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, January 12, 2024

Your Inner Temple: Deepening Male Self-Pleasure

"Self-pleasuring is the foundation of our potential to love and be loved.... Whether we are aware of it or not, whenever we play with ourselves genitally, we are worshipping the divine."

--Barnaby Barratt, Sexual Health and Erotic Freedom

I'm delighted at the prospect of co-facilitating an intimate residential workshop with Pono Stewart, at his beautiful Skyclad Retreat Centre north of Victoria BC, August 16-19.

In a safe, confidential space of mindful mutual consent, limited to nine registrants, we’ll explore the wonders of self-pleasure and create rituals to celebrate the unity of body and spirit. If you’re a cis-gendered man who wants your experience of masturbation to be bigger and more meaningful than just physical release, this four-day journey into deeper self-awareness is for you.

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

Rejoicing in the expansive pleasure we're capable of generating within ourselves is our foundational, universal birthright. It transcends divisions of age, religion, sexual orientation, cultural and ethnic origins.

For a full description of the workshop, follow this link.

Photo by Andrew Graham

Monday, January 8, 2024

Not One and Not Three

I've been riveted by this photograph for years. I've shared it here before. I have no idea where it originated.

Today it invites me deep into a submerged narrative. The men are photographed from an upper-floor balcony. Another man sits on a couch outside the frame, only his feet visible, with further coils of leftover rope lying scattered. The three men have been carefully, skillfully, and lovingly bound into the triad. They actively hold the outer ropes taut to complete the triangle. Did they themselves participate in tying the knots that bind them, or did they consent passively as others incorporated them into a living mandala?

Are they erect (so beautifully erect!) with the simple excitement of being tied together nude? I choose to believe that their arousal is itself part of the ritual, even if the ritual consists in simple awareness of the object of meditation that they've become. What are they feeling and contemplating, as energy circulates among them with each small movement of an arm or leg? How many men are participating as witnesses, unseen by us, in addition to the photographer and the man on the couch? For how long have the three given themselves over to this perfection?

And then personal fantasy takes over. I imagine multiple men caressing them to the point of simultaneous ejaculation: their semen becoming a sacramental substance, shared by all present.

But individually driven fantasy rarely creates a ritual structure that can serve an entire group equally. If I dial back my own wish-fulfillment to make space for others, it's enough that these men have become, for the moment, a dynamic, breathing manifestation of sexmagic. At the end of the dedication ceremony, they'll be untied with as much ritual intention as went into their binding--just as a Tibetan sand mandala is created, dedicated, and immediately swept away.

Imagine yourself in that room, chanting to the sound of a steady drumbeat, your own erection rising in acknowledgement. Or: imagine being bound together with two kindred souls into a manifestation of Sacred Eros contemplating Itself. And yet in that union, three open hearts each beautifully and uniquely remaining its own.

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.