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.

Thursday, June 30, 2022

"Explanation separates us from astonishment."

--Eugène Ionesco

Tuesday, June 21, 2022

In the Forest, at Solstice

And turning aside to see this wonder...

Photo by Andrew Graham

Saturday, June 18, 2022

Grandfather's Day

I adored him.

When I was four, I could sit cross-legged on the right arm of his overstuffed chair while he watched the Cincinnati Reds on television. There was a faded anchor tattoo on his forearm. I would run around the living room sucking up the smoke trails from his unfiltered Camels--this was 1959. Out at his woodworking bench in the garage, he would enjoin me not to tell my grandmother he was chewing tobacco. I would then of course report to her.

When I was five, he had the stroke. I remember him smiling at me while he squeezed the exercise ball in his right fist to regain his strength. He'd flex his biceps and let me feel it.

When I think of how sexy I find men's forearms, it clearly goes back to him--the tattoo, the cigarette between the fingers of his right hand, even the exercise ball as he worked at rehab. He got a little cranky after the stroke, and would shout "Get out of the road!" if I came between him and the batter on the TV. But I was still utterly in love.

He was born in 1886, the eldest son of German immigrants. He was a shoe repair man, then later a cabinetmaker at the local piano factory. He voted for the Socialists in the 1930's, but listened to the quasi-fascist Father Coughlin on the radio, along with thirty million other Americans. It was another era in which the populist frustration of the disenfranchised could bend class consciousness full circle to right-wing demagoguery.

I lost him to a second stroke when I was seven. I can access my love for him in a way I've never been in touch with the memory of my own father.

I think with longing about how my adolescence might have been different if he'd been there to guide me through it. Though it's pure wish-fulfillment to imagine he would have been OK with his youngest grandson turning out queer.

Six decades later, though, I imagine showing him the life I have now, and want to believe he'd be glad to know the man I've become, proud that he made my life possible through the miracle of his orgasm and sustained it through his love.

What I feel for him is unquestionably erotic, reaching back over the years. I fantasize about an alternative universe where he's still alive and healthy when I'm on the cusp of puberty. Where he still forages for wild mushrooms in early May, and takes me along with him. Where he sits me down on a log in the woods for "the talk" with a smile on his face. Where maybe in due time he invites me into the bathroom for a demonstration of how things work, and encourages me to discover for myself how good it feels.

I'm flesh of his flesh. I adore him still.

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.