The first Mystical Monday was my sister's last day on Earth: Monday, January 21, 2013. As she was exhaling her final breath at the stroke of midnight, a journey of unimaginable beauty, sadness and wonder was just beginning.
In the moment of her transition, surrounded by an otherworldly love, I knew I would leave my tenure-track career at a prestigious medical university, but I had no idea what would come next. As I walked off the edge of the abyss into a mysterious void, I discovered a wild, awe-inspiring, and magical world that I would now like to share with you.
During the past several years -- through trial, error, stupid optimism, and the great luck of finding so many wise companions -- I have discovered ways of being truly alive and awake in the world, even in the midst of pain and grief. I hope that my offerings will help you navigate your life transitions and find the joy of opening to the great unknown.
Read on and enjoy.
MAY 2023 - The Birth of Midnight Water
I can't believe my book is finally here! Well, almost. It's being printed as we speak. It could be in your very hands by June 24th (if you join me for the official launch party in Wilmington, Vermont) or shortly after June 27th (the official pub date, which would also be my sister's 40th birthday). If you want to get a signed copy, better do it now (pre-order from Bartleby's Books). Yes, you can find my book on Amazon. Yes, the audio version will be coming out later this year (recording starts today at Voice Over Vermont). But I would SO love for you to support local bookstores in the meantime. Bookshop.org is also a great Amazon alternative.
I call my book many things - a labyrinth, an odyssey, my third child. Living the story and then writing it almost killed me (seriously) but I wouldn't trade it for anything. I love it so much. And I hope you love it, too.
The best thing about Midnight Water is that it was created entirely by women! It's true! Inspired by a woman (my sister, Rebecca), written by a woman (me), cover designed by a woman (Eileen Hall), and published by a woman who runs her own small, sustainable press in Brattleboro, Vermont (Green Writers Press, Dede Cummings). Our local bookstore (where we're doing the launch on June 24th) is even women-run and woman-owned, and my publicist, Kourtney Jason, is also a young woman running her own company (Pacific and Court). Every copy of Midnight Water that is sold directly benefits these women. That makes me smile.
DEC 2020 - Midnight Water
Thanks to COVID, I moved to my heaven on earth (Bermuda) and am finally writing the book I've wanted to write since my sister died nearly eight years ago. Nothing like a version of the apocalypse to inspire me to finally live my dream and tell my story. This amazingly destructive and revelatory pandemic has taught me two things: I still don't want to die, and this book is the only thing left that the world can take from me. I realized that if I died from this stupid, miserable, brilliant fucking virus, not writing this book would be my one regret. And if I've learned anything from the people who are experts in death, you really don't want to show up with regrets. It just ruins the mood.
So, here I am in paradise, typing away. 49,000 words in 7 weeks. I'm halfway through my little death-rebirth bardo, and I love it. I've survived nearly all the hard parts -- the death and loss and betrayal and heartache and pain -- and now all that remains is the glorious redemptive arc. I am writing this epic love story for my sister and my father, who both died of cancer. But I'm also writing it for all the women out there who have had their lives stolen from them through no fault of their own. I want this story to inspire you to steal it back.
MARCH 2020 - Renunciation & Living at Home
Along the spiritual path, giving up your ordinary identity and life is called renunciation. It is seen as a moment of great liberation and joy for monks and nuns. But it can be terrifying for us ordinary folk. Now, thanks to the novel coronavirus, we're all getting a crash course in forced relinquishment. In an effort to slow the spread of COVID-19, literally billions of people around the world have been ordered to give up their jobs, their habits, their entertainment, their apparent "freedoms", and have been told to simply stay at home.
SEPT 2019 - Psychedelic Sanctuary
My dad came of age during the birth of psychedelics into American consciousness. He was really into the Grateful Dead and The Gnostic Gospels. In true Dharma Bums fashion, he took a gap year during college to hitch-hike across the country. Then he became a kick-ass lawyer. In the wake of his death two weeks ago, I am drawing upon the mystical teachings that life and death have offered me over the past decade. Above all, I find it amusing that the practices that align with my deepest values exist at the interface of psychedelics and the law.
JULY 2019 - Psychedelic Dissidence
What is the antidote to the mainstreaming of psychedelic experience? How can we celebrate the essential wildness and wackiness of psychedelics while corporations are spending millions of dollars to convince everyone that these drugs are actually tame and predictable? How can we honor our personal religions while also making room for folks who wanna get high and have fun? I'm excited to explore creative ways for individuals and communities to peacefully but firmly demonstrate the importance of personal autonomy when it comes to ancient, sacred, and weird practices.
APRIL 2019 - Psychedelic Sangha
This year, the anniversary of both the Good Friday experiment (when theology students ingested psilocybin in church for the sake of science) and Bicycle Day (when chemist Dr. Albert Hofmann became the first human to intentionally ingest LSD) fell on the same day, April 19th. That day also took on deep personal significance for me this year, as I was lucky enough to be in Bermuda with my extended family celebrating the Good Friday Kite Festival.
FEB 2019 - Mama Mushroom
February is the month of romantic love, but I've been reflecting on a different kind of love. A love that has been trying to teach me how to bear unbearable pain. An unrelenting love that demanded I hold my seat as my dying sister screamed for pain relief; that tethered my soul to Earth as I tried to escape the pain of my son's birth; that squeezed my body through the gauntlet of postpartum pain and depression; that braces me as I sit upright all night holding sick, sleepless children. This is the territory every mom and caregiver knows well.
DEC 2018 - Visions of the Future
One year ago on the winter solstice, I led my final integration group as director of the Psychedelic Education and Continuing Care Program in New York. While I typically guide participants through a reflective journey into their past experiences, on this night I invited them to envision the reality they wished to inhabit six months into the future, on the summer solstice. I was pleasantly surprised to see a vision of myself giving birth to my son, a ray of light reaching through the darkness to greet me.
OCT 2018 - Mushrooms & Ancestors
Five years ago, I journeyed to a remote part of the Himalayas near the Tibet border to grieve my sister's death and honor the parts of me that needed to be alive in new ways. When I left for the trip, I quit my job and prepared as if I would not return. In surrendering and letting go in such a profound way, I touched upon a kind of joy and freedom that I believed was indestructible.
I could not have known that I had traveled all the way across the world to come face to face with the pain of death yet again. On October 17, 2013, a young Nepali man named Tsering Paljor Lama gave up his life to save a woman in our group who had fallen into the raging Budhi Gandaki River. I was the only witness to the fall. I yelled for help and did what I could from the bank, but I chose not to risk my own life to help. When Tsering arrived on the scene, he never hesitated, but immediately dove in. He managed to keep the woman afloat and push her close enough to the bank to be pulled ashore by another young man in our group. But Tsering was pulled back into the whirlpool and had no more strength to save himself. As he slipped beneath the surface one last time, a rainbow appeared around the sun. Up ahead on the trail, not knowing the tragedy that had just unfolded, the Tibetan herbal doctor on our trip exclaimed, "Oh yes, this is what happens when a great saint dies."
APRIL 2018 - Dandelion Bloom
Spring is taking its time on the farm this year, and the dandelions are only just starting to come up. Their favorite birth place is right along the edge of things, where it seems impossible for anything to survive. That burst of brilliant yellow right between the tough, grey pavement and the peeling, red barn defies our cynical expectations. "Life is HERE!" they say. Yes, right here, where you least expect it. I've spent the past several months supporting many women in navigating the labyrinthine path of death and rebirth through their relationship with psychedelics. Each of these women is a dandelion growing at the edge of the pavement: beautiful, brilliant, shocking, audacious. And each woman that blooms gives birth to a million seeds, which will thrive wherever they land despite the larger culture's attempts to treat them as weeds and eradicate them.