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MASTERS OF TIME & SPACE (& INTIMACY)

Rev. Hans Peter Meyer

• 6 min read
MASTERS OF TIME & SPACE (& INTIMACY)

Dear Men,

This is addressed to all the men on my mailing list. Some of you are familiar with the work I do with men and women and couples around the themes of intimacy, sex, and marriage. Some of you, not so much. A few of you were part of the Winter 2024 Sacred Intimacy retreat I co-hosted with Sarah Anderson. After last night's retreat follow session I'm moved to write a few words on our practice as "masters of time and space."

INTIMACY

Take a quick look at the "word cloud" at the top of the page. For a few weeks now I've been asking men and women to give me their "first three words about intimacy." You'll quickly see that the top three words in the cloud are vulnerability, safety, and trust. Our work in the retreat and in the follow up men’s groups is really about building our capacity for these three experiences.

MASTERS OF TIME & SPACE

In both the Fearless Intimacy and Fierce Intimacy retreats John Wineland focused entirely on deepening our respective masculine and feminine polarities. This was all about using polarities practice as a way to open ourselves and each other to intimacy.

These were powerful experiences. But what Wineland taught had nothing to do with the usual "sexy bits." Instead, it had everything to do with how we stood, how we held our bodies, how we breathed, and how looked each other in the eyes. Each of these changed how we saw and experienced each other. They allowed new ways to allow trust, safety, vulnerability.

One of the principal tools that John drew on was a yogic principle: Whoever stands in the "masculine" in the polarity also has a responsibility to be the "master of time and space." That is, if we aspire to be masculine, one of the easiest ways to do this is to be clear and consistent about how we organize our time with others, and the spaces we create with and for others. This is doubly the case with those who are feminine-identified, eg. most (but not all) women, and children. Respect, trust, a feeling of safety, a willingness to become vulnerable flow from our capacity to set times and spaces for the other. Our masculine mastery of time and spaces sets the stage for the feminine flow we desire: beauty, laughter, play, an opening into intimacy.

For many of us, our mastery of time and space isn't for a romantic or sexual partner. Instead, it's for the people or person who depends on us for their safe experience in the world. Like our kids, or the children of family and friends. For any one of us who owns or manages a business or organization, the beneficiaries, if you will, of our mastery are our co-workers, colleagues, and especially our employees. If we are in leadership outside of the home or work, the ones who benefit and become more open and engaged with us are citizens or constituents, our community. They get clear messages that allow them to know where they can safely stand and be who they are.

SHOWING UP

At its basic level, being a master of time and space simply means:

  • being the one who sets times and places to meet or do activities together
  • being the one who shows up early to be "on time," and
  • knowing that some others will challenge our structures of time and space with their lateness or absence, not take it personally. Not be thrown off by that, but instead, create flexibility in the structures or practices so that their habits or resistances or testing are accounted for and not allowed to disrupt the greater purpose of your mastery, which is to increase and deepen opportunities for intimacy.

But a master of time & space doesn't just do these things. He, and I'm here talking to you men so that's the pronoun I'll use, but it applies to anyone who stands in the masculine polarity, —a master of space doesn't just show up five minutes before the meeting or dinner or time to pick up his date: He shows up, fully present. Aware. Ready and willing to experience whatever his mastery has called forth. And that means everything from beauty to raging storm. And then he enjoys whatever he's called up.

So, you're not just "holding space." You're not a meeting planner. You're the guy. You embody your masculine presence, fully. You stand and breathe and see in a way that others feel as solid. Powerfully still. Deeply trustworthy.

This is hard to do. It takes practice. It's what men spend $1000s and $10s of thousands to learn in leadership courses. Some of you know how powerful this sh*t is. Some of you have experienced that, if you don't practice, you're just another one of those bulls*t hustlers that women and children (and dogs and cats) avoid. They can feel it in their bodies when we're not real. And this makes us doubly untrustworthy. I know. I've been there. That's why I do what I do. And that means daily and dedicated...practice.

PRACTICE

I'm assuming that if you're read this far you're not so much interested in being an emotional or sexual grifter. That you want to be more of who you are as a husband or father or friend.

Were you ever taught anything about this? Not me. Very few of us were taught how to do that. Our primary training as men in this culture has been to keep us adolescent. Rock hard, sure. But that vaunted hardness is brittle. It has no depth. I submit that it's why we have such high divorce rates, so many men and women looking for love in all the wrong places, so many children in single-parent families, so many boys, lost and susceptible to authoritarianism as a way out of the lostness.

But you're reading this. And maybe you're a man who'll make a difference to some lost boy, some women looking for love. Maybe you're ready for practices that'll help you learn how to soften and at the same time stand powerfully stable and present. Because that's our gift, to all of our relationships. When you master this part of being who you are your wife knows it. Your kids know it. Your co-workers and friends know it. They may not have words for it, but they know that you are real. Not a phoney superman, but the real dead. A husband. A father. Friend. Colleague. A man who must be trusted —just because of your presence. And this is what the world wants from us. Frankly, it's what the world needs from men like us.

But to do this, it's work. And, yes, it requires practice. Some of the practices are simple (but to do them consistently, like always, hard):

Practices like:

  • being 5-15 minutes early for every meeting you've committed to
  • when you're late (and this will happen to every one of us), we take full responsibility and let others know well ahead of time —and then bear the full cost of every consequence
  • taking responsibility for the making of plans. Not dictating what happens where and when, but making sure these conversations happen and taking full responsibility for making sure the plans are in place
  • knowing that plans will —and must— fail or require adjustment (because we are creating structures for flow, not to limit flow).

THIS THING CALLED MEN'S WORK

To be able to do these practices may be easy for you. For most of us men, we benefit from what's called "men's work." Work that's focused on building nervous system capacity to be experienced as stable, safe, strong, yet open and sensitive to what's going on around us.

If you're interested in what this looks like, please take a look at what these men are offering (they're all coaches and teachers I've learned from and/or worked with, and whom I recommend):

If you don't see a fit here for yourself, or if you'd like to work with me, please see menswork.ca for upcoming programs.

-Rev. Hans

ps. Sarah Anderson and I are offering our second Sacred Intimacy Intensive weekend retreat of 2024, this Fall. We are now taking names of those of you who are interested on our wait list. FMI see the retreat listing here.

pps. If you haven't sent me your three words about intimacy yet, I'd love to add them to the list! Please email them to me at rev.hans@sacredbodies.ca or text via iMessage to 250-792-1408 (if you're in Canada you're welcome to send an SMS to 250-792-1408)