- Home
- About
- Articles
- BlogDear Reader: Welcome to my very first blog! This blog represents the next step of faith in a journey I never could have imagined ten years ago, a path full of unexpected turns, rich discoveries and shared connections—personal connections to some of you who might be reading at this very moment, as well as a larger sense of shared practice, kinship, and brotherhood with many of you whom I will never meet. What I now call “Touch Practice” began as an effort to explore and heal my own body. I thought of it as something I created, something invented or made up, just for me. I slowly realized that while it was profoundly healing for me, it also seemed to have tremendous benefit for others, and so it became something for “we” rather than something just for “me.” I began to think of Touch Practice as a form of partnership. Next, I understood that something I imagined I had created or invented myself actually existed before I found it—Touch Practice is more accurately something I discovered, something I became aware of rather than creating. I came to understand that this aspect of touch has probably existed in an infinite variety…
- Men’s Feedback
- Workshops
- Links
- Contact
Memory, Fantasy, Reality, and Time
2Eckhart Tolle’s brilliant book The Power of Now argues compellingly that the only thing that really exists, at all, is the thing we experience as “right now,” this moment. I think this book is insightful, and on one level I completely agree with him. The power of being …
Read More
Marriage as a Weapon
This was an interesting week in politics. President Obama shares in an interview that he feels personally supportive of the idea that all people, regardless of gender, should be able to marry. A few days later, Rick Santorum urges Mitt Romney to “step up and …
Read More
Walks between Worlds
I have learned everything I know about Touch Practice by practicing, by holding men. Hundreds of men. Hundreds of different men. Very, very different men. Some of the men I hold are conservative Republicans. Some are liberal Democrats. Some of the men I hold are …
Read More
Ritual As a Container for Experience
The power of a cup of coffee in the morning (specifically, the caffeine it contains) doesn’t work quite the way many of us assume it does. In a non-habitual drinker, the caffeine in a cup of coffee certainly has a powerful physiological effect, raising blood …
Read More
Body Language
One of the ways we defend ourselves against hurt is by taking things we experience in the body and intellectualizing them, turning them into thinking, stories, or talking, so that we can get away from the discomfort of feeling them. One of the techniques we …
Read More
The Descent into Hell
Now there’s a catchy little title for a Spring blog. Got your attention? I’m mindful this weekend that it’s Easter. I am struck by one version of the resurrection story (enshrined in later revisions of what is now known as the Apostles’ Creed) that in …
Read More
To Begin Again
Here we are again, on the edge of another year. As I wrote in my last blog, “staying well,” “maintaining” or “hanging in there” are all utterly unnatural states of being. As I look around the Earth, things are either growing or dying; days are …
Read More
How boundaries keep us safe
In various sorts of body work ranging from clinical, therapeutic massage through even the most erotic types of exchange, an explicit agreement about boundaries—where and how we will and won’t touch or be touched—is one of the ways we create a sense of safety for …
Read More
Follow the Breath
You may have heard the saying that we should never form too firm an impression about someone else without first “walking a mile in their shoes” in order to understand their reality. Well, there’s an even better way to try to get in touch with …
Read More
Touch as a Path to Recovery
I, like many men who recover from childhood sexual abuse, began that process by talking to a professional therapist. It took me until I was almost 40 years old until I was ready to talk about it. But once I got started, I couldn’t stop. …
Read More