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, August 17, 2026

Past and Future

As the visitors' counter on this blog approaches 400,000, I'm gratified that some readers keep coming back. And I always hope that newcomers find what they're looking for. Or something else instead. Or both.

For fifteen years, I've shared my own reflections, along with images, poetry, erotic fiction, guest posts, and more. If you check in regularly, you've found less new material the last year or so. I've never generated "content" for its own sake. To me, the word itself often suggests a commodified superficiality. I haven't updated the look of the blog in, well, forever. If you've visited regularly, you're the kind of reader that isn't bothered by that. I post when I have something I think is worth saying. At this point, I've aready said a lot.

So here's a sort of guide to the archives--a curated list of posts I suggest you check out. You can find them either by date (In reverse order, newest first) or by using the search box for the title.

Noble Silence

(July 27 2025)

The Wild God

(May 8 2024)

The Phony Grail of Masculine Identity

(Nov 13 2023)

Listening for What's Below

(July 28 2022)

Random Objects

(August 14 2021)

House of Refuge--A Utopian Novella

(March 3- May 20 2018)

Mount Athos, With a Twist

(August 30 2016)

A Very Partial Truth

(June 17 2015)

On Behalf of Our Fathers

(July 22 2014)

Pink Sheep of the Family

(March 16 2013)

Old Enough to Be Your Father

(June 5 2012)

Dickhenge

(August 7 2011)

Fragments of the Self

(August 11 2010)

Why Do We Need Ritual?

(June 9 2010)

Monday, July 6, 2026

The Household Gods

In shameless borrowing of every tradition I need, for my spirituality to find itself between the cracks: a summer altar, a reminder as I walk by it to attend to my incarnate soul.

Ganesha, remover of obstacles. The Universal Christ. The stones of the Four Directions. The phallic Lingam of Shiva. A bell surmounted by Shiva's vehicle, Nandi the Bull, given to me by a beloved brother. A shell to receive the offering of flowers by morning. And yet to be added: an unglazed clay lamp to hold fire by evening.

Monday, March 2, 2026

Lent and its Antidotes

https://davidrtownsend.substack.com/p/lent-and-its-toxic-pieties

Tuesday, January 20, 2026

At the Metropolitan Museum

Images of the sacred erotic, ancient and modern: the Egyptian god Min, revered for 3000 years

and Auguste Rodin's "The Age of Bronze"

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.

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.