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.

Monday, December 25, 2023

Christ in the Rubble

"The majesty of the Incarnation lies in its solidarity with the marginalized."

--Rev. Munther Isaac, pastor of the Lutheran Church of Bethlehem

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juCkshyqGN8

Wednesday, December 13, 2023

Keith Haring: Art is for Everybody

"The public has a right to art.

"The public is being ignored by most of contemporary artists.

"The public needs art and it is the responsibility of a "self-proclaimed artist" to realize the public needs art and not to make bourgeois art for the few and ignore the masses.

"Art is for everybody. To think that they (the public) do not appreciate art because they don't understand and therefore become alienated from [sic] may mean that the artist is the one who doesn't understand or appreciate art and is thriving in the "self-proclaimed knowledge of art" that is actually bullshit.

"Art can be a positive influence towards a society of individuals.

"Art can be a destructive element and an aid to the take-over of the "mass-identity" society.

"Art must be considered by the artists as well as the public.

"The public will not, however, say what they want for fear of being un-educated or not understanding art. Therefore the responsibility rests..."

Keith Haring, journal page, October 1978

He was a geeky kid from small-town Pennsylviania who spent his early teen years in the Jesus Movement. At the age of twenty, he moved to New York to study art.

He was cerebral, radically embodied, and hypersexual, all at the same time. He was, quite literally, a fucking saint.

He died of AIDS in 1990 at the age of 31. His last work was an altarpiece, two versions of which are now in Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, and the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York.

Right now, his work is on show at the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto. I was lucky enough to be there when multiple school groups were coming through, in waves of excitement rolling off the kids from an alternative arts-based high school, and occasional shrieks of amazement at the unabashedly sexual imagery scattered through the exhibition. (Like they'd never seen such things on restroom walls and the back covers of textbooks--but, I'm figuring, never expected to see in a Temple of Culture.) The noisiest and most joyful gallery visit I'll ever experience.

Saturday, December 2, 2023

Eros and Time

Photo by Andrew Graham

Last week, I was blessed by a moment of unforeseeably deep connection. A few hours of blissful erotic communion, beyond anything I could reasonably expect: an opening of two discreet selves into a Third revealed between us. Without any certainty that anything like it can or will happen again. The man I shared it with lives an ocean away. When we met for coffee a few days later, just before he finished his short professional trip, we acknowledged that we may never see each other face to face again. What happened was for me (and I believe for him as well) too profound not to speak of this honestly.

It's bittersweet, holding onto the faith that experiences like the one he and I shared are just as valid, just as real, in light of their passing away. A reminder that all of life is in fact like that, and our attempts to slow or halt the flow of time are what's illusory. Longing is the foundational condition of our life. Memory is the great storehouse of the psyche where those treasures are still held. The place where sadness and joy come together to reveal a core truth of our existence.

Anne Carson would tell us this. The Buddha would tell us this. St. Augustine would tell us this. But most importantly, our own experience can tell us this.

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.