I have recently been reading The Mystery of 2012, a collection of essays published by Sounds True, Inc. (a corporation noted for New Age audio recordings).  The collection is a mixed bag, starting with three authors who base their writings on scholarly interpretations of Mayan artifacts – followed by one author who points out that present-day Mayan spiritual teachers have none of these interpretations in their teachings except where they’ve worked with western scholars and New Age theorists.

2012 is the last year of the Mayan calendar  – leading some writers to speculate that the world will end then, others that it will be dramatically transformed.  Still other writers point to accelerating trends for change already apparent in our lives – global warming, political unrest, and the growth of the internet on which this blog is posted.

While the Mayan calendar is probably the best known source of  speculation on 2012, Michael Drosnin, in The Bible Code, declares that God will destroy the Earth in 2012.  Drosin  regards the Bible as a giant puzzle like the kind found on newspaper comics, where the object is to search for words in a pattern of seemingly meaningless letters.  Drosnin will be relegated to a footnote in history, as other doomsday prophets have been when the date of their predicted apocalypse passed.

The inspirational and valuable writers in The Mystery of 2012 focus on the  political, social, and  spiritual awakening that is currently transforming and will continue to transform our lives in profound ways.

Last June I reported on a class in the 2012 Mystery School for Divine Mastery.  I attended a second class in October, and next month will be leading a session in NYC that will focus on the changes that participants see on the horizon.  I’ll report on this in a future posting.

One of my recent adventures has been shooting some video footage for a documentary on the work of choreographer John Ollom.  Some of that footage and some of my editing has been incorporated into a trailer for the performance that the company will do November 15 at the Cinema Arts Center in Huntington, NY. Even if you don’t live on Long Island or in the NYC area, it’s worthwhile to watch the clip below to see the raw power of naked male dancers.

M.U.D. (Men Under Dirt) will be performed at Easton Mountain in the spring of 2010 as part of an arts retreat: Expressing Your Inner Self.

This touch ritual is based on the Buddhist idea of metta, which means lovingkindness.  In the standard metta meditation, one uses phrases to focus loving thoughts toward first one’s self, then toward a friend, then toward a neutral person, and then toward a person for whom one feels antagonism.  In this ritual one uses touch rather than thoughts.  

For the ritual, there should be one facilitator for every six or seven participants – and there should be an even number of participants so that each participant can have a partner

This ritual begins with all persons except the facilitators putting on blindfolds.  Then everyone takes off their clothes.  In the first part, participants are directed to give themselves loving touch.  The touch is not genitally focused, but that area is not avoided.

After ten or fifteen minutes of touch, the facilitators move the participants so that they are each facing a partner.  The participants visualize their partner as a close friend, and give touch as if they were giving it to that friend.

After ten or fifteen minutes of touch, the facilitators move the participants to new partners.  The task is now to visualize the partner as a neutral person, but to give the same quality of loving touch.

After ten or fifteen minutes of touch, the facilitators move the participants to new partners.  This time, the task is to visualize someone who is disliked and yet give that person the same quality of loving touch.

At the end, the blindfolds are removed and there is a time for discussing the feelings that have come up during this ritual.

The ritual could be done without removing clothing, but when I led it it was in a context of a week exploring erotic spirituality, and those in the group had already worked together while naked.

This touch ritual is based on the Buddhist idea of metta, which means lovingkindness.  In the standard metta meditation, one uses phrases to focus loving thoughts toward first one’s self, then toward a friend, then toward a neutral person, and then toward a person for whom one feels antagonism.  In this ritual one uses touch rather than thoughts.

For the ritual, there should be one facilitator for every six or seven participants – and there should be an even number of participants so that each participant can have a partner

This ritual begins with all persons except the facilitators putting on blindfolds.  Then everyone takes off their clothes.  In the first part, participants are directed to give themselves loving touch.  The touch is not genitally focused, but that area is not avoided.

After ten or fifteen minutes of touch, the facilitators move the participants so that they are each facing a partner.  The participants visualize their partner as a close friend, and give touch as if they were giving it to that friend.

After ten or fifteen minutes of touch, the facilitators move the participants to new partners.  The task is now to visualize the partner as a neutral person, but to give the same quality of loving touch.

After ten or fifteen minutes of touch, the facilitators move the participants to new partners.  This time, the task is to visualize someone who is disliked and yet give that person the same quality of loving touch.

At the end, the blindfolds are removed and there is a time for discussing the feelings that have come up during this ritual.

The ritual could be done without removing clothing, but when I led it it was in a context of a week exploring erotic spirituality, and those in the group had already worked together while naked.

This is my first posting in over two months.  During that time I’ve been traveling:  Pennsylvania for an S/M run, England and Scotland to help facilitate a gay men’s week, and finally Las Vegas for the second class of the 2012 Mystery School for Diving Mastery.

I’ve written about the Mystery School.  I’ve mentioned the men’s week and will post something about my expriences.  I’ve never written about my S/M experiences, but I have some thoughts that I’ll share in a few weeks.

While traveling, I’ve been thinking about what this blog might contain.  I’ve already written about the spiritual practices that form the core of my personal daily spiritual life.  I don’t have much more to say on this.

Since coming to Easton Mountain, four years ago, my spiritual focus has changed from personal work to group involvement.  I still do the individual work, but as a support for my group involvement.  It is my intention to focus on group spirituality in the coming months, posting every Monday or Tuesday.

Buddhists speak of the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha.  While the Buddha, to many, may refer to Gautama, the historic Buddha, to me it is the inner divine consciousness:  Buddha-consciousness, Christ-consciousness, Krishna-consciousness.  The Dharma I take to be the highest teachings available to us in all wisdom traditions.  And the Sangha I take to be a community of practice – either one that I am in or one that others are in.

While I know that Easton Mountain is not a perfect spiritual community – has their ever been a perfect spiritual community on this planet? – it is the milieu through which I gain insights. The Sangha that will be my focus in the months to come. 

On Sunday I completed a Body Electric intensive called “Erotic Temple.”    The facilitators set a high standard for me to follow during the Edward Carpenter Gay Men’s Week that I’ll facilitating in September.

On the first day I gave and received the erotic massage that is the key-stone of Body Electric work.  This session included two big draws. As we started to prepare for the second, a facilitator suggested envoking a spiritual being.  I found myself saying softly, “I envoke Sanat Kumara.”   (Sanat Kumara is an aspect of divinity in the writings of Helena Blavatsky and Alice Bailey.)  I felt an energy enfuse my body. 

As soon as I said this I had second thoughts.  In the Mystery School for Divine Mastery we use guided meditation to enter into the presence of Sanat Kumara, but we don’t invoke him.  In other words, we go to him; he doesn’t come to us.

Yet I had experienced a new energy.

I soon realized that this energy was not Sanat Kumar but an entity taking me to him.  My experience on the massage table changed.  The other men became agents of Sanat Kumara.   What ever was being done was taking me into His presence.  At the big draw I saw a black hole, and then entered into a stone room, with the sense of a being much like Kwan Yin in front of me.  I didn’t hear voices, but I knew that something important had happened.

Later in the week, I would realize that Sanat Kumara was opening doors for me, but that I was also trying to pass through doors that He had not opened, always to my regret.  The experience on the massage table was a prelude to that realization.

Does this make sense?  I study dance when I’m in my twenties and then perform when I’m in my seventies.

The performance was just for friends at Easton Mountain.  I’ve been working on a musical composition with the idea that it would be used with a number of dancers interpreting the creation story.  In order to present a segment of the music, I used my own expressive movement to give the flavor of what it would be like if it were performed with dancers.  My performance was videotaped, and here it is.

On sunny spring and summer days at Easton Mountain, I usualy spend a few hours in the garden working naked.

Working in the Garden

I have three reasons for being naked.  The primary reason is that I enjoy it.  If being naked encourages me to do something that is healthful and useful, why not continue?

The second reason is that if I didn’t work naked, I’d have to wash clothes three times as often.  Consider the photo below of my knees after a gardening session.

After gardening

As I would shower anyway after working in the garden, I save the water and energy that would be expended on washing my clothes.

My third reason for gardening naked is a passage in the writings of plato that says, in the translation I read, that in warmer days men should work in the fields “commonly stripped.”  Who am I to contradict Plato?

I also find that some cleaning tasks. like washing the floor of a shower room, are best done without clothes.  And at Easton Mountain we have a tradition of painting naked.  Again, it’s easier and more environmentally friendly just to wash paint off ones body than to have to wash it off clothes too.  Here a picture taken several years ago of a volunteer who follows the Easton Mountain tradiiton.

Naked painter

This is one tradition that not everyone follows. At Easton Mountain, we respect people who don’t follow tradition.

I’ve just returned from Las Vegas, where I attended my first five-day class in the 2012 Mystery School for Divine Mastery.    On Thursday, June 18, we visited Red Rock Canyon.  

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We brought with us some stones called “faerie stones” (or maybe “fairy stones”), rocks that float up from a lake in Canada.

These stones have an infinte variety of unusual shapes 

The school’s founder, AlixSandra Parness, preferred to call them “wisdom stones,”  but that led me to say, “Who says faeries don’t have wisdom!” 

We were encouraged to write short accounts about the stones that we were using.  The following is my take on the wisdom of “faerie stones.”

We are masters of everything fabulous.  We dance.  When we dance we don’t hide our bodies, as mortals do, beneath layers of fabric.  We weave spider webs into nets and use them to catch stardust and morning dew.  The songbirds are our orchestra.  Every time you hear a songbird singing, somewhere nearby a faerie is dancing. Sit very still to see us – or dance yourself.  When you truly know the music, we will dance with you.

My friend Toby Johnson has put a page on his website about the gay spiritual pioneer, Ralph Walker, founder of The Loving Brotherhood.  I recommend it.  Ralph was one of my teachers, as you’ll discover reading his page.  As I head Las Vegas for my first session of  the Inner Focus 2012 Mystery School for Divine Mastery, I think of Ralph and the example he set for me.

For any of the practices in this blog to be effective you must be willing to have the changes in your life that these exercises can produce. You can do an exercise to open your heart for years, but if you are determined to hold on to resentments, your heart will not open very much.

One way to increase your willingness, or at least show you where your willingness is stuck is to use affirmations. My method for working with affirmations is covered in Chakra Affirmations.

The Mantram of Unification (found in The Externalization of the Hierarchy by Alice A Bailey) is a statement that, to me, expresses the results of spiritual practice

• The sons of men are one and I am one with them.
• I seek to love, not hate;
• I seek to serve and not exact due service;
• I seek to heal, not hurt.
• Let pain bring due reward of light and love.
• Let the soul control the outer form and life and all events, And bring to light the love which underlies the happenings of the time.
• Let vision come and insight.
• Let the future stand revealed.
• Let inner union demonstrate and outer cleavages be gone.
• Let love prevail.
• Let all men love.

This passage may be turned into a series of affirmations:

• The sons of men are one; and I, [name] am one with them.
• I, [name], seek to love, not hate.
• . . .
• I, [name], am willing to let all men love.

I don’t recommend writing the eleven affirmation on 110 consecutive days.

All of the practices in this blog have as a fundamental principal the fact that you have your own inner guide to spiritual practice – often referred to as your Higher Self. Your Higher Self will show you what is right for you.