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.

Sunday, June 23, 2019

Thursday, June 13, 2019

The Heart Leaps Up

Draw me after You, let us make haste...

The voice of my Beloved!

Look, he comes,

leaping over the hills.

My Beloved is like a gazelle

or a young stag.

(Song of Songs 1:4, 2:8)

Sunday, June 2, 2019

BarTimaeus Acted Up

"They came to Jericho. As he and his disciples and a large crowd were leaving Jericho, Bartimaeus son of Timaeus, a blind beggar, was sitting by the roadside. When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout out and say, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” Many sternly ordered him to be quiet, but he cried out even more loudly, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” Jesus stood still and said, “Call him here.” And they called the blind man, saying to him, “Take heart; get up, he is calling you.” So throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus. Then Jesus said to him, “What do you want me to do for you?” The blind man said to him, “My teacher, let me see again.” Jesus said to him, “Go; your faith has made you well.” Immediately he regained his sight and followed him on the way."

--Mark 10:46-52

His very name tells us he hasn't fit in from birth: Bar-Timaeus. The Greek text adds "Son of Timaeus" as a gloss, but that's what the name means in the first place. His father is Greek, but he lives in an Aramaic-speaking community. So when he calls out, "Son of David"--and geez, how Cecil B. DeMille can you get?--by implication he's really saying, "You're the ultimate insider, I'm half on the outside. Can you please look over here and see me, because I sure as fuck can't see you?"

Jericho wasn't a hotbed of Second Temple orthodoxy. It was a miscegenated city full of half-breeds and eclectic beliefs. And the ancient Near East was no place for anybody disabled. "Blind" and "beggar" were pretty much redundant, unless Timaeus was still around, had money, and was well-disposed toward his son. Presumably, he wasn't.

I heard that passage afresh in the year 2000, shortly after a fifteen-year stint when I refused, for very good reasons, to darken the door of a Christian church. (Medieval cathedrals didn't count.) Several years after both the other out gay men in my family had succumbed to AIDS, and the second one's death had been whitewashed by a convenient secondary cancer diagnosis. I saw BarTimaeus as if for the first time. He broke open the Word for me.

BarTimaeus acted up. He was blind from cytomegalovirus. He was covered in KS lesions. Everyone pushed him to the back of the crowd when the hot, controversial young rabbi was passing through. But he was a screamer, determined to be heard from the back and despite the attempts to shut him up. He threw condoms in the middle of Mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral. He threw pig's blood on the doors of pharmaceutical company headquarters.

BarTimaeus was David Wojnarowicz. BarTimaeus was Sylvia Rivera. BarTimaeus was every trans person who fought back at the Stonewall Inn fifty years ago. BarTimaeus was James Baldwin. BarTimaeus was that holy slut, Blessed Keith Häring of New York.

And for everyone around him who tried to silence him and keep him invisible, there was someone in the crowd to say, "Take heart, he's calling you."

There is always someone to say, "Take heart, he's calling you."

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.