Transcendent Medicine

I’m reading a lot of books about death and dying these days. It’s not as macabre as you might think. There’s a kind of glorious catharsis in it, considering how deadly the world itself feels right now: a way of diving into the wreck, to borrow from Adrienne Rich.

Here’s a quote from my current gorgeous read, Francis Weller’s The Wild Edge of Sorrow.

“It is a time of shedding and endings. The familiar world is left behind, and we exist at the edge of something without shape. It is a place of radical change. In other words, the identity we had known for our entire life has just been dissolved. Illness carries us into place of great uncertainty. Will we ever get better? Will we ever get back to where we were before we got sick?

“We can no longer lean on what we know for a feeling of stability. Things teeter and shake; we feel adrift on unfamiliar seas, and as in all true initiations, we fear that we will sink into the waters of death.”

Clearly this book and its wisdom is not just for people practicing dying and those sitting with them. It’s an anthem for anyone trying not to numb out in the face of The Horrors around us.

My daughter called me from college on Monday to tell me about the mass shooting at the Islamic center in San Diego, just a couple miles away from her. She is the exact age all the first-graders from Newtown would be if they had lived, and of course has been a cultural witness to countless massacres since then. But this one felt personal. “Mom, it happened so close to me. I can feel the energy from here. It’s devastating.”

We’re all getting closer to death. The world gets ever smaller, or our ears-to-hear all the catastrophes get bigger.

And, of course, every day we move inexorably closer to our own final exit from this human life.

Denial is a strategy. Dance faster, party harder, Live-Love-Laugh it off. But ignoring the fact of our mortality gives it more power over us, not less. And most saliently: when we can’t face the fact of our personal extinction/transition to the Mystery, we defer our best, most wise, playful and lighthearded work of really living.

I screenshotted this list from IG a month or so before retiring. I have done exactly none of these things. But it’s still a good list! I’ll get to it soonish.

In the meantime, God has given me this assignment, to think and pray and learn a lot more about death, and working with dying people (aka, everybody).

Last week, my colleague Dr. Rob Cole and I officially opened our ketamine clinic in the Bay Area, Transcendent Medicine. Here is Rob looking friendly and kind in our treatment room (by the way, he IS friendly and kind, as well as funny, quirky and wise), and a screenshot of our homepage:

I’m SOOOOO excited about our clinic. The whole unfolding of this project has had God’s muddy paws all over it.

We hope to see all kinds of people in our practice, but one of our primary lanes will be people engaging in “story completion,” which is to say: people who realize that they are only here for a little while, and they want to make the most of what is left of their time. To live more wholeheartedly and unflinchingly whether they are 25 or 55 or 85.

Some of these people will be cancer patients and survivors. Newly diagnosed and very disoriented and scared. Just sprung from treatment with their next scan months away and wondering what the hell to do with the rest of their lives, however long or short that turns out to be. Or staring down the last few months of life, feeling regret and grief and fear, wanting to make the most of their time, do repair work on relationships, or navigate the best course of treatment for quality of life.

Is it weird to say that I am SO excited to sit with every one of these folks who we will met? To hold their hands, invite them into the deepest part of themselves, to dance with Death, even befriend her, and emerge lighter, having completed their dress rehearsal?

Stanislav Grof, who invented holotropic breathwork, a non-drug alternative to accessing an expanded state of consciousness, talked about his own work with cancer patients thus:

“People working with [psychedelics or breathwork] found their fear of their own physiological demise diminished. They became open to the possibility of consciousness existing after clinical death, and tended to view the process of dying as an adventure in consciousness rather than the ultimate biological disaster.”

The night before my completely surprise asymptomatic cancer diagnosis, I had a spontaneous near death experience that was just such an adventure in consciousness. I wrote about it in How to Begin When Your World is Ending. Dr. Rob, a fellow longtime survivor of a really gnarly cancer and I both believe everyone deserves this gift, and that ketamine with therapeutic support can offer it.

If you know someone who could benefit from working with us (anyone with mild to moderate depression or anxiety, or feeling stuck or boxed in in their lives, as well as those facing a truly terrifying time), please send them our way. We plan to co-facilitate every medicine session–an MD and a spiritual care provider working together to support every part of you.

Nota: if the only thing you know about ketamine is that Elon Musk abuses it and Matthew Perry died as a result of unscrupulous prescribers who left him alone with it, I invite you to watch the beginning of this workshop I recently attended. It’s very clear about the ways ketamine can help folks with a wide variety of presenting issues (and also clear about harms, risks and contraindications).

Other News and Bits:

Among my many side hustles and pet projects, I’m on the editorial team for a new UCC Book of Worship! The last one was published in 1985, includes some rigid and outdated language, and is missing many new liturgies for a changing world. Anyone, lay or clergy, is invited to submit offerings to be considered for inclusion. Submission guidelines here. Scroll to the end of this Substack to see the Table of Contents–but we are not limited to this list. If you have something wonderful, submit it! [Also please don’t ask me personally if you should submit X or Y–just be brave and do it. I’m only one person on the editorial team and can’t answer for the whole group]

Y’all probly know I love everything by Rebecca Solnit but this new piece especially hit. I think it had something to do with how it connected all the dots of my current anxieties and rages, and with them drew a picture that was profoundly hopeful and galvanizing. I’ve been having trouble motivating to be an active activist lately, and this helped.

Two of my friends are leading very different retreats this summer! Ann Naffziger is a Christian spiritual director leading this silent retreat at San Damiano just over the Oakland Hills in late June. If you’re scared of silence, she makes it EASY. It’s a profoundly restorative practice.

And my friend Erin Carper, a wilderness first responder/wonderful wise wild woman, is leading this eco somatic nature retreat in Point Reyes in June.

Also! Thank you for the huge response to my July 20 daylong retreat on the land! There’s only one spot left (and overnight stay is at capacity). If you want to lmk of your interest in future retreats of all kinds, from writing residencies to nature/respite to expanded states of consciousness, please fill out this form so I can keep you in the loop!

Wishing you life in the midst of death and, because it actually helps, some rehearsals for death in the midst of your one (that we know of) wild and precious life.

Love,
Molly

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Draft Table of Contents for the new UCC Book of Worship (we have some writers for some of these already, but you should still submit if you have a good one, as we may include alternates. And the ToC is not limited to what’s listed below--get creative)

1. PREFACE

Use of This Book

Introduction

2. Worship & Its Leadership

W&S I (from CC)

W&S II (from E&R)

W&S III et al

Brief Order for W&S

Order for W 1, 2, 3

3. ESSAY: Sacraments & Leadership

Baptism (Infants/Children, Adults, Immersion)

Reaffirmation of Baptism with New Name

Confirmation/Member Reception

Covenantal Member w/o Baptism? (or “insert baptismal vows here” in member reception might give a nod to member variability)

Blessing for Member Farewell

4. Lectionaries, Church Season(s), and Leadership

Advent Order

Christmas Eve Order

Ash Wednesday Order

Lent Order

Holy Week Orders

Easter & Eastertide Order

Pentecost Order

Ordinary Time Order

5. Church & Its Leaders in Public Life (inc. Healing Role)

Order for Reconciliation (individual, congregational)

Order for Healing/Anointing (individual, congregational)

Order for Intercession (useful for community grief, protests)

Order for Celebration (e.g. church anniversary, birth, adoption, Moth/Fath’s Day)

Blessing of Home

Blessing of Committees

New Year’s Watch

Interfaith Service (or outline in resource section)

Affirmation of Ecu. Partnerships?

Prayer Vigils for specific occasions

Prayers before and during protests

6. Leadership through Life’s Seasons

Marriage

Vow Renewal

End of Marriage

Anointing of the Sick

Time of Dying

Funeral (incl optional language for difficult deaths)

Committal (incl interfaith options)

7. Authorized Ministry

Recognition of MID

Ordination (with “insert here” option for installation)

Authorization – all types

Installation (incl specialized)

Release of Covenant

Closing of a Church

Receiving a Church into UCC

Renewal of UCC Covenant? (e.g. conference, association)

Prayers for the Church Year

Prayers for Secular Holidays (Pride, MLK, Black History, Memorial, Veterans’ Day, etc.)

Statements and Creeds

Outlines for Faith Formation

Liturgy of the Hours

Retreat (church, youth)