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, March 18, 2023

Coming for You. Coming for Me.

I've been blasted before for including unapologetically partisan political content here. But I'm about to do it again. And this is gonna be a downer.

Christian Nationalism is a real and present threat. Period.

It's a threat to women's reproductive health and self-determination. It's a threat to the ethnic and cultural diversity of any version of modern society worth living in. It's a brutal and deadly threat to queer and trans kids. It's a threat to economic and ecological justice. It's a threat to any man who likes to wear a dress. It's a threat to any woman who likes to wear a suit and tie. It's a threat to Jews. It's a threat to Muslims. Soon enough it will be a threat to Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, Wiccans, and everybody else who hasn't bought the snake oil of a narrow, inauthentic, hypocritical, and repressive version of Christianity.

It's Fascism Light. For the time being, until it reveals itself as just plain Fascism. It's The Handmaid's Tale waiting to come to a government near you.

If publicly available resources for mindful erotic self-development have changed your life for the good, it's a threat to you. Even if you're male. Even if you're cisgendered. Even if you're white. Even if you're economically privileged. The websites you access are already targeted. The organizations you belong to are already in the cross-hairs.

Tennessee has banned drag performances on public property. Ron De Sanctimonious--for once, Donald Trump came up with a nickname I can get on board with--is attacking the health care of at-risk trans youth, rewriting the curriculum of Florida schools, scrubbing all references to sexual diversity and the history of racism from textbooks. Parents' rights groups are attacking libraries and librarians. Use your imagination about what's next, and don't kid yourself it won't go any further.

If you think you can just sit back and hope it will go away, then you're not paying attention.

I'm not saying, "Go to the barricades." At least not yet. But I'm saying, wake up, and do some good in the face of all this. Find out about the work of the American Civil Liberties Union, the Southern Poverty Law Centre, the Woodhull Freedom Foundation. And then support them: give up four coffees at Starbucks a year and send the $25 to one or another of those groups. Or maybe $25 each to all of them. Find out who's running for school board in your town next election cycle, and work for the candidate who's not a Nazi-for-Jesus.

But just as important as all this: in your own life, choose kindness. Every day, be swift to choose kindness. Choose community. Choose to affirm and validate those around you. As corny as they can be, model yourself on the cast of Queer Eye. Go to a drag show, even if you haven't been to a drag show for years. In fact, especially if you haven't been to a drag show for years, and offer a dollar bill to every lip-syncing diva who walks by your table. Smile at the sixteen-year-old non-binary kid you pass on the street. Talk to someone visibly glbtq whom you normally wouldn't think to engage.

For the last five or six months, I've been part of an informal cluster of erotic activists and writers working to discern what we can do, individually and collectively. We've gotten as far as calling ourselves "Men's Groups United," coming up with a logo, and creating an "elevator speech":

Who we are: We are a group of advocates, body workers, facilitators, and activists for men's mindful erotic self-development.

What we believe: We believe in the right of individuals to explore the possibilities of their lives with freedom of expression without interference from socially repressive forces. We are committed to the transformative nature of erotic empowerment.

What are we doing? We seek to raise the social consciousness among the people involved in the work that we do. We do this in solidarity with all people doing erotic work with all genders.

Why are we doing this? Christian Nationalism and other right-wing activism is aggressively attempting to limit free personal expression. We know from history of the need to take action before existing rights/liberties are taken away. We seek to preserve and expand the civil liberties and rights of all people.

1 comment:

AnonymousApril 28, 2023 at 7:21 AM
Is there a website or Facebook ?
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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.