dominance, but healthy containment. structure that protects my power so it doesn’t burn out.
and i’ve also had to reclaim the wildness of the feminine, the part of me that prays through poetry, through ritual, through tears, through touch.

when i wrote this, i was thinking about how many of us are trying to “escape” religion by running full-speed into disembodied spirituality. or how many are holding tight to tradition, terrified of what would happen if they softened into presence. but what if neither extreme is the answer?

what if the divine lives in the conversation between them?

this house was built for the ones learning to live in the both/and.
the ones who create rituals with precision and prayer.
the ones who see God in structure and softness.
in fire and water.
in chaos and control.

you don’t have to choose one side.
you were never meant to.