I’ve just returned from a cruise to South-Eastern Alaska with my wife (Kat), kids, mother, and in-laws.  When the ship docked in Skagway, Kat and I needed a little time away from the cruise crowds so we ferried to Haines, AK, near the northern end of the “inside passage.”  Haines is a “typical” small Alaskan town, very reminiscent of that old TV series “Northern Exposure“.

Walking around Haines we met Christy, the owner of the Pioneer Hotel and Bamboo Room restaurant - her Dad purchased the hotel and bar in the 1930’s.  Eating the excellent fish at the Bamboo Room we had a great conversation with Cat, a recent arrival from LA, now waiting tables in Haines.  We wound up offering anger management advice to a shop owner with an employee in trouble, love advice to the mayor, and chatting up the brew-master, Paul, at the Haines Brewing Company.  We met a guy carving a totem pole and another carving a dugout canoe.  We led an impromptu sing-along at the Mountain Market (Bye, Bye Miss American Pie…)  People were consistently warm and friendly, and it got me thinking about communities.

Haines is a small town where it seemed that everyone knows everyone.  Situated where the Lynn Canal meets the Lutak inlet, near the Chilkat and Chilkoot valleys (home to 2000+ bald eagles) and amidst some of the most beautiful scenery imaginable, Haines has one supermarket, no movie theaters, no mall, no hospital, no Wal-Mart, no Starbucks or McDonalds.  On the other hand, it has snow capped mountains, bald eagles, black bears and brown bears, whales, otters, salmon, deer, moose, waterfalls, lakes, miles of trails and seemingly endless wilderness right in their front yards.

When the 4 months of the tourist season ends, and the weather begins to get cold, Haines can be a pretty “frontier” place to live.  Ferry and plane schedules are at the mercy of winter weather.  If you get severely hurt or ill, your hospital is a plane-ride away in Juneau.  If your boat capsizes, you can only last a few minutes in the icy water.  Have an accident while hiking and no one may find you until the spring thaw, if then.  It’s been known to snow more than 200 inches in the winter.  The logging industry has gone away, as has the mining industry, so there aren’t many jobs not related to tourism.

Maybe that’s one reason everyone was so genuinely welcoming to us.  To live in Haines is to need the support of your community.  People who will help you dig out after a snow storm.  People who will take care of your property when you have to fly your kid to Juneau for an appendectomy. People who will mourn with you when your loved one doesn’t make it back from gillnetting.

Wikipedia defines “community” as a group of interacting organisms sharing an environment or, in sociological terms, a group of interacting people living in a common location.  Communities can be based on many different foundations - e.g., geography, shared intention or values, preferences.   I see my communities as circles within circles (like the image of an archery target).

No matter how I define community - by geography, by shared intention or values, by preference - at the center, the bullseye of my target,  is my immediate family.  I’m a part of so many communities it’s hard to name them all - my extended family, my neighborhood, my dearest friends, all my friends, my co-workers, my clients, participants in my workshops, the sports teams I like (go Niners), my state and national allegiances (I’m proud to be an American), and so many more.

Oh yeah, and you.

Yin and yang. The Chinese principle of dualism. Yin is soft, yang is hard. Yin is tranquil, yang is restless. Yin is slow, yang is rapid. Yin is cold, yang is hot. Yin is gentle, yang is rough. Sometimes, I hear people assert that yin is feminine, yang is masculine.

I was talking Satyen Raja on my podcast and he said “in any type of relationship there’s a masculine energy, one person has more of a masculine energy at their deepest core and there’s another partner who has more of a feminine essence at their deepest core.” He went on to talk about how this feeling of “fitting together” can fool us into believing we’re in love. It’s a great interview. But it got me thinking about this idea of duality.

I once heard a comedian say that there are two kinds of people in the world - those who think there are two kinds of people and those who don’t. I don’t. I see the world in infinite variety. I see masculinity in the way I care for my children and femininity in the ferocity of my sexuality. I see the hard in the soft and the light in the darkness, and all the shades of gray in between.

I believe great relationships are all about the gray areas. We are neither one thing nor the other, we dance and flow back and forth, sometimes leading, sometimes following, sometimes on top, sometimes on bottom, always side-by-side, intertwined.

The funny thing about the Chinese philosophy of yin and yang is that it also includes finding the yin in yang and the yang in yin. And then finding the yin in the yang that’s in the yin…well, you get the idea.

By the way, there are actually three kinds of people - those who understand arithmetic and those who don’t.

Surfing the net I bump into lots of interesting tidbits related to Sex, Love and Intimacy. Here are a few of the most recent.

Did you know that Melbourne University’s (Australia) Andrew Pask and Roger Short have developed an estrogen cream that - when applied to a man’s foreskin - will boost the body’s natural defenses against HIV? It’s being touted as a “Living Condom.” As far as I can tell, it is of no use preventing pregnancy, protecting a female partner, or protecting against the other 25 or so STI’s known to mankind. And there’s no word on help for those of us who no longer have a foreskin. Let’s hope that small steps continue to lead to bigger breakthroughs.

Meanwhile, according to an article in the NY Times - The Weird Sisters - scientists are fascinated by an 85 million year old species, bdelloid rotifers, that defy what we think we know about evolution. They are asexual yet they appear to evolve in ways that can not be explained by occasional genetic mutation. Apparently, living without sex is no big deal, in terms of species. It’s surviving 85 million years that has everyone puzzled. Speaking personally, I really hope this asexuality doesn’t catch on. I’ve tried in two marriages and I can tell you it’s not for me.

There’s a great article by Naomi Wolfe in New York Magazine re-evaluating the relationship between easy access to pornography leading to men objectifying real women in the way they objectified porn stars, and treat them accordingly. The belief was that rape and other kinds of sexual mayhem would surely follow. Not true, according Ms. Wolfe’s research. Turns out, porn seems to deaden men’s libido as regards real, living, flesh-and-blood women.

Finally, a tip-of-the-hat to Dr. Marty Klein, sex therapist, public policy analyst and author of “America’s War on Sex“. Dr. K’s blog - Sexual Intelligence - has a terrific open letter to anti-gay marriage activists, debunking their lies and fear-mongering with solid information and facts. Check it out.

I love talking to Alison Armstrong. She’s spent decades researching men, and listening to her I always learn something about me. One thing she said was that there are “magic” words that a man can say to a woman whose feelings have been crushed and is now raging, criticizing, bringing up the past, etc. These magic words can literally “save” this women from her “rage-monster.”

The words are “I’m sorry I hurt your feelings.” When you say these words, it disconnects the rage monster. But you have to mean it, if you don’t mean it, it won’t work. And when you realize that this person’s upset has her feel cut off from her spirit, it’s likely you will really feel empathy, be sorry, that her feelings were hurt.

When I say “I’m sorry” I do not mean “It was my fault.” “I’m sorry” does not imply that you are right and I am wrong. My “I’m sorry” means that I can see that you are hurt, crushed. It is my deepest wish to make you happy. I can’t. All I can do is have empathy for the pain you are in. I’m sorry that, even though I had no bad intent and I was trying my best, I hurt your feelings.

Try the magic sometime and see if it helps you get back into love.

Why would anyone need to learn to orgasm? Aren’t we humans born knowing how? Isn’t it just “wired in”?

Actually, we humans are born with an ability to learn most everything. With that ability, some incentive, and lots of practice, we learn to breastfeed, and for some of us that can take several days. We learn to walk, run, skip, hop, jump and dance. We learn to talk and sing, read and write. In fact, we learn most everything we do. Some of us learn to do these all-too-human activities better than others. Some of us become Olympics-caliber athletes, professional dancers, opera singers, etc.

Some of the difference between those “stars” and we “ordinary” folks is innate, God-given, hereditary. I’m not ever going to be as tall as the average NBA player. My hands will never grow to be as large as an NFL quarterback’s. Yet there are successful pro basketball players under 6 feet tall - Spud Webb, the 1986 NBA Slam Dunk Champion was 5′7″. Doug Flutie, at 5′9″, was considered too small to play football. Yet he won the 1984 Heisman Trophy (for outstanding College play) and then had a 20+ year career in professional football. Ability, incentive and practice - lots of practice - and we humans can do most anything.

I was talking to Patti Taylor, author of Expanded Orgasm, and she said she wanted to have Olympics-caliber orgasms! In 1988 she had her first expanded orgasm and began a journey to study how to create these experiences, and share with others the potential they hold and power they unleash. She received her PhD in Transpersonal Psychology in 2000. Over the years, Dr. Patti has studied with many sources, including More University, the Human Awareness Institute, hypnosis and Tantra. Please note: some of her most extensive experience has come from her own ongoing intensive practice, having had 3-5 extended, ecstatic Expanded Orgasms per week for over 15 years.

In other words, with our innate ability, the incentive of a lifetime of ecstatic orgasms and practice - lots of practice - we all can have better orgasms than, perhaps, we knew were actually available. Hmmm, as of now, I’m in training!

When I was a younger man I had a vision of a future where people lived together in peace and harmony and where love was universally encouraged and cultivated. I was a teenager. It was the second half of the Sixties. I was happy. I was full of the joy of life. I loved and felt loved intensely, passionately. Everything seemed possible.

Time passed, the world turned, and the values and beliefs that so inspired me as a youth were put aside as I began to focus on career, marriage, “real life”. And one day I was 35 years old, married, working as a moderately successful middle manager at a moderately successful ad agency, paying down a mortgage and car loans. Living the life I had convinced myself would make me feel happy.

Unfortunately, I was not happy. Somehow the “good life” wasn’t so good for me. I felt empty

My wife heard from her dentist about a weekend workshop by the Human Awareness Institute that delved into the questions “What is love?, What is intimacy?, What is sexuality?”. It sounded like something that might put some sparkle back into our lives. She signed us up.

I don’t really remember what I expected, but I do remember that this workshop went where I never dreamed I would go again. For one sweet weekend I was in a room that transformed from a conference center into a room of love. I experienced my heart opening, my defenses and stories falling away, and love flowing from me and towards me. Even though the sixties were long gone, I was happy like I had been happy then. I was full of the joy of life. I loved and felt loved intensely.

In just one weekend I felt genuinely changed. I doubted if what I was experiencing was “real”. I wondered if it would just fade away like a dream as I went back to my life outside the room of love. I wanted more of that open-hearted feeling but I worried that my friends, co-workers and family would all think I had lost my mind, become “woo-woo”, joined a cult.

Throwing caution to the wind I started to act more like that guy I remembered from the sixties, the guy I rediscovered in the room of love. I started offering hugs instead of handshakes to my friends. I risked offering hugs to my friends, my family, my co-workers, even some of my clients. I began to discover that I was surrounded by people who were open to having more love in their lives. People just like me.

Instead of waiting to find out how long it would take to lose these good feelings I decided to go back and do a Level 2 - Love, Intimacy and Sexuality workshop within a month of that first workshop. Perhaps, if I spent enough time in the room of love I could become the person I once dreamed of being? If one weekend was good wouldn’t two weekends be better?

Yes, most definitely. Level 2 was a weekend of falling in love with myself. Not just my thoughts, but all of me – my body, my gender, my heart, my spirit, as well as my mind. By the end of Level 2 I was no longer questioning whether or not this was real, I didn’t care if it was real or not, I just wanted to stay on this path of more and more love, more aliveness, more intimacy, deeper and more profound sexuality, more fun, more me

As I write these words I am approaching the 20th anniversary of those days. In these past twenty years the room of love has become my home, my work, my mission. I have completed all the Levels of HAI’s Love, Intimacy and Sexuality Workshops. I have studied at Stan Dale’s feet (the founder of the work).

Since 1990 I have led the workshops Every day I keep learning that any room I’m in can be the room of love. That the values and dreams that, for me, started in the sixties, are worth pursuing and can help to create a world that is filled with peace and love and harmony. To quote HAI’s mission statement:

“The Human Awareness Institute (HAI) empowers individuals to be potent, loving, contributing human beings. HAI promotes personal growth and social evolution by replacing ignorance and fear with awareness and love. The Human Awareness Institute aims to create a world where people live together in dignity, respect, understanding, trust, kindness, compassion, honesty and love. HAI is committed to creating a world where everyone wins.”

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I saw Dave Wilcox in concert recently. Dave’s a singer/songwriter/storyteller that I really like. His “concerts” are like an evening-long journey into the highs and lows of the human heart. While he’s tuning his guitar he tells stories of his life and friends and lovers and the stories morph into songs and truth gets said and sung. I laugh. I cry. I’m moved. Nothing sounds preachy or fake, there’s no lecture. And from a technical point of view the songs and musicianship are astounding.

Things Dave said that got me thinking (I’ll need to paraphrase because I wasn’t taking notes, I was enjoying a show):

- A heart needs to break for us to know it really works.

- All our paths get shorter at the end, because we only have so many steps, only so much time…so we have to choose, we have to trust.

- What if we went into a relationship fearless? We could tell the truth because we weren’t afraid it would end. (Probably wouldn’t end if we told the truth…)

-It’s human nature to be dissatisfied. If, by some miracle, we all woke up tomorrow with the ability to jump into the air and just fly, unaided, to just soar, we’d be happy…for about a week. Then we’d start to think “I’m not so special, everyone can fly, I really can’t do anything, I’m just ordinary…”

- So let’s say you’re arguing with your lover and it’s taking her a really long time to realize you’re right…

- We have hearts that can hold a tremendous amount of fullness, which is great if there’s a tremendous amount of fullness in our lives, but it leaves us a lot of room for empty. This isn’t bad design, there’s a lot of fullness to find. Maybe it’s only the empty that would keep us looking to find the fullness?

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On April 29, 1945, at about 11 AM, members of the 3rd Battalion, 157th Infantry Regiment, of the U.S. 45th (Thunderbird) Division, as part of Task Force Love, entered Dachau concentration camp. (Pfc. John Degro of Burton, Ohio is believed to be the first American liberator to enter the concentration camp and come within view of the inmates.) An excellent timeline and description, with photos can be found at: Humanitas International.org.

It is now more than 60 years after the Second World War ended. This blog is a part of a memorial chain, in memory of the six million Jews, 20 million Russians, 10 million Christians and 1,900 Catholic priests who were murdered, massacred, raped, burned, starved and humiliated.

Now, more than ever, with websites, hate groups, neo-Nazis and even the government of Iran, among others, claiming the Holocaust to be ‘a myth,’ it is imperative to make sure the world never forgets, because there are others who would like to do it again.

I believe, with all my heart, that we have the ability to create a world where everyone lives together live together in dignity, respect, understanding, trust, kindness, honesty, compassion and love. And, I believe that forgiveness is the key to happiness.

Life, my own readings of history, and common sense, has taught me that, to paraphrase philosopher and poet George Santayana, those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it, that denial of the truth is a path to suffering. We must remember, we must never allow it to happen again.

This message is intended to reach 40 million people worldwide! Join us and be a link in this memorial chain and help us distribute it around the world. Please copy this blog and email it to your friends and family, or simply send a link to this site to people you know and ask them to continue the memorial chain.

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This month’s Esquire magazine (May 2008) has a nice article by Tom Chiarella titled “No” (as of this writing it’s not on-line yet, but I’m sure it will be). Chiarella writes about the simple power of the plain, unadorned, one word sentence “No.” For one month, whenever he doesn’t want to do something he just says no, clearly, unambiguously, but not in a mean way.

It seems to me that most adults have trouble just saying no. We say “No, thank you” to be polite. We say “I’d rather not” or “I’m not sure.” We offer long explanations, hoping not to feel guilty and not to hurt feelings.

When we were kids our parents said “Don’t you say no to me!” Kids who said “No, no, no, no!” were throwing a “tantrum” and sent to their rooms, punished, hit. I don’t remember any teacher ever praising me for my “no” - “I’m so proud of you, Chip, for the strength of your convictions and the clarity of your no.” Yeah, right.

Then there are those yeses, maybes, and I’m not sures that are actually nos. Either we “know” that the person means no, or we take the absence of a no to mean yes. In the first case, it was a no, we heard the no, why not just say no? In the second case, the inability or unwillingness to say no created a genuine misunderstanding. My experience is that such misunderstandings fuel anger and mistrust. In either case, the simple and direct no was certainly a better choice.

While I know that what I’ve written so far is true, I also know there are times when saying no can actually be corrosive. I’ve heard countless stories of intimate moments that get undermined by a no. When making love, instead of saying no to something, I often prefer to tell my partner something I like or appreciate about what I’m experiencing and something different I’d like. “I really love the way you ______, and right now I’d love it if you _______.”

A big part of being the man I choose to be has something to do with the ways I say yes - yes to life, yes to love, yes to service, yes to my family, yes to my community, yes to my passion and yes to my responsibilities. And an equally big part of being the man I choose to be has something to do with the ways I say no - no to injustice, no to deceit, no to hatred, no to knowingly inflicting unnecessary pain, and sometimes, no because that’s my truth.

Check out this weirdly erotic, intensely sexual, and beautiful clip of a love-making in the wild.