Five Tips on the Sport of Sacred Sauna Sexercise

I have a friend who claims that  his favorite sport is ‘sauna sexercise’. It’s probably my favorite sport too! And although gay saunas have their many detractors I have come to the conclusion that, for me, with the right frame of mind, the gay sauna is probably one of the best venues not only for a thorough sex workout but also for the possibility of some sacred sexual intimacy.

So how do I approach the Holy Temple of Sacred Sexercise?

1 I don’t go to the sauna expecting anything other than a better than average chance of giving love, of that love being received, and, as a result, finding myself in communion with another bloke and thereby with The Divine. Namaste: the deity within me worshiping the deity within him worshiping the deity within me.

2 I attempt to cultivate a simple acceptance of every single body present at any particular time. For me sauna encounters are an opportunity to engage in unconditional love. So, no approach is rejected and there is no sense of too old, too young, too fat, too hairy, or, believe it or not, too well hung! In the sauna I’m not looking for a movie-star, a trophy or a lifelong lover. I’m simply reveling in the amazing nature of naked male sexuality, much as I would be reveling in the amazing nature of arboreal energy in some ancient woodland. (A tree however is much happier to be unconditionally hugged than is your average bloke-in-a-sauna)

3 Personally I’m not big on hunting and I’m more comfortable being pursued. However if it seems that someone is intent on being sought I can dance that dance too! With hunting, though, there is always the risk of a rejection and here again the frame of mind is crucial. If someone seems interested and then changes their mind that’s cool. If someone seems to be wanting to hurt me with their rejection I can’t take that personally. Instead I get a chance to feel compassion for the mixed-up-ness going on for that person. I’m a big believer that the most important relationship anyone has, is the relationship they have with themselves. Anyone hanging around a sauna attempting to hurt others with their rejections is likely to be struggling. Worthy of a gentle blessing and a fairly wide birth!

4 I approach (and expect to be approached by) my potential sacred lovers in a way which is respectful of emotional, psychological and physical safety. So just as I would not wish to knowingly emotionally or psychologically unsettle a lover, I would also endeavor to safeguard their physical safety too. Erotic touch can be so many things within the realm of safer sex.

5 Finally,remember if you’re going to give yourself a treat, give yourself the gift of unconditional love because (unless you encounter me in the sauna) you can be sure as hell no one else is going to give it to you!

Are You Out and Proud to your Spirituality?

At the time of writing this I’m in the afterglow of the London Pride weekend.

The highlight for me was a LoveSpirit* meeting at the Wheatsheaf Hall in Vauxhall.

The event was an opportunity to deepen a love for the Unity to be found in spiritual diversity.

In a great venue, in the context of drumming, singing, dancing, relaxing and meditating, some 15 or so souls each had a 3 minute slot to share with the assembled crowd the essence of their own spiritual practice and how this related to their sexual identity/ gender identification.

In my 3 minutes I danced! If I had spoken, this is what I would have said:

“After years of yo-yoing between exploring my sexuality whilst rejecting my spirituality, and then exploring my spirituality whilst rejecting my sexuality, I finally arrived at a realization; my spirituality and my sexuality are inextricably linked. In fact, for me, they are one and the same thing!

What I needed to reject was not spirituality but the guilt and shame of taking pleasure in feeding the natural appetites of my body and soul. For some inexplicable reason over time, the major spiritual traditions have become somewhat tarnished with a homophobic/ transphobic stance on accepting this truth.

So as I searched for a church which might welcome and nurture my spiritual growth I was constantly confronted by a sense that I could only be accepted on the condition that I inhibit the expression of my gender fluidity and sexual expression.

It finally dawned on me that the church I was pining for did not currently exist and if I wanted to be part of a community which was fully accepting of my body and soul, it would be my purpose to manifest it.

I read and was bowled over by Christian de Huerta’s ‘Coming out Spiritually: The Next Step’. I suppose that is when I fully ‘came out’ to my spirituality: I became a spiritual activist! 

Starting as a solitary spiritual practitioner. Cutting out the middle(wo)man priest/ guru/ shaman, I began to meditate and read the Tao Te Ching. Living in the moment. Stringing together surges of Joy in the pleasures of life, pain and death. Nurturing my creative urges. Understanding and dismantling the restrictions I had unknowingly constructed around my capacity to feel and express love. 

I found the unconditional acceptance of my dance in 5Rhythms. 

The Albion Faeries found me and made a space where, in vulnerability, I could be fully accepted and heal the unacknowledged love-blocks arising from my repressed sissy self.

So this is me and this is my dance”

LoveSpirit is a great queer spiritual melting pot. Together we can talk, sing, dance, trance and drum up a wave of love.

Coming out to Spirituality is the start of a great adventure. Feel free to join us on the journey!

*Lovespirit is a grassroots emergence of lgbt+ spiritual discovery, bringing together queers of any or no spiritual tradition who feel the truth of love behind all religious and magical paths.

How I Align My Body-Mind-Life Force With Love To Make My World A Temple For Pagan Love Magic

I invoke and feel the Essence of Feminine Love

(For me this in the Shadows of my Self -cast in the depths of the Earth)

I move my attention from the Earth, through my feet and up my legs and I focus on my anal Base chakra

The centre of my Red Lustful Love

Located with the Essence of Earth to the North

I move my attention to my cock-and-balls Sacral chakra

The centre of my Orange Love Balance

Balancing Love Lust and Love Power

I move my attention to my Solar Plexus Power chakra

The centre of my Yellow Love Power

Located with the Essence of Fire to the South

I move my attention to my Heart chakra

The centre of my Green Loving Feelings

Located with the Essence of Water to the West

I move my attention to my Throat chakra

The centre of my Blue Verbal Expressions of Love

The arbiter of Loving Thoughts and Loving Feelings

I move my attention to my Third Eye chakra

The centre of my Purple Loving Thoughts

Located with the Essence of Air to the East

I then invoke and feel the Essence of Masculine Love

(For me this is a bright light shining down on me from above)

Spectral Love

Red Love Lust

Orange Love Balance

Yellow Love Power

Green Love Feelings

Blue Love Words

Purple Love Thoughts

Pure White Love

Purple Love Thoughts

Blue Love Words

Green Love Feelings

Yellow Love Power

Orange Love Balance

Red Love Lust

I Am The Whore Of Babylon And I Give You Pure White Love!

21 Aversion to 'certain people'-the mirror image of attachment to the idealised self

I've recently fallen out with a very accomplished gay couple who have been wanting to be friends of ours for years. It’s given me lots of cause for reflection on the nature of aversion and what it is that determines whether one likes or dislikes someone. I was reading a Buddhist text yesterday- 'Mindfulness: The Path to the Deathless'-on the principle of Aversion and it suddenly struck me where I’ve been going wrong.

The idea as I understood it is that when it comes to not liking people –it’s not people that you get an aversion towards- the aversion is in your mind and it is created out of whatever desires you have to be or become. Once you have created that context, aversion flows quite naturally from that. So that anyone who threatens to undermine your fantasy of who you are, what you desire to have or become, becomes an enemy. The extent of your aversion will be directly proportional to the extent to which your ego is threatened.

It means that no matter how worthy your aspirations may be you will always find your bete noire to do battle with and that will be a constant source of suffering to you. The Buddhist idea is to endeavour to just be who you are. Don’t develop an elaborate ego that demands feeding with attachments and defending from attack.

It’s really quite counter to the Judeo-Christian idea of aspiring to be good and nice and doing battle with those who are bad and not so nice. Trouble is that the gooder and nicer you aspire to be the badder and nastier are the enemies that surround you!

So consequently the long and the short of it is that on reflection and following deep introspection, I think that my falling out with the couple who have been keen to be our friends was born from the first weeks of meeting them and sensing that there was a selfishness and a callous disregard towards those they identified as  ‘outsiders’. (That's right you guessed it- I really prize selflessness and inclusion of outsiders)

It’s taken years for me to actually locate my discomfort. And it’s been complicated by the fact that my partner was ‘best mates’ with one of the couple and the intensity of that friendship petered out for its own reasons. However, in the final analysis, although I would instinctively point the finger of blame for the falling out at “them”, the only one who can be responsible for the creation and destruction of the friendship, as I perceived it-is me. I am the author, in my head, of who is nice, not nice, acceptable, and unacceptable. And I, for whatever reason, allowed a longstanding relationship to grow between myself and some people who were, right from the start, somehow not acceptable to me!

So what have I learned?

The big lesson here for me is to become aware of the rules I’m making up about my aspirations and be conscious that every layer of ego that I acquire leads to an other layer of aversion towards another swathe of people. I suppose true happiness can be found if it’s possible to disintegrate the accretions of ego that have grown over the years. I suppose that would be the path to having the capacity to love unconditionally and universally. Now that would be an interesting aspiration!