It hasn’t been easy for Ashley Fryer to let go of her faith. For thirty years, she dedicated her life to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. She grew up attending church multiple times a week, and dutifully studied her scriptures. Over the years, she found inconsistencies in church doctrine, and would pile these up on what she calls ‘the shelf’. She’d pile it higher and higher, thinking, “well, I’ll deal with it later.”
For Ashley, her shelf broke on November 5, 2015. On that day, a new LDS church policy leaked. This policy said, among other things, that children of gay parents could not be baptized unless they were eighteen years old, living on their own, and had renounced same sex marriage. It was a controversial policy that members of the church came out for and against. This ran counter to Ashley’s personal beliefs, and she didn’t believe the leadership of the church spoke for God. So she put down her beloved scriptures, unsure what to do with relics of a religion she no longer believed in.
Since then, Ashley has been on a journey of spiritual discovery. She started exploring Wiccan practices, paganism, and her Norse heritage. She found that Hel, the Norse goddess of the underworld, resonated with her. Half beautiful maiden, half rotting corpse, Hel is the keeper of dead things. To Ashley, Hel represents a spirit of radical self acceptance, and new beginnings rising from the ashes. Ashley realized that she knew what to do with her LDS scriptures.
This episode was produced and edited by Ashley’s little sister, Bethany Denton. Additional editing help from Jeff Emtman and Nick White.
Music: The Black Spot
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HBM105: Beautiful Stories about Dead Animals (part 1)
HBM104: Scrapheap Reactor
HBM103: Fate's Notebook
HBM102: Breath Holder
HBM101: Much Corruption
HBM100: Faraway Minds
HBM099: Spell for the Repulsion of Astral Vampires
HBM098: Feed the Queen
HBM097: Fox Teeth
HBM096: Are We Still Afraid?
HBM095: The Bats that Stay
HBM094: The Fatigue of Violence
HBM093: The Brain Scoop
HBM092: Carry the Scent
HBM091: Hypnosis of Hunger
HBM090: Two Small Creatures with Human Eyes
HBM089: Human Wish Tree
HBM088: Riptides and a Sinking Ship
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