Anchorhold

Welcome to a space for the spirituality of gay and bisexual men. We have within ourselves the resources for our healing, liberation, and growth. Connecting with each other, we encounter the grace to lay hold of a richer, juicier life. Losing ourselves in deep play, we rediscover the bigger, freer, more joyous selves we're capable of becoming. Here I share my interest in personal and communal ritual, making art that expresses my inner life, and an intentional practice of erotic spirituality.

Monday, February 10, 2014

At the Cross-Quarter

We’re way past February 2 now: a cross-quarter between Solstice and Equinox; Groundhog Day; Candlemas; Imbolc. A week ago, in Toronto, locked deep in the most tenacious winter I remember since the early 1980’s, it was hard to visualize any promise of spring. The small shrine in the corner of my back garden lay long since buried, the Shiva Lingam’s sanctity sleeping under six inches of snow and marked only by memory, the small, bronze Buddha visible from the shoulders up. (Since then, he too has vanished.)

Today is a another, happier, story—bright with the intensity of light slanting down on us from a dramatically steeper mid-day angle, flowing with rivulets melting off snowbanks , the snow itself intensifying the sun. It’s a hit of what I’ve longed for since the first week of January: the signal that it’s safe finally to stick my nose out and sniff the air, that it’s not completely insane to imagine my shrine reappearing; or even green exploding around it, six weeks further along, from the tips of waking branches. Nine days after a conscientious Wiccan would have celebrated, I can finally believe that today marks the birth of a new season.

Maybe it's not a bad idea to apply this lesson to the experience of life as a queer man in the world today. If you pull the focus back from the relative freedom of middle-class gay life in a much of the West, we’re still in the grip of a long, cold winter. India has recriminalized homosexuality. Gay men in Nigeria are subject to brutal legalized thuggery. The regime in Russia deflects attention from its homophobic witch hunts with the mass hypnotism and overblown elitist waste of the Sochi Olympics. Closer to home, violence against trans men and women hardly even makes the mainstream news.

So to sustain ourselves, to keep hope for the future, to give ourselves courage to fight for a better world, and not to rest until we see it, we need to look for those first signs of a new season's birth: Canadian cities flying the rainbow flag for the duration of the Olympics, in protest against what Putin wants brushed under the rug till the rest of the world goes home; two members of Pussy Riot speaking out against the Russian regime at a press conference in New York; activists of the South Asian diaspora protesting against India’s step backward; African activists, heroically defying personal risk, preparing to attend a conference on queer human rights, along with their fellows from all over the world, as part of World Pride in Toronto this June.

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Sacred Intimacy: Companionship in Spiritual and Erotic Healing

Different practitioners use the term "Sacred Intimacy" to mean different things. It's important to remember that Sacred Intimacy work is different from therapy, and can't replace therapy. I'm not a therapist. I don't claim to offer services in any officially regulated modality. (Some Sacred Intimates are also practicing therapists, but they're clear with themselves and with clients which modality they're working in.) Put simply, I offer heart-centered companionship and deep listening.

For me, first and foremost, Sacred Intimacy means that what passes between us is holy. It's filled and enlivened with the presence of the Divine. I will do my best to be as present to you, as available to you for your good, as I'm capable of being. My intention is to be open to working in whatever modality we agree will be helpful to you. A session begins with a short conversation in which you explain to me where you're at, and what you hope to take away from our time together.

The emphasis is on healing, growth, and the expansion of your life. You may, for example, have issues of erotic shame that you want to work on, or grief, or body image, or intimacy. I may ask for clarifications and make suggestions. Together we agree on the starting point for the experiential work that will follow.

A session might unfold through breathwork, guided meditation, bodywork, intentionally focused erotic interaction, creative movement, the shared creation of ritual, artistic practice, psychodynamic role playing, or some combination.

I can't hope to be of service to you unless I feel competent in the role I assume, and unless I have the sense that what we do has potential to help you move forward with your declared intention. So our initial conversation may involve some give and take around what's possible and what's useful.

It's essential for your integrity and mine that we maintain full confidentiality and respect one another's boundaries. We enter into sacred space together at the beginning of a session. We leave sacred space at the end, and what's happened within the safe container of the session remains distinct from any interactions we might have before or after the session. What happens in the session stays in the session.

Every Sacred Intimate has his own understanding of the nature of his work. Just below you'll find a series of links to the web pages of a number of Sacred Intimates working in various cities and areas.

Finding Yourself, Claiming Yourself

I invite you to celebrate who you are, and who you want to become.

Think of the times your life as a gay or bisexual man has flowed without effort.

Think of the times you’ve struggled to lay hold of your life more fully.

Maybe those times feel like opposites. But they’re parts of a single cycle: sowing and harvest, labor and rest, preparation and enjoyment. We can’t work toward a fuller life unless we already feel some trust that life will rise up to meet us. We can’t sink deeper into our present joy and satisfaction in life without being reminded that it took a long journey to get here.

Please join me in considering a place where the two halves of this cycle come together: in the safe, empowering container of ritual space and ritual time.

What's an Anchorhold?

For centuries in Europe, a handful of men and women took a vow to devote themselves to the cultivation of their inner lives and to make themselves radically available to their communities for spiritual counsel. Committing themselves to remaining in a single dwelling for the rest of their lives, they were known as anchorites; the houses in which they lived were their anchorholds. Those who needed what the official channels of the religious establishment couldn’t provide came to the anchorhold for conversation and support.

Neither priests nor monks, the spiritual practice of anchorites and their interaction with those who came to them fell outside formal control of the Church. As a result, religious authorities often viewed them with suspicion. One of the best known of these dropouts from ordinary social and religious norms was Julian of Norwich, a woman who had a near-death experience in 1373 and spent the rest of her life thinking about what it meant, for herself and for the world at large. The book she wrote about her revelation, the first in English that we know for sure was written in by a woman, is an astonishingly daring and original rethinking of Christian theology: a vision of a God in whom there is no wrath, who is both Father and Mother of Creation, and who will somehow, by a miracle beyond our ability to grasp, eventually effect the salvation of every living being.

Men and women of spirit who fell between the cracks, anchorites practiced what in its own way was a profoundly queer inner life, following the instincts of their own experience, flying under the radar of the powers that claimed to control access to the Divine.