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- 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…
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Into the Darkness
8With apologies to all of you who have traumatic associations with this period of holidays, this is my absolute favorite time of year. The period from the winter solstice to the New Year has always been full of big ritual dinners with my enormous extended …
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Touch Practice, Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity
Touch Practice has been a fascinating exploration of Great Unknowns for me, and in the course of carrying this practice I have learned many things. There are two areas in particular, however, where what I have learned has completely changed the way I conceive my …
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Safety through separation, safety through connection
Following up on last week’s post—how boundaries work to create safety—here’s a case where “the opposite of a truth is also true.” One of the first things we learn to do to create safety is separate ourselves: we build walls, erect boundaries, withdraw. For those …
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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 …
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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 …
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A Hollow Passion
I have always been a passionate person. My tendency is not to do anything half way. When I’m happy, then the world is a beautiful place, I have the best friends anyone could possibly imagine, life is worth living, and it will never be any …
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Clamping Around Emotion
It is common that during the course of Touch Practice work, we experience emotions. Sometimes touching different parts of the body will elicit different emotions, some pleasant and welcome, others difficult and challenging to feel. Emotions normally pass across the energy body the way clouds …
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Letting Go
Driving through the Vermont mountains yesterday, the trees were beginning to hint (in some places not so subtly) at that change of season which in this part of the country can be so breathtakingly beautiful. Beautiful, but ambivalent, for me: this final, dazzling array of …
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Humiliation and Spiritual Practice
One of my very best buddies once said to me, “it is impossible to live a deeply committed spiritual life—to walk the walk with our whole heart—without experiencing humiliation.” I have found this teaching to be profoundly true. In last week’s blog, I spoke about …
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The End of the Story
One of the experiences of the spiritual path I am just beginning to understand is the aspect of “getting your buttons pushed.” You know what I’m talking about: someone who manages to get to you. Repeatedly. Incessantly. Even when you’ve vowed in your mind that …
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