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.

Saturday, February 13, 2021

I'll Meet You There

Have you ever tried your hand at writing erotic fiction or poetry?

What did it feel like, seeing your imagination come to sexy life on the page? Have you shared the results with friends? Have you gone as far as joining an erotic writers' group? If you have, maybe you agree with me that there couldn't be a better description of the experience than some famous words of the Persian poet Rumi.

Rumi wrote (according to one popular translation), "There is a field beyond all notions of right and wrong. I will meet you there."

Maybe we'll discover that your fantasy life and mine look more alike than we'd expected. Maybe we'll both be surprised at the number of people in the room who like to imagine getting tied up. OK, the mysterious stranger does it to you, and my daddy does it to me, and the woman in the UPS uniform does it to somebody else. But still.

Or maybe somebody in our circle has uses for ripe avocados that wouldn't occur to either of us in a million years. Maybe my fetish for men in cassocks is, like, the biggest turn-off imaginable for you. And the donkey suits--well, let's save the donkey suits for later.

But we came into this with a promise to hold safe, non-judgmental space for each other. A promise not to "yuck anybody else's yum." We'll write, we'll read to each other, we'll listen, we'll witness and be witnessed. We'll cross the bridge to the world of the other, carrying only our passports in a clear plastic bag--as couples therapist Hedy Schleiffer would say.

We'll learn things about ourselves that we haven't fully known. Or that didn't seem completely real, because we've never before shared them with a roomful of trusted companions. Now I see them, and you see them too. Because everybody in our circle sees them, I see them differently. And seeing them differently may be like seeing them for the first time.

Maybe we'll even begin to see, at least a little, through each other's eyes. Maybe what our friend wants to do with ripe avocados, and the way they describe it, pushes out the envelope of our own erotic worlds and enriches them. Maybe my fantasy of getting tied up will help you feel your way into how that could be adventurous and exciting, or reassuring and safe, in a way you've never been able to understand before. Not part of your world, but an interesting, perhaps even rewarding place to visit in mine.

We've got a whole banquet of possibilities before us. A fantasy you've never shared before. A real-life memory I can't stop rehearsing. A piece of fan fiction: Seven of Nine and Captain Janeway getting it on in the shutltlecraft, or Harry Potter learning a new spell with his wand. A sci-fi tale of what happens when people have sex in zero gravity. Historical fiction. A recently defeated President of the United States arriving in hell, assigned to blowing a former mayor of New York for all eternity.

Drawing on our erotic imaginations as a creative resource in community, we get to play with the boundaries between our most private, defended selves and a world that's undeniably different from us, but ready to witness, ready to welcome us with respect, curiosity, and celebration. We can name our fantasies as just fantasies, things to play with rather than something that threatens to take us over. Along the way, we learn to take responsibility for our own reactions to what others have written as our reactions and nothing more.

A Midsummer Night's Dream is one of Shakespeare's best-known and most-loved comedies. It's about lovers eloping into the forest and getting enchanted. And it's often thought of as a cute play for kids in middle school to put on. But it's richer and darker and funnier and scarier and way, way edgier than those sixth-grade productions ever get at. It's about nice young people from respectable, repressive families getting lost and confused under the full moon, and faeries mixing it up with donkeys--yes, with donkeys--and everybody wanting to have sex with the wrong people. Who finally turn out to be the right people.

Out beyond all notions of yuck and yum, there is a moonlit forest. I will meet you there.

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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.

Anchorhold

Saturday, February 13, 2021

I'll Meet You There

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