community

It's that time again and I'm struggling with it again. It seems odd to me that in theory it's the celebration of Jesus' birth. In practice, it's often a celebration of family and materialism. I really struggle when there's a split between theory and practice. I tend to like the theory and would much rather practice it. Jesus is the most well known messenger of Love in our world. Love is the core of healing and the core of Karezza in my understanding. I'd much rather find a way to celebrate Love at this time than get caught up in family duties.

I had some time with my friend today. It was good to spend time with her. I really enjoy her presence. She seemed, as I suspected, less than completely comfortable with the 3 week sleeping together routine. She's coming from a place that is strongly focused on my healing. All very nice, but she would be working pretty hard to keep herself removed from her own needs with that perspective. She's proposing some kind of other healing routine with number of the people from the healing touch group we attend. I'm open to it.

Ok. This is my first stab at blogging. I've started at day 1572 (today) because that's about how long (4 years and 16 weeks) I've been exploring Marnia's ideas and inviting others to explore it with me. Finding a partner to do even 3 weeks of the non-sexual Exchanges is something that I have not yet been able to create. (This part of the Exchanges is important to me due to its potential effect on healing the effects of early childhood bonding trauma.) I'm looking forward to connecting with other members of this on-line community.

I went to a party tonight. No one stared at my chest, no one invited me to leave with them, and no one made risque comments in my presence. I rarely get the chance to have a polite conversation with a straight guy, let alone several of them. It was WONDERFUL. It was just as normal as talking to my brother, or one of my gay pals.

Oh, at the beginning everything was new and exciting. Like others on this site, I was even evangelistic and wrote a letter to the editor of a national magazine in both of our names touting Marnia’s book and karezza as "slow sex." And, the letter was published! Fortunately, we quickly figured out that no family members were likely to see it (whew!) And joked about how many phone calls we would get about it (To date, only 1.)

By necessity, communities (especially internet ones) need to focus on their commonalities. Otherwise, there is little cohesion and the drive to remain a community weakens. Ironically, I have even witnessed this in online communities whose explicit goal was to cultivate community for its own sake--such nascent intentional communities rarely seem to flourish. When members' interests diverge or evolve, maintaining the community becomes less useful, both for the persons with divergent interests and for any members who maintain their original reasons for joining.

I've been gone from here for a few months... I was losing the battle against the porn/masturbation addiction, not completely, I just couldn't abstain for more than a few days at a time. Started getting into the self-hate thing a bit and didn't feel I had anything constructive to offer here. Decided I would return when I'd cracked the 6 week mark - but that hasn't happened (yet) and I've come to realise that this isn't something I can do alone... and, for me, the support of this community is the light that illuminates the path of recovery.