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.

Showing posts with label Olive Elaine Hinnant. Show all posts

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Three Quotes for a New Season

"It is a serious mistake on the part of religious and spiritual people to divide the world into believers and unbelievers. We are all believers. The real question has to do with the object of our belief. Is it sufficiently great, infinite, worthy of our absolute endearment? Anything can become a god and idol. The substitutes for divinity are innumerable. They betray the fact that we haven’t yet found deep religion, and they are the raw material to be transformed into the mysteries by which we can live." -Thomas Moore, The Soul’s Religion: Cultivating a Profoundly Spiritual Way of Life, New York: Perennial, 2003, p. 30.

"The Scriptures are in fact full of diverse forms of family and familial relations. Why? What does this say about the majority who do not practice sexuality according to this dictum? Our formulas for sexual ethics are theoretical and do not match the realities of human lives where sex really matters. Instead, our questions ought to be probing and profoundly reflective of sex where it is found and not how we think it is. How do we treat one another when it comes to sexual expression and commitment? How do we treat our primary intimate relationship—with or without a sense of the Sacred and the potential for good?" –Olive Elaine Hinnant, God Comes Out: A Queer Homiletic, Cleveland: Pilgrim, 2007, pp. 4-5.

"The queer Christ comes at a time when Christian rhetoric is used as an anti-gay political weapon. He is a beacon of hope in a world where Christians and gays seem to be at war. He mends the split between body and spirit that has led to violence, poverty, and ecological destruction. Like the Jesus of first-century Palestine, the queer Christ images have come to teach, heal and free anyone who accepts the challenge." —Kittredge Cherry, Jesus in Love, Berkeley: AndroGyne Press, 2006, pp. 13-4.

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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.

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.