These views are my own

I am very lucky to have friends in my life who hold me to account for mistakes that I have made, so that when I face accusations I can rely on their help to distinguish real mistakes from habituated self-shaming.

I have not published anything here for several months as I have been dealing with something very challenging in my personal life. This post is a return to regular writing, and I wish to begin with a bit about what's been going on in my life.

A few months ago, a former romantic partner of mine wrote a medium post critical of the Monastic Academy (a Buddhist spiritual community where I am currently a resident). The person's name is Shekinah Alegra and central to her post was an accusation of sexual assault. She did not name the person she was accusing of sexual assault, but it is clear to me that these accusations were directed at me.

Shekinah and I were in a romantic relationship for much of 2021. It was a relationship that enlivened me and helped me to write in the way that I did in 2021, but it ended very badly. Towards the end of the year I returned from a backpacking trip and Shekinah told me that she had slept with another man while I had been away. We had some agreements about this but Shekinah did not honor them. After mulling it over for a few weeks I decided to end the relationship. Soon afterwards Shekinah wrote the post accusing me of sexual assault more than a year prior.

I have discussed the details of the event that Shekinah now describes as sexual assault with the people in my life who I trust most to hold me to account, and have concluded that sexual assault is a completely inappropriate way to describe it. There are some very significant facts that Shekinah omitted in her essay that I will not describe here as I do not wish to turn the beauty of the relationship that erupted between us into an energy source for a needless fight.

For this same reason -- not wanting to turn a past romance into a public fight -- I have not responded at all to the accusations until now. But the accusations are now hurting the spiritual community that I am part of, because together with the accusation of sexual assault, Shekinah's post accuses the Monastic Academy of covering up this alleged sexual assault. This I will respond to directly because I think it's important that anyone considering visiting or collaborating with the Monastic ...

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