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.

Friday, April 19, 2019

The Crown of Thorns

With uncounted thousands of others online, I watched in horror as the spire crashed into the roof of Notre-Dame-de-Paris on Monday.

I'm still working out some of what went into my reaction. I'm not French, much less Parisian. I'm not Roman Catholic. But I love Paris. By profession for thirty-eight years, I was a scholar of medieval languages and literature. I love medieval architecture, and I've seen for myself the craftsmanship of ancient wooden roofs something like the one the flames raced through. Just as importantly, I'm a queen who cries most of the way through Les Miz.

And despite the vastly destructive aberrations of Christianity, I still find accessible within it a precious treasure of spritiual sustenance, like an unsullied diamond in the muck, in a tradition founded on the belief that the Divine inhabits and sanctifies our flesh, and is with us in the darkest moments of our despair and even in our death.

I felt relief and joy when it was clear the church would survive. The heroism of firefighters (hunky French firefighters) had saved the west towers. The three great rose windows were intact. And treasures of the cathedral had been removed by a human chain of rescuers while molten lead rained down around them from the roof.

Among those treasures, the Crown of Thorns.

I was vastly relieved that they'd saved the Crown of Thorns?

Number one: who knows where it first came from? If Jesus of Nazareth ever wore one during his humilation and torture--if it's not an invention of the first Christian communities around the Gospel writers--the chances that anyone took it with them from the site of the Crucifixion are pretty slim. Even if it had been possible to retrieve it, in the moment it would have been like someone saving a splinter from the electric chair their best friend has just been executed in. Number two: if you look at the gold-foil-wrapped wreath that's supposed to be the Real McCoy, it looks more like something Grace Jones would have worn in an '80s music video.

It arrived from Byzantium in Paris in 1241 during the reign of Louis IX, who built the Ste-Chapelle a little further west on the Île de la Cité to house it, along with other relics of the Crucifixion. It survived the French Revolution (during which Notre-Dame itself was first rededicated as a Temple of Reason and then converted to a warehouse).

Ultimately, it's not the historical veracity of its pedigree that matters. It's that veneration has made it holy.

The working out of Spirit in the history of the Crown of Thorns isn't so different from the working out of Spirit in the deeper truth of Resurrection: that an unorthodox, countercultural rabbi of the first century, horribly murdered by the powers of his day, somehow lives on embodied in the assembly of his present-day followers who gather to eat a symbolic meal in his memory.

Wednesday, April 17, 2019

Semana Santa

Photos by Hoppergrass

Sunday, April 7, 2019

A Springtime Reunion and Heart Circle in Toronto

For thirty-five years, the Body Electric School has offered a respectful, heart-centered approach to deep erotic exploration. The School's work has helped thousands of people toward a bigger, freer, juicier experience of their lives.

On Sunday, May 5, beginning at 4 p.m., come take part in a Toronto-area heart circle on the theme of erotic/spiritual community. If you've done one of more of the School's workshops, you can reconnect with fellow alumni in the Toronto area and speak from the heart about your experience.

If you haven't done Body Electric work, but you've heard of the School and want a better idea of what it offers--or if you're just looking for ways to better ingtegrate your emotional, erotic, and spiritual energies--come share your values and aspirations, and bond with new comrades.

After the heart circle, we'll share a potluck supper and the chance for more informal conversation.

There's no charge--just bring something for the potluck supper. The west Toronto location will be sent a week in advance to those who confirm for the event.

You can RSVP by e-mail to anchorholder@gmail.com, or by going to the Queer Men Building Spiritual Practice Together group on Meetup.

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.