Dancing with Duality: Confessions of a Free Spirit
Betrayed at the age of 21 by the first love of her life, Stella Vance embarks on a life of fearless adventure. She travels the world, adding notches to her lipstick case with lovers from all over the world, and surviving harrowing experiences, including abuse, addiction, abortion, date rape, and cult involvement. Along the way, Stella undergoes a spiritual transformation. Once awakened to the reality of nonduality, she gradually realizes that life is just a game, that death is just another dimension, and that nothing “out there” can really hurt her.
This inspiring page-turning memoir begins in the 1970s, with Stella as a Christian zealot. Subsequently questioning all religious dogma, Stella’s mystical quests leads her to delve deeply into the realms of dreams, psychic readings, astrology, tantric yoga, reincarnation and her own past lives, the entheogen ketamine, Indian holy men and women, revolving-door relationships, the seeker culture of southern California, and finally, the ultimate path of Advaita Vedanta. At the same time, she deals with anorexia and bulimia, addictions to cigarettes, marijuana, and alcohol, unwanted pregnancies, teaching in public schools, the death of several loved ones, foreclosure, and emigrating to South America.
The life of Stella Vance embodies all the adventure, drama, romance, humor, and philosophy of a free spirit set loose in the ’70s and finding its way into the new millennium. Reading Dancing with Duality provides evidence that life is meant to provide entertainment, as well as to teach us how to be grateful, forgive, and heal from all its vagaries.
In the end, Stella’s free spirit journey takes her on the path to the ultimate freedom: freedom from the mind with all its fears, judgments, limiting beliefs, and worries.
Praise for Dancing with Duality
Through all the ups and downs, it is obvious that Stella Vance has gained much in clarity and wisdom. By sharing her journey and putting herself out there, flaws and all, she is helping others seeking to go beyond the intellectual understanding of truth to the actual experience of truth.
—Linda Jean McNabb, author of One Again
In a nutshell, my experience with Dancing With Duality was one of the most humbling and levitating I’ve ever had with a book — leaving me in a state of transcendence: beyond the games of space, time, and best of all, words.
—Deke Castleman, author of Whale in the Desert
Get ready for a wild ride with a courageous woman who reveals in stark honesty her journey through many diverse paths of life before she lands on the one uniquely her own. A must read for anyone looking for the courage to seek their own truths.
—Scott Stevenson, author of Looks Easy Enough: A Joyful
Memoir of Overcoming Disease, Divorce and Disaster
Vance’s “examined life” is an excellent example of how enlightening it can be to review one’s past as a powerful exercise in finding patterns and recurring lessons. The author shares her ups and downs in an admirably objective way to impart the vast wisdom she has amassed from remaining flexible and open-minded. This memoir is as heartfelt as it is genuine and I believe its message will impact many lives in unforgettable ways.
—LindaJoy Rose, Ph.D., author of Your Mind: The Owner’s Manual and Raw Fusion: Better Living Through Living Food
