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God Bless the Pit
It started for me as a Mormon teenager at church dances. “Sandstorm” would play, someone would yell, “Mosh pit!” and dozens of blond bowl cuts and braids would start to flop up and down. For a group of adolescents who had to stay one Bible’s length apart during slow dances, these moments of bodies bouncing against bodies were joyful loopholes.
Then John took me to 924 Gilman, and this landmark of punk history taught me new rules. Hold lost shoes straight in the air until reclaimed. Pause the pit when someone falls. A sign says, “no stagediving” and everyone’s stagediving. A sign says, “no fighting” and nobody’s fighting. And if brushing shoulders with a boy from Sunday school was sugar, flying across the pit at Gilman only to be caught by a wall of skate tees, denim, sweat and muscle – that was heroin.
I moved to Utah to attend a Mormon university and found a thriving dubstep scene off campus. The pits were heavenly: heavy, rough and reckless. Not quite dancing or even moshing. I called it raging. I’d show up to my Old Testament course boasting a bruised cheekbone or a fractured rib. My school didn’t allow alcohol, premarital sex, or skirts above the knee. I couldn’t go into a boy’s bedroom without being at risk of disciplinary action. But I could rage, so I did.
First published in Flash Frontier, December 2025: Dance | Ngā Kanikani.
Leaving Mormonisma comic by Carly Beesley
Also at carlyscomics.com ↗
10 homes · 5 countries ·
2 hemispheres
Then
In between
Now
Image credits
Satellite imagery (Transplant): Sentinel-2 cloudless by EOX IT Services GmbH (Contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data 2016), licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
Only non-religious member of the hospital spiritual care team. Serving as a compassionate presence for patients and families in the maternity, NICU, and children’s wards.
