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, February 23, 2020

Mardi Gras and the Forty-Day Hangover

You could consider giving up church for Lent.

You could consider (with Peter Rollins) Atheism for Lent.

You could read one Mary Oliver poem every day for Lent.

You could read Terence McNally's play Corpus Christi for Lent.

You could watch the first season of Six Feet Under for Lent.

You could watch Babette's Feast for Lent.

You could read Angels in America for Lent, or watch the HBO adaptation with Meryl Streep playing a rabbi, a Mormon mother, and the ghost of Ethel Rosenberg.

You could listen to a Leonard Cohen song every day for Lent.

For Lent, you could get up every morning and tell yourself out loud, "My sins didn't kill Jesus."

For Lent, you could get up every morning and tell yourself out loud, "Bigotry, self-righteousness, and the thirst for power killed Jesus."

You could listen to Jessye Norman singing a spiritual every day for Lent.

You could rip a page out of the Book of Leviticus every day for Lent. (And burn it if you need to.)

You could exchange names with a homeless person every day for Lent.

You could think of someone who's suffering and just hold them in mind for ten breaths every day for Lent.

You could thank God for your queer self every day for Lent.

Friday, February 21, 2020

Unlocking Your Inner Temple: A Weekend of Mindful Self-Pleasure

Within your own body, you have the capacity for enormous pleasure and fulfillment. This two-day adventure of self-discovery and open-hearted, supportive fellowship, April 18-19 in Nashville, Tennessee, will guide you deeper into the erotic treasures you already possess.

Let go of inhibition in a safe and welcoming space. Trust-building exericses will establish a strong, secure container for our experience. Sharing circles, solo and paired exercises, guided meditations, and instruction in technique will open doors into a deeper realm where body and soul are one--where desire can blossom into wisdom and compassion.

In addition to leading the workshop, I'll be available for individual sessions on April 17 and 20. You can use an individual session to:

increase your comfort with group experience
explore what you hope to take away from the workshop
address issues of body image, shame, and inhibition
process what you've experienced after the workshop
integrate your erotic and spiritual energies
practice techniques for whole-body pleasure

If you're interested in an individual session, you can read the sidebar text "Sacred Intimacy" just to the right of this post.

The US $175 registration fee includes Saturday and Sunday morning coffee, lunch, and snacks. An early-bird registration rate of $150 applies till March 1. The workshop is limited to twelve participants.

The group workshop and individual sessions will take place at a private residence in East Nashville. Location will be provided on receipt of the registration fee. Contact me by e-mail for further details.

Photo by Andrew Graham

Thursday, February 6, 2020

Original Goodness: An Insight from Richard Rohr

"We must reclaim the Christian project, building from the true starting point of Original Goodness. We must reclaim Jesus as an inclusive Savior instead of an exclusionary Judge, as a Christ who holds history together as the cosmic Alpha and Omega. Then, both history and the individual can live inside of a collective safety and an assured success. Some would call this the very shape of salvation."

--Richard Rohr, The Universal Christ: How a Forgotten Reality Can Change Everything We See, Hope for, and Believe (New York: Convergent Books, 2019), p. 68

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.