Table of Contents
DISCLAIMER
The information provided in this guide is intended for general informational and educational purposes only, and should not be construed as a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always consult a qualified healthcare professional before making any changes to your health regimen or treatment plan.
Podcast Portal: "Sacred Journey as an Integrative Healing Ritual"
Before we begin, we are pleased to present this engaging and informative podcast, which can help guide your journey.
Can pilgrimage, conceived as either a long-distance walk or a contemplative experience of journeying through the arts, help people to feel better? For those unable to make a physical pilgrimage, the practice of intentional, guided visualization has been shown to provide considerable mental, physical, and spiritual benefits. This three-part podcast series invites conversation among medical professionals, artists, and leading scholars in religion and theology to discuss the possibilities of pilgrimage.
Here are the main guiding questions we used in this podcast:
- What are some ways that you have incorporated sacred journeys in your medical/religious/art practices? I am considering not only long-distance walking to a specific site, but also practices like guided meditation. Is there a story you can share about a time when this had a positive outcome?
- In the film Phil’s Camino, which is the story of a man who mapped a pilgrimage route onto his backyard after a diagnosis of stage IV cancer, Phil makes a distinction between curing and healing. He says that curing is when the doctor makes the disease disappear, but that healing is rather a reconciliation with the ‘bigger picture’. Do you have any thoughts to share on this, based on your experience?
- Can contemplating art or images, or listening to music, or singing/chanting, enhance the experience of walking? Can deep listening, experiencing an artwork, or watching a film engender an experience of travel? Is it possible to engage the arts in an embodied way?
- Taking a journey with others can be a powerful way to connect. Does human connection help facilitate the healing process? Returning to Phil, another practice he had was to keep a journal where he would write down how many miles he walked in a single day in his backyard, along with the names of those walking with him. Eventually, on days when he was walking by himself, he would write ‘NOT ALONE.’ These were the times when he felt the closest to the Divine and also with folks he was remembering in prayer, some of them also on cancer journeys or dealing with other struggles – and others who had departed this world. In my work, I have referred to this feeling of connection across time and space as ‘extra-temporal communitas.’ Do you think that walking an ancient path, even ‘alone’ can be a way to connect? Can this, too, facilitate healing?
- Can contemplative walking help bridge the mind-body connection? What are some ways that the arts might help?
- Can you see some of the practices we’ve been discussing today being integrated into care settings? How so? What are some things that are already being done, and what can we do better?
Below are resources provided by and organized according to the podcast participants who contributed them.
Mind-Body Connection
NOTE: These are from Chloe Atreya, MD
- Cultivating Spirit & Resilience
- Meditations
- Meditations for Those with Limited Mobility
Resources for visualizing the path
NOTE: These resources are from Kathryn Barush, PhD
- Videos
- Printable Finger Labyrinths
- Booklet
- Drawing Meditation
- Music
Community
NOTE: These resources are from Tobi Fishel, PhD
- Survivorship Collective
- School for the Great Turning
Music, Video, and More
NOTE: These resources are from Mikey Kirkpatrick
- Music
- Video
- Poetry
- Healing
Esoteric Tools
NOTE: This resource is from Amy Slonaker, PhD
Introduction
This pilgrimage is an invitation to exploration and discovery; the finding, locating, and identifying a pathway to healing within oneself while living with an illness—cancer—that often is disruptive to body, mind, and spirit. Please note that there are many links to resources embedded within the guide. The pilgrim is welcome to follow as many links as they desire, or to take a ‘less is more’ approach. The resources are available if you need them or wish to explore a particular topic in more depth.
This pilgrimage is meant to nurture being. We offer a diverse menu of art, music, prayer, meditation, guided imagery, body movement and exercise, rituals, and more. Our intention is to speak to the whole “you” for the access point of your life force and spirit. Accessing these resources regularly, even for brief periods, can gradually cultivate a sense of spaciousness and freedom within, if only for moments. From this frame of reference, it becomes possible—sometimes in fits and starts—to relate to body/mind/spirit with growing confidence, understanding, and kindness.
Spirit…
Cancer
“Cancer” is a medical term used to codify a specific kind of disease process caused by dysregulated cell growth within the body of living beings. It is a label, to which are attached many numbers, images, and theories, as well as incursions into the body by needle, beam, surgery, or chemical therapy. While this may seem a strange way to discuss cancer, I want to make it very clear the abstract nature within which the biomedical oncology field operates. It is distinct from the lived experience of “cancer”. Not only is the diagnosis of cancer frequently disorienting (the future dissolves “in a moment like salt in a weakened broth”), but so too is the impact on the person’s ability to use their body to navigate the world.
While conventional medical science has provided astounding accomplishments in treating cancer, there may exist a wide gap between the subjective experience of the person living with cancer and the medical context within which the disease is treated. This is stated simply as saying the experience of the person living with cancer is more objective to the person than is the world of cancer research and treatment. This is because the personal experience of living with cancer is incontrovertible. It cannot be denied, as it is an experienced fact. It is the closest connection a living being, the subject of experience, has to palpable reality.
The emerging field of integrative oncology aims to bridge the gap between conventional medical science and the deeply personal experience of living with cancer. By recognizing that the person living with cancer is the very center of healing—and sometimes cure—is experienced, integrative oncology seeks to create a context where treatment becomes a field for connection and community. Like the incontrovertible nature of the personal experience of living with cancer, the lived experiences of those dedicated to healing are likewise incontrovertible. A kind of resonance evolves in this relationship. It is as unique to the person living with cancer as to those in the community of healers. Integrative oncology has the potential to harvest this resonance because it includes, alongside conventional cancer treatments, practices from a variety of healing traditions, including those of Indigenous cultures, where such resonance is a core feature of healing itself. Such cultures may also have different philosophies of healing, including viewing the body and disease in ways that differ from conventional medical science, thereby broadening the field within which healing is cultivated.
In the podcasts featured in this guide, various perspectives emerged, including voices from the Indigenous Ecuadorian, Zen Buddhist, and Christian-mystic communities. Some participants find a connection between these spiritual systems and Western medical training. While this guide is, of course, influenced by the traditions we have encountered or have been immersed in through our own lives, cultures, and praxis, there is a vast abundance of Indigenous wisdom to explore that can complement, and sometimes even transcend, established practices in Western medicine.
As such, integrative oncology emphasizes mind-body practices, the use of natural products, and lifestyle modifications, recognizing that these practices both honor and support the innate capacity of human beings to heal. This capacity is amplified through the resonance inherent in the relationship between the person living with cancer and the healer.
The Pilgrimage
The path across this pilgrimage is found in the lived experience of mind/body/spirit, the palpable human experience of living with cancer. I scouted this pilgrimage through my own healing experiences as well as through traveling together with many people living with cancer. From my own experiences, I learned about facing mortality and the terror that that engendered. From my patients, I learned that the power of the human spirit has the capacity to rise above fear and walk into a world where healing becomes a priority, whether a cure is possible or not. I learned about the profound uniqueness of each person in finding their path through pilgrimage towards healing. I learned how the medical treatment of cancer is indispensable and necessary, but not sufficient to navigate the rigors of functional decline, emotional dysregulation, and spiritual despair. And, most importantly, I learned something about grace.
From Spirit to Molecule
In my cancer rehabilitation medicine practice, the initial clinical focus was on the body and its molecules. My goal was to leverage the abundance and capacity of healthy cells, mediated through the patient’s body and agency, to develop a path towards well-being and wholeness while living with cancer, ultimately culminating in spiritual awakening: an awareness of the preciousness of human life and a wish to reach out to the world, independent of the severity or extent of the cancer.
This approach, as demonstrated by Phil Volker, helped inspire him on a spiritual pilgrimage, first in his imagination, then in his backyard, and then in Spain, ultimately reaching the hearts and minds of hundreds of people touched by cancer. He turned the moniker “from molecule to spirit” on its head: molecule became spirit and spirit molecule.
So, let’s look at what pilgrimage might mean from the perspective of “spirit to molecule”. What I mean by this is that the starting place here is pilgrimage itself, grounded in an understanding of its spiritual significance. This journey, as mentioned, is inseparably inseparable from the body – its trillions of healthy cells and co-existent properties of mind, heart, and spirit.
Whether one starts from the context of molecules (i.e., medical care) or from a religious or spiritual context (i.e., pilgrimage) is essentially irrelevant, because the ultimate aim is to come to a deeper understanding of and access to spirit and transcendent sacred space, regardless of the vehicle through which such profound potential is realized.
Mind-Body-Spirit, not Mind, Body, and Spirit
This pilgrimage acknowledges a priori the inseparable unity of mind, body, and spirit. We understand that the idea that they are separate is a fabrication —a conceptual construct imposed over the unified experience of being human. These constructs, created by philosophers and scientists, are valuable within limits. For the medical treatment of cancer, they are indispensable.
For this pilgrimage, we ask that you set aside the notion that your experience can be divided into separate categories. By this turn, you enact real-time embodiment by prioritizing real-time, lived experience in daily activity. You take steps toward at least brief periods of the unified mind-body-spirit that you are in each moment.
Nurturing such a mind-body-spirit perspective helps create a path to experiencing the innermost reaches of the life force within you, that which animates being and, by extension, animates the trillions of healthy cells through which we breathe and are embodied. This is the inner pilgrimage. It radiates out into the world of activity and directly into the outer pilgrimage.
Thirty Trillion Healthy Cells
Your body has thirty thousand billion healthy cells (30 trillion). Healthy cells outnumber cancer cells by orders of magnitude. This is true whether a person is living with an early or advanced stage of cancer. Recognizing this fact is often a surprising revelation to people living with cancer, despite its truth. Your healthy cells are animated by your life force; they help treatments work and recovery happen. The precious energy they donate fuels repair for fractures in your daily life patterns. Learning to act on this reality by supporting—befriending—your healthy cells is one of the first steps on the inner pilgrimage. It is a secret path because it is only directly known to you. You can describe it to others, but it is you alone who receives the grace of health within. There’s nothing you need to do to make the life force that animates your healthy cells happen; there are, however, generous and empathetic ways in which you can support it.
One way to nurture your healthy cells on your pilgrimage is to care for them with kindness, just as you would for seedlings in your garden or for young children whom you love and need to support. You nurture them without question. In turn, their precious energy becomes the vehicle of healing, well-being, and continued steps on your pilgrimage.
Caring for your healthy cells means attending to their physical needs, such as getting good sleep, eating a balanced diet, and engaging in regular physical activity, as well as addressing their emotional and spiritual needs through spiritual exercises. This is an important point. We are banking towards aliveness, the experiencing that erases, or at least blurs, the conceptual distinctions that may lead us to believe that the body, mind, and spirit are separate entities. Something that lifts and engages the spirit also lifts the whole body, mind, and spirit. The pairing of responses to physical needs with spiritual and emotional needs is a synergetic, well-established path towards alchemy of the whole. More on this later.
Healthy cells communicate their distress through “signs” and “symptoms”. A “sign” is a signal from healthy cells that can be observed by others, for example, a rash or a cough. A “symptom” is a communication from healthy cells that can only be recognized by the person experiencing it, like a backache or fatigue. While there are differences, each represents communications from your healthy cells about their physical needs. They are directly reaching out to you in their own language for support.
If you are interested in exploring resources on ways to respond to communications from your healthy cells through rehabilitation practices, you can proceed to sample them here; however, we encourage you to read through the rest of this webpage first. Consider this page a field guide meant to orient you, as a pilgrim on pilgrimage, to the experiential pathway of healing from within. Grounding yourself, as much as possible, in this perspective now is crucial for finding the path from the innermost reaches of your being to outer healing. This perspective is, in fact, the “NorthStar” guiding your journey.
Undeniable Difficulties
I struggle to express this. I am all too aware of the devastating impact that a cancer diagnosis can have on a person. It can undermine everything that was previously taken for granted—identity, physical ability, a sense of control and life direction, relationship to self and others, and more.
It’s clear to me that journeying with cancer can be profoundly difficult. Treatment side effects and the cancer can have a profound impact on normal physiology and function. Pain, despair, weight loss, weakness, loss of control, mortality awareness, and many other experiences are common for people living with cancer. This pilgrimage encourages a graceful turning towards these challenges rather than avoiding them. Turning towards means facing treatment-related side effects in partnership with medical professionals or other healers to mitigate physical pain and suffering.
It is critically important to address any medical issues that may interfere with function with the help of healers, so that you can fruitfully engage in this pilgrimage, whatever form it takes for you, whether, for example, visualization, active imagination, a finger labyrinth, or walking El Camino de Santiago. Sometimes traditional medical providers, sometimes integrative healers, can help alleviate symptoms (e.g., pain, fatigue, weight loss, etc.) that interfere with activity and, as well, ensure that they are not a sign of cancer progression. Some cancer centers have adequate resources to comprehensively manage such symptoms; others do not. Sometimes, these effects can be challenging to manage, even with the best care. And, some people are better able to tolerate such challenges than others.
This pilgrimage also encourages turning inwards. Turning inwards means accessing, nurturing, and befriending the striking beauty of spirit within each of us. Resources within this pilgrimage are meant to support you in cultivating a strong relationship with your inner life; in other words, an active “befriending”. More on this later, too.
We will describe the basic components that make a cancer rehabilitation program fruitful. These include getting adequate sleep and nutrition, conserving energy, managing pain, avoiding inactivity, and engaging in regular physical activity and exercise. These physical components are indispensable and not to be overlooked. They are essential to cultivating physical resilience. Like a sturdy boat, they help you cross the treacherous waters of cancer, treatment, and recovery. After all, medical treatment of the cancer is directed towards the physicality of the body. Even in small measure, these health-related activities serve as counterforces and direct antidotes that help mitigate the impact of treatment on the body, and by association, on the mind and spirit. And, by this association, contribute to spiritual learning and healing. These activities are also important for befriending and cultivating.
For this pilgrimage, we ask that you set aside the notion that your experience can be divided into separate categories. By this turn, you enact real-time embodiment by prioritizing real-time, lived experience in daily activity. You take steps toward at least brief periods of the unified mind-body-spirit that you are in each moment.
Nurturing such a mind-body-spirit perspective helps create a path to experiencing the innermost reaches of the life force within you, that which animates being and, by extension, animates the trillions of healthy cells through which we breathe and are embodied. This is the inner pilgrimage. It radiates out into the world of activity and directly into the outer pilgrimage.
Bodily Experience
A kind of “strangeness”, or unfamiliarity, frequently descends into the body while living with cancer. Often taken for granted, everyday activities — such as getting a glass of water or taking a walk —may become surprisingly challenging. The apparent instantaneity between thought (“I want to take a walk”) and the action (actually taking a walk) disappears, and, instead, an uncomfortable gap between thought and action arises. Said differently, the body’s remarkable capacity to seamlessly follow thought with action is disrupted. The body, as a “silent vehicle” through which activity is enacted, disappears; it is no longer fully integrated into moment-to-moment experience. This can be disorienting and disconcerting. For some, the body, now strangely dysfunctional, appears as “other”. Another way to say this is that the taken-for-granted body “dys-appears.”
Importantly, in this state of disorientation, because people can’t physically do what they once could, such as go for a run, they may not explore the boundaries of what they can do. Researchers at the UCSF Osher Center for Integrative Health have documented this phenomenon in their experiential groups (5). This pilgrimage is intended as a remedy for the decline in physical activity engagement. In addition to creatively adapting to illness by exploring physical boundaries, this pilgrimage also explores spiritual boundaries, offering the potential for transformation through direct experience.
For those living with a history of trauma, the altered bodily experience can stimulate a dissociative response. Dissociation is a state of disconnection from moment-to-moment experience, including, for some, disconnection from a sense of identity, as a way to cope with overwhelming emotional and psychological pain. If you have a history of trauma and you find it interfering with your pilgrimage, please seek emotional and psychological support. This guide is not meant to provide the personal support needed in such circumstances.
Metabolic Stewardship
Learning to explore the liminal space created by the body’s “dys-appearance”, this “betwixt and between”, is another early pilgrimage step. This step leads you into an internal labyrinth that, when followed, guides you through your body’s changing physiology to the center point of the inner labyrinth—your spirit—and back out again. The experience of repeatedly traveling in and out allows you to explore the inner landscape of your physiology, the path your healthy cells are following. You learn to listen to the moment-by-moment messages your healthy cells offer and, ultimately, to respond flexibly and skillfully in ways that support the work your healthy cells do, both through cancer rehabilitation practices and spiritual exercises. You enter into an important new role: that of a compassionate witness to the journey your healthy cells are on. Not only this, but you are positively impacting trillions of additional organisms that share your body with you, your microbiome, which are critical to healthy metabolic activity, immune function, and overall well-being.
By listening and acting, you create a space of internal refuge, or a safe harbor, where your healthy cells and microbiome can thrive in the vital process of maintaining your infrastructure—the physiology and metabolic capacity of your mind and body. This is “metabolic stewardship”. It is the intended direction in which this pilgrimage will take you. You learn to more fully inhabit the direction and flow of your life energy and, paradoxically, through letting go and witnessing, you become an active participant in your treatment and recovery.
Contemplating a sacred work of art, such as a Buddhist mandala, or tracing a finger labyrinth can, for some, help in the practice of establishing a space of internal refuge —a safe harbor. Any of these simple practices is a step on the pilgrim’s path. Such contemplations, in addition to bringing a sense of safety, also help create a sense of guidance on your path of gently, tenderly befriending your healthy cells. It’s like having a trustworthy companion who knows the route well and who guides you on your journey.
The specific practice doesn’t matter. What matters is the listening and the receiving. You learn to be the interpreter of messages from your healthy cells, thereby opening yourself to the wisdom they unconditionally offer to you, moment by moment. That said, it is essential to select contemplations that resonate with you and to repeat them regularly. Likewise, it is essential to select cancer rehabilitation practices that you find practical and manageable, and to repeat them regularly. These are the two wings of the healing offered by this pilgrimage. Practiced in harmony, they help create more familiar pathways into your secret places of refuge and healing. This is a gentle way to travel through and become increasingly comfortable in a body that, at least for the moment, is experienced differently while living with cancer.
The wisdom of many faith traditions has shown us that engaging the arts can foster a truly embodied experience of travel, without necessarily requiring physical movement. Controlled studies using specialized brain imaging techniques have helped scientists understand what mystics have known for thousands of years: that is, that such practices can have salutary cognitive effects, including relief from pain, feelings of joy, and a sense of refuge.
For example, contemporary visual artist Fariba Abedin uses geometric art created in vibrant and harmonious colors to convey a message of love. She writes of her piece ‘Geometry #206’, painted during the Covid-19 lockdown, ‘it has balanced visual elements and bright harmonious colors to uplift the energy in the viewer, serving as a spiritual journey.’ Mikey Kirkpatrick, who is one of our podcast guests, performed two hundred improvised flute radio broadcasts as a ‘daily morning sonic shelter’ and pilgrimage-in-place, which he describes as a musical ride. You can listen here.
You can learn about the history of contemplative pilgrimage practices through art, Drawing the Soul Toward Truth (Lectures on Sacred Geometry) here. Labyrinth: A Pilgrimage in Place is a 6-minute video featuring chanting about a pilgrimage in place during the COVID-19 pandemic, available here.
Enjoy also this article on Mandalas.
Your Pilgrimage Mandala
While you are traveling your inner path, your outward path is represented by a circular mandala with stations located around its perimeter. Each station offers a ritualized enactment of well-established self-care health practices. The stations serve as portals to sacred inner space by inclining the pilgrim towards practices within which healthy cells can thrive. The portals also provide direct access to the unique nuances of your 24-hour circadian rhythm each day. Each of us has to discover when and how to enter each portal’s practices because each of our biorhythms are unique.
The object of each station is to focus the pilgrim’s attention, not only on specific evidence-based self-care practices, such as exercise, nutrition, and adequate sleep, but equally important on spiritual practices that ease the mind, open the heart, and therefore predispose mind-body-spirit to transformative experiencing and emotional resilience. Examples include connecting to other human beings, animals, and nature, as well as cultivating attitudes of mindfulness, gratitude, trust, and beginner’s mind. The mandala and its stations guide the pilgrim along their secret path. It is an upward spiral that paradoxically carries you ever more deeply into the life of your healthy cells and the spirit that animates them.
Below is a printable pilgrimage mandala. You can use as many or as few of the 12 stations as fit your unique biorhythm. If you like, you can add additional stations. The first station might be “wakeup” and the last “bedtime”. You might then add “breakfast”, “lunch”, and “dinner”. Between meals, you can incorporate spiritual exercises and rehabilitation practices that suit your preferences and needs. Many such exercise and practice suggestions are offered later in this page. As your pilgrimage progresses, you may find that your needs change, and therefore you will want to create a new mandala.
Through daily ritualized enactment of these self-care practices, you come to know the secret strength of your secret path. Like flowers cultivated to robustly incline towards the sun, your secret strength can be cultivated to robustly incline you towards spiritual transformation. Gradually, sometimes haltingly, your spiritual home comes into view. Freedom from rumination, discursive thought, and worry abate and become known to you, even if only momentarily. This is the womb through which stable transformation is born. It is here that metabolic stewardship arises, unbidden, and serves to inspire and motivate towards deeper learning and experiencing enriched capacity to engage in daily life – what it’s really all about. Rather than additive, this is the multiplicative and synergistic value of your pilgrimage. And this is the transformation we are pointing towards.
This is not mere fantasy. For example, accruing evidence suggests that practices, such as mindfulness, are powerful antidotes to physical and emotional stress. We know that such practices, even at the beginning levels, unwind and relax the body and its systems. The associated biochemical changes find the full measure of experiential power through practices such as meditation and visualization. But beyond growing scientific data, are the testimonials provided in millennia of historical documents from spiritual and mystical traditions by adepts from both the East and West as well as contemporary testimonials from those practicing in virtually every recognized spiritual and religious tradition. At advanced levels, full “awakening” becomes possible.
Stations as Place
Identifying a specific location in your living space for spiritual practices can help deepen your experience of the messages carried by your practices. You come to understand this location as a station on your mandala, a place of healing. Adding a candle, incense, images, or objects that hold meaning for you further creates an atmosphere where ritual and meaning can flourish. You can also prepare your body by bathing or dressing in clothing you set aside as sacred. Over time, simply entering your sacred space can stimulate a sense of peace and relaxation, setting the stage for whatever spiritual practice you engage.
Likewise, creating an exercise preparation station in your living space can be supportive. For example, if walking is part of your morning ritual, you might place your favorite walking shoes, hat, and jacket, as well as any other things (e.g., walking poles) by the door. You might find that, over time, just walking by the station brings a sense of aliveness. Experiment with donning the sacred garment of a pilgrim as you prepare to enter your ritual space.
Spiritual and Rehabilitation Practices Together
You can also learn to carry your practices with you as you engage in movement, whether exercise, simple daily activities, or bodily gestures when communicating with others. For example, when walking or washing dishes, repeating a mantra or a phrase from a prayer brings embodiment of the spiritual into the physical. The words or sounds can be repeated rhythmically with cycles of the in and out breath; or, they can as well become the rhythm of the movement itself, or infused into bodily gestures. Examples might include repeating “the Lord is my shepherd” or “may my life unfold with ease” or a mantra like “om mani padme hum” silently or aloud, or even imagining that your gestures are imbued with the spirit of the phrase. Infusing spiritual practices into the body in physical exercise as well as in other daily activities (e.g., preparing food, eating, and preparing for sleep) synergistically expands rehabilitation from the physical alone to all levels of mind-body-spirit, thus elevating them to deeply transformative acts, rendering the present moment crisp, clear, and absorbing.
Partner
It is important that the pilgrim has a partner to walk with on their journey. They could be a friend, spouse, or relative. For some, it is a divine figure; for others, it may be a pet, a tree, a rock, or the ocean. Sometimes a person may have more than one partner, whether human, animal, or nature. In my medical practice, I served as a partner, often alongside others, to my patients. Having a restorative place to visit, a pet to hold, or people to share with are invaluable resources and important co-regulators during challenging times. Any or all of these partners can offer a sense of empathy and understanding of the challenges and difficulties of living with cancer. Support groups are another valuable source of partnership.
What is the role of partners? Partners are those with whom you can share what you are learning and experiencing on your inner path, as well as your experiences of navigating the medical world. Partners can be witnesses as you nurture your health. This simple act—witnessing—can be a powerful source of safety, motivation, and energy. Remember, though, that a human partner witnessing a loved one living with cancer can be painful. You can return their nurturing by encouraging your loved ones to seek ways to help navigate the distress they are likely experiencing. Some cancer centers have support groups for partners—sometimes called caregiver support groups. The circle of healing is completed when healing is mutual.
The following sections offer simple spiritual exercises to help bring life to the concepts offered above. They are also meant to serve as an introduction to additional resources offered below. In addition to the spiritual exercises, we offer established practices from cancer rehabilitation medicine. These rehabilitation practices synergize with spiritual exercises to support well-being and internal refuge. You can sample them here.
Befriending Your Healthy Cells: An Introduction to Spiritual Exercises
Reflect on the life force of your healthy cells. They are constantly in motion, flowing, metabolizing, exchanging information, and producing molecules to maintain, build, and repair the physicality of the body. They come together in a mysteriously magical way to produce the coordinated movements of thought, feeling, and action. Healthy cells are the ground of embodiment, the foundation through and across which you and your spirit spread in tandem. Pausing, stepping out of time for a moment, is a call to spirit. It is as natural for spirit to flower, even in turbulent times, as it is for tulips to bloom. It is not much of a stretch to say that you are the flower that blooms.
Exercise: Imagine a field of tulips. Each blossom starts as a bulb. When conditions are right—water, weather, sunshine, soil, fertilizer, etc.—nothing in the universe can stop the bulb from transforming itself into a delicate, beautiful flower. Pause for a moment to gaze at the image of the tulip field. Sense what is transmitted to you through gazing at the image.
What do you notice? Can you describe your inner response to the image? Your response may be positive, negative, or neutral. For the purposes of this exercise, it doesn’t matter. What really matters is that you paused, turned your attention to the image, and “listened” for a response stirring within you. If you learn to “listen”, you may find that responses from within to other circumstances are available to you. Sometimes they are subtle, sometimes not-so-subtle.
Exercise: Reflect on the living process of your healthy cells. Closing your eyes and taking a few deep breaths can be helpful. Now, turn your attention to your body. Do you notice any sensations? Can you imagine that you are “listening” to what you sense? Can you envision your healthy cells speaking to you as if they were a companion on your journey?
Whatever you sense or “hear” is okay. Sometimes the stirring is a message of distress, sometimes of vitality, and sometimes of calm. And, sometimes, you hear nothing. Developing sensitive awareness to the “voice” of your healthy cells is an important step in metabolic stewardship. It is by listening and receiving that you can learn how to befriend and care for your healthy cells. You become witness to their journey.
With this exercise, you set foot on the inner pilgrimage. It originates in the stirring of the spirit within. Spirit travels in a throughline from cells to physiology and to anatomy, expressing itself in physical movement, the outer pilgrimage. By this, you attune to the physiologic journey your healthy cells are on.
Spirit as Animating Force
What we access as witness to the voices of our healthy cells is the life within, our spirit. Spirit, as life within, moves the body through our unique experience of space and time. Spirit passes through the body’s components to animate physical movement. This is the body’s “breath” carrying it on its journey through cycles of movement, much like qi in Traditional Chinese Medicine/qigong, or prana in Ayurveda/yoga. Each step is an extension of the leg followed by flexion; so too is every other bodily movement. Likewise, breath is a cycle, here of expansion and contraction.
The following practices are spiritual exercises, a kind of mind training. They are meant to support you on your journey as “witness-participant”. Through such training, we develop the capacity to be more fully attuned to our experiencing. We learn to access a deeper sensitivity to what arises as we practice.
Practice: Take a moment to drop into your body by turning attention to its most immediate contact with the environment. This could be, for example, your body’s contact with the surface you’re sitting on, such as your back resting against a cushion or the floor supporting your body. Turn your attention to the bodily sensations stimulated by that contact. Rest for a moment there.
Notice that attending to these sensations focuses your awareness on the immediate experience of contact with your surroundings. Note that there’s nothing you need to do actively to experience contact. Take a moment to absorb this experience.
Practice: Now, turn your attention to the expansion and contraction of the rib cage and belly as the breath moves in and out through you. Rest for a moment in the breath. Notice if you absorb into the bodily sensations rather than thinking about the breath. If thinking is there, that’s okay. The mind is just doing what it naturally does. Let it be known that you hear it, then gently turn your attention back to the sensations of breathing.
Notice that attending to sensations of breathing focuses your attention on the immediate experience of your body in contrast to experiencing its surroundings. Take a moment to fully absorb this experience. Note once again that there’s nothing you need to do to actively experience breathing.
Practice: Now, slowly open and close your hand. Allow your attention to sink into the actual bodily sensations of flexing and extending your fingers. Rest for a moment while you witness sensations of movement.
Notice that attending to sensations of your fingers moving focuses your attention on the real-time motion of your fingers. Take a few more moments to absorb these sensations. Note once again that there’s nothing you need to do to actively experience motion.
In these explorations, we are learning that it is possible to witness and experience from different perspectives. In the above practices, we explored three perspectives: touch, breath, and movement. With practice, many other perspectives may emerge. The capacity of witnessing is the mystery of awareness, that which perceives experience while remaining independent of any particular experience. Awareness gives us direct access to our experience, regardless of where it begins or ends. And, witnessing and befriending are profound acts of kindness. Kindness is a direct line to compassion and self-care, profound allies when embarking on your pilgrimage while living with cancer. Through witnessing and befriending, you harvest the wisdom of your healthy cells expressed as understanding and courage. You know who you are and where you stand.
The wisdom of your healthy cells is also expressed as movement. Movement is the organic and natural expression of the life force that runs through each cell, flowing from the depths of silent biology to the external motions of the body. Like awareness, the life force that animates your healthy cells, even as they face the many obstacles of living with cancer, is beyond a cursory scientific understanding.
Opening Awareness to Love
No one has ever been able to accurately identify or name the mysterious multidimensional phenomenon of awareness. It is, nonetheless, absolutely incontrovertible, because it is a most immediate and intimate personal experience, reliable and always available. The force of awareness allows us to exist, fully embodied, within and in connection with ourselves and the community of living beings inhabiting our planet.
Practice: Reflect on the fact that your healthy cells are donating precious energy to help treatment and recovery proceed. Imagine that their donation of energy is a direct expression of love for you. Sense into the profound nature of this primal love. It is within you. It is the stirring of your life force, your spirit.
For some, this visualization stimulates the wish to return this gift by caring though kindness to those cells, just as if they are seedlings in your garden, young children, or a beloved pet that needs your care and support. Like tulips, when conditions are right, nothing can stop your healthy cells from amplifying and expressing their life forward energy. This is true whether or not this visualization causes any inner stirring.
Practice: Take a few deep breaths, focusing on the actual sensations of the breath in the body. Stay with the breath as long as you wish. Now, consider the fact that your healthy cells continue to function, despite the obstacles they face while living with cancer and recovery. Reflect that this is an irrepressible function, their raison d’être. Pause for a moment. How does this thought land with you?
Just as a baseball pitcher’s windup transmits momentum from body to baseball, physical exercise propels healthy cells forward and amplifies their capacity to thrive. Research shows that exercise is one of the most important activities a person living with or recovering from cancer. It is a powerful antidote to many side effects of treatment and, in fact, is the most powerful antidote to cancer-related fatigue, the most common side effect. Many observational studies have demonstrated a strong association between exercise reduced risk of recurrence and reduced risk of death, not only from cancer, but from all causes of mortality.
Even more stunning is a recent study proving that, for colorectal cancer, exercise following surgery and chemotherapy likewise not only reduces the risk of the cancer coming back and of a second cancer, but also death from any cause including colorectal cancer (37% less compared to the group that were not given an exercise program). Exercise was found to be similar to that of many current standard drug treatments. Exercise has the amazing potential to arrest cancer growth, increase vitality, reduce treatment-related side effects, and reduce the risk of death. This is in sharp contrast to the opposite effects of inactivity.
Healthy cells love exercise. Their power is unleashed through physical movement. It radiates outward, energizing force of emotional, psychological, and spiritual bodies into the world, amplifying sensitivity, the capacity for perceptual sensitivity to the miraculous moment to moment experience of living, the subtle movements of leaves, the changing patterns of clouds, the beauty of others, the presence of spirit invested in and impregnated within the natural and human worlds. Exercise is something that only you can do. Exercise is a way to return the irrepressible love of your healthy cells, a love that is undaunted by the challenges of living with cancer.
Conditions
The “right conditions” are unique to you. No two of us are alike. Side effects from cancer treatments and/or cancer can make it difficult for the pilgrim to reliably set foot on their daily pilgrimage. Understanding this reality can soften hard edges that would push activity beyond what healthy cells are able to support in any given moment. Meditating on the continuous functioning of your healthy cells is a step towards self-compassion.
Practice: Reflect on the unflagging life force that animates your healthy cells, day and night, regardless of conditions. Take a few, slow breaths. If you wish, add a prayer, listen to soothing music, or look at an image that appeals to you. What does practicing this evoke in you?
Remember that, when conditions are right, like tulips, nothing can stop the vast community of your healthy cells from expressing their calm and vitality. When they express distress, you, as metabolic steward, are called to soothe the distress, to incline conditions towards calm and thriving. This is possible. This is a spiritual exercise.
… to Molecule
Cancer-Related Fatigue and Energy Conservation
Cancer-related fatigue is a nearly universal experience of patients living with and beyond cancer. It can be complex with many interwoven factors. Unlike fatigue after a hard day’s work, cancer-related fatigue does not readily respond to rest or sleep. The causes of cancer-related fatigue may be as direct as the body’s normal response to cancer treatments, long periods of decreased activity (“deconditioning”), a response to single symptoms such as insomnia, depression, or pain, or a combination of such factors.
Cancer-related fatigue is a message from your healthy cells, a request for you to befriend and nurture them. Healthy cells call out to you as if they were the young child or the beloved pet that we met earlier on this page, needing your care and support. In such moments, metabolic stewardship can ascend. Through listening to your healthy cells, you establish a direct connection with your life force, the energy that animates every moment of your life. Because you are the only direct recipient of this information, you are uniquely positioned to recognize your body’s “right now” capacity. Based on this knowledge, you can respond flexibly by either investing energy in an activity or resting, thereby minimizing unnecessary energy losses. Or, if needed, you can seek help from your health care team. The practice of responding to your healthy cells in this way is called “energy conservation”.
Energy conservation is a powerful antidote to cancer-related fatigue. It is a meditative practice of listening and receiving, of accurately interpreting the moment-to-moment communications from your healthy cells. As the practice of energy conservation deepens, what at first may appear to be basic information will be understood as the body’s wisdom. In each moment, your healthy cells inform you about what they can and can’t do. With time, energy conservation skills become automatic, allowing you to relax into this wisdom and the flow of your life. You trust that you are being guided along the path of gradual embodied fitness while minimizing unnecessary losses of your precious life force. Energy conservation allows the accrual of “energy capital” that you, as an agent, can wisely invest in your healing journey.
Energy conservation is integrated into experiential possibilities through awareness and skill. Awareness means becoming adept at translating the language of the body (i.e., sensations) into actionable information that guides you to the next station on your journey. For example, when walking or engaging in daily activities, you may notice that your body mechanics, coordination, or balance begin to decline. Alternatively, you may notice a general sense of decreased energy or an increased breathing rate. This signals the onset of fatigue. Since each of us is unique, so too are the signals that are most useful to us. Skill means learning to adjust your daily rhythm so that you neither overdo nor underdo. This skill develops over time with regular practice and gentle testing of limits. Curiosity, self-compassion, and an experimental attitude help a training program to become self-reinforcing.
While cancer-related fatigue may seem insurmountable during treatment or even many months or years afterwards, there are many compassionate ways to respond to it. Some are self-management skills, while others require diagnosis and treatment by healthcare professionals. Click here for an excellent resource that summarizes the main factors contributing to cancer-related fatigue. As you will see, some of them, such as anemia, insomnia, and medication side effects, will need the collaboration of your health care team to help mitigate them. This resource also emphasizes the importance of describing your fatigue to your healthcare team and provides excellent suggestions on how to effectively communicate your fatigue experience to them. The information you offer helps your team personalize their recommendations, supporting the rehabilitative components of your pilgrimage. Click here for a brief description of cancer-related fatigue and how to manage it. Both resources are from the American Cancer Society.
Practice: Learn to manage your energy resources in ways that do not inadvertently deplete them. The body “speaks” to you in a second language, the language of sensations – not words or thoughts. These moment-to-moment signals let you know what the body is experiencing and what it wants you to know. For example, how is fatigue communicated? What signals does your body give to tell you, “Hey, I’m tired”? How might you become an expert listener/interpreter? Pausing is one time-tested approach to developing this skill. This skill can be developed gradually over time. For example, briefly pause whatever you’re doing and take one long, deep breath, in and out. Notice how/if the impact resonates for your body. This is a so-called “one-breath meditation”. It takes less than a minute. You may find that, over time, and as you experience the power of this simple practice, you will want to repeat it several times a day.
Practice: Begin to experiment with pacing your activity. Listening to your body is a practice that develops over time and leads to acting in your body’s best interest. For example, understanding the signals of fatigue puts you in a more informed position, allowing you to decide on the next best activity. Perhaps rest or consider a less demanding activity. Tracking progress using a 10-point fatigue scale is helpful. The American Cancer Society’s “Cancer-related Fatigue” resource (above) offers an excellent template, along with some questions to ask yourself about the trajectory of your fatigue and its impact on your daily activities. Over time, you learn to match body sensations—it’s language—with your activity. You are on the path to gradual fitness gains and reducing unnecessary energy loss. You are a “metabolic steward” caring for your body’s energy resources. And, you avoid overtraining, loss of strength, and fitness by adhering to a “no pain, no gain” philosophy. Click here for a succinct summary of useful tips on energy conservation from the MD Anderson Cooper Cancer Center.
Practice: Learn to acknowledge your current limitations. Embracing your body’s “right now” capacity is a compassionate act of self-care. It provides a reality-based touchstone that gives you an accurate starting point from which to continue on your pilgrimage. Paying close attention to what your body is communicating to you, your “right now” capacity, is the cornerstone of making slow but steady progress on your pilgrimage. Through this practice, your stewardship skills are refined because you learn to accurately estimate how much discretionary energy you have to invest in an activity, test it with an activity (daily activities or exercise), and then evaluate the outcome. You aim for mild tiredness that you can easily recover from with rest. Repeatedly pushing yourself beyond this limit results in overtraining, which can lead to a loss of strength, fitness, and emotional and cognitive resilience, as you do not allow enough time for your body to recover from activity. Pushing beyond your “right now” capacity takes you in exactly the opposite direction that you are traveling. Rest is equally important as activity on this pilgrimage. Spiritual practices, central to this path, are excellent media through which to deeply relax and rejuvenate.
Disclaimer
The information provided below is intended for general informational and educational purposes only. It assumes that your disease and overall health are stable. It should not be construed as a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. If you have any concerns about the stability of your disease, your overall health, or the advisability of embarking on a program of exercise training, seek the advice of a qualified healthcare professional before you begin exercise training.
Orientation to Exercise Training
We encourage you to think of “exercise training” as conscious metabolic stewardship —a ritualized honoring of your life force. This is a deliberate reframe of what might ordinarily be described as “exercise programming”. This reframe is not trivial. The direction here is from “spirit to molecule” rather than the other way around. Often, exercise programs are recommended because they improve cardiovascular health, strengthen muscles and bones, and reduce the risk of many diseases, among other benefits, including the potential for reduced cancer recurrence and a longer life. It’s a transactional relationship to your body—you do exercise followed by reaping benefits—rather than an act of conscious embodiment, a consecrated expression of spirit through form, the direction of your pilgrimage.
While health benefits definitely accrue with exercise (and you will experience these benefits as well), absent in the vast majority of exercise recommendations is explicit mention of the life force, that which animates your healthy cells, and by extension, the capacity for you to engage as fully as possible in your life. As we have seen, learning to consciously re-embody is a crucial component of healing body-mind-spirit against the background of altered experiences of embodiment while living with cancer. From the outside, your physical activity may look like you are “training”; but what is happening is a process of embodiment, from “inner to outer”, supporting not only spiritual and emotional healing, but the physical healing of your body as well. Like a pathway into a sacred space, there are practical and reliable pathways to enter the shrine of your body.
Keep in mind that the mandala is a template that you customize to your own needs and rhythms. The location of the exercise stations in a 24-hour cycle is flexible and based on what works best for you, as determined through experimentation. For some individuals, exercising first thing in the morning is the most effective approach. For others, it’s later in the day. Still, for others, breaking up exercise is best done by dividing it into several shorter sessions scattered throughout the day. This approach can be just as beneficial as training all at once. For some, it is actually advantageous. In any case, repeating exercise training across the cycle of days is how a person builds physical well-being and resilience.
Exercise Training Guidance – Moving Through Cancer
The American College of Sports Medicine has developed numerous excellent exercise resources, accompanied by clear descriptions of the benefits of training. The mission of Moving Through Cancer “is to make these benefits a reality by assuring all people living with and beyond cancer are assessed, advised, referred to, and engaged in appropriate exercise and rehabilitation support services as part of their cancer care and recovery.” The task force is led by world-renowned researcher Dr. Kathryn Schmitz. Below are links to these resources. We encourage you to consider these resources as platforms for cultivating metabolic stewardship while deepening your lived experience of embodiment.
Exercise videos from the Oncology – Nutrition – Exercise (ONE) Group at PennState University offers a rich menu of exercises with instructions and videos for specific exercises. This page is designed to help you develop an exercise program tailored to your needs, based on your current level of fitness. Exercises can be done at home with no special equipment needed.
Moving through Cancer Splash Page introduces the program. Click on “Survivors” to access information and resources that may be useful for you. This page offers a rationale for exercising and a survey (EXCEEDS) to help you identify your exercise needs and make recommendations for the best type of program for you. Links to useful downloadable resources are below. They can also be found at the bottom of the splash page.
Moving through and Beyond Cancer Booklet is an excellent and comprehensive guide on how to be active during cancer treatment.
Being Active When You Have Cancer outlines simple steps to getting started with being physically active both during and after a cancer diagnosis, as well as a brief summary of the research-based benefits.
Sit Less Move More gives simple suggestions for reducing sitting time during the day, known to undermine health and vitality.
Consolidated Infographic for the ACSM Roundtable on Exercise and Cancer is a one-page summary of exercise recommendations for people living with and beyond cancer, produced by a roundtable of 40 international cancer and exercise experts in 2018. The roundtable was sponsored by a consortium of international oncology and exercise organizations, led by the American College of Sports Medicine. It was the first strong evidence to demonstrate that specific doses of exercise can positively impact various areas of health and well-being (see below). Exercise truly is medicine!
Effects of Exercise on Health-Related Outcomes in Those with Cancer outlines the effects of exercise on preventing seven common cancers as well as increasing survival in three common cancers. It also outlines the doses of exercise needed to improve many health-related outcomes, including cancer-related fatigue, health-related quality of life, physical function, anxiety, depression, and lymphedema.
Below are additional useful resources to help guide your exercise training program.
Falls are a significant source of unexpected injury and disability for senior citizens; for people living with and beyond cancer, the risk of falling may be higher. Click here for an excellent American Cancer Society that describes the risk factors for falling, what you can do to prevent falls, and the importance of calling your healthcare team if you have a fall or notice any symptoms that may increase your risk of falling.
For a brief summary of key points about exercise before, during, and after cancer treatment from the American Cancer Society, click here.
If you’re interested in a free, evidence-based, user-friendly app to help guide your training program, you can download the Cancer Exercise App from the App Store. Click here to learn more about the app and its creator, Dr. Anna L. Schwartz, an internationally recognized expert on cancer and exercise.
Nutrition
Just as exercise is medicine, so too is food. What we eat offers the building blocks that healthy cells need to thrive. Food, in reality, is not a “thing”; rather, like every other material thing, it is a phase in the cycles of nature. Food enters our bodies not only to nourish us but also to continue its cycle through the natural world. Food comes to us by the work of many. What we eat connects us to the corporeality of beings, their aspirations, and their lives. The preciousness of what we eat emanates from these realities; it is amalgamated into every step we take. Eating is also a time to relax, enjoy, and connect with others.
Click here to download a PDF booklet from the National Cancer Institute that offers excellent recommendations for anyone undergoing, or who has recently completed, cancer treatment. In these circumstances, a person may need to follow a diet that differs from what is typically considered healthy.
Click here for additional recommendations for eating after cancer treatment, as well as answers to common questions.
Sleep
Sleep is a crucial thread that places our embodied self directly in contact with the rhythms of our planet. Like seasons of the natural world, sleep has its own seasons, called stages, ranging from light sleep to deep restorative sleep to dream sleep. Sleep is as vital to our well-being as the seasons are to nature. Sleep prepares us for the journey of each day.
Dedicating time in the zone between your day and night to preparing for sleep is a wise self-care practice. By gradually shifting the tone of your nervous system from activity to relaxation, you gently guide your healthy cells towards rest. You may find that meditating, listening to relaxing music, journaling, or any of the practices we’ve offered are helpful in this process.
Click here to access a downloadable resource to help cultivate quality sleep from the National Health Service (UK).
The following link from the American Cancer Society offers excellent information on sleep problems and how to address them—here.
Rehabilitation and Survivorship
Cancer rehabilitation and cancer survivorship are essential components of comprehensive care, providing in-depth, evidence-based insights into the impact of cancer treatment on a person’s daily functioning, physical well-being, and future well-being. They are ideally integrated alongside or immediately following treatment, and provide a seamless interface between the moment-to-moment lived experience of treatment and well-established pathways to recovery.
Click here for an excellent resource offering evidence-based lifestyle recommendations that can reduce the risk of cancer, cancer recurrence, and chronic illness, as well as decrease inflammation and boost the immune system.
Click here for an encyclopedic resource from the American Cancer Society on various topics, including prevention and early detection, treatment, side effects, and survivorship.
Click here for a succinct description of the purpose of cancer rehabilitation services from the American Cancer Society
Click here to access a wide-ranging downloadable PDF booklet about cancer survivorship from the MD Anderson Cancer Center.
For an innovative approach to survivorship offering the cancer community safe, research-based, state-regulated psychedelic-assisted therapy, click here.
Acknowledgments
Participating Team
David S. Zucker, MD, PhD, FAAPMR, is emeritus founding Medical Director and Program Leader of Cancer Rehabilitation Services at Swedish Cancer Institute in Seattle. He holds an MD with honors from Stanford University and, in addition, a PhD in Counseling Psychology from the Professional School of Psychological Studies in San Diego. He completed a residency in Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation at the Mayo Clinic and an NIH-sponsored postdoctoral fellowship in Medical Anthropology at the University of Washington.
Dr. Zucker is a pioneer in the development of cancer rehabilitation medicine nationally. He is the founding Emeritus Chair of the Cancer Rehabilitation Physician Consortium (CRPC), a group of American Academy of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation physiatrists dedicated to improving functional health for cancer patients. The CRPC has been instrumental in creating a national infrastructure for cancer rehabilitation medicine research, educational initiatives, and strategic planning. He developed and implemented a care model at Swedish Cancer Institute grounded in the understanding that cancer affects “molecule to spirit” and that by optimizing functional health throughout the disease/treatment trajectory, the person is better able to negotiate the emotional, psychological, and spiritual dimensions of cancer and, in turn, better integrate rehabilitative self-management skills into daily life. Prior to his retirement, Dr. Zucker collaborated with the American Cancer Society, the American College of Sports Medicine, and other organizations to disseminate and implement research on lifestyle interventions into clinical practice. He has co-authored many scientific papers, including the most recent international guidelines on exercise and cancer.
Dr. Kathryn Barush is an art historian whose teaching and research explores the dynamic ways that the arts can shape culture and community. She holds a D.Phil. and M.St., both from Wadham College, University of Oxford, and a BA from Sarah Lawrence College. Her recent book, Imaging Pilgrimage: Art as Embodied Experience ( Bloomsbury) has been praised as being ‘well-written, creatively constructed, and accessible’ and for its multidisciplinary approach engaging ‘material religion, multiculturalism, history, pluralism, dialogical encounter, spiritual expression, disability, illness, dying, visual arts, and music.’ It was the recipient of the 2022 Art & Religion Book Prize through the American Academy of Religion and the Borsch-Rast Prize and Lectureship. Her current research, at the intersection of the arts and science, examines how art-infused pilgrimages can be used in integrative health settings. In addition, she is working on two new projects: an edited volume with Rachel H. Smith on how contemporary art can be imagined as a pilgrimage and site and a book project on plantlore and pilgrimage from the Middle Ages to today.
Prior to her current position, Dr. Barush was a postdoctoral research associate at the Center for Advanced Studies in the Visual Arts at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC where she contributed to a Mellon-funded digital humanities initiative. Her research has been supported by grants and fellowships from the Thomas J. Watson Foundation, the Luce Foundation, the Bannan Forum, and the George Greenia Fellowship for Pilgrimage Studies. Dr. Barush is the founding director of the Berkeley Art and Interreligious Pilgrimage Project. Launched in the summer of 2022, it features pilgrimage routes curated by socially-engaged contemporary artists and scholars and seeks to link sacred landscapes the world over to neighborhoods, gardens, and backyards as a way to connect as a global community.
Websites:
https://osher.ucsf.edu/people/chloe-e-atreya
https://www.lymanallyn.org/chloe-atreya/
Tobi Fishel, PhD, is an integrative clinical and health psychologist and the GME Director of Residency Wellness for USC/LA General Medical Center at the University of Southern California. She is the co-founder of the Osher Center for Integrative Medicine (Vanderbilt) and co-developed the Distressed Physician Course at Vanderbilt University, which incorporates emotional intelligence, narrative medicine, and mindfulness. She is a consultant to integrative health centers, teaches an advanced seminar to social work graduate students, and has developed integrative chronic pain nature-based retreats. Dr. Fishel attained her doctorate from the University of Miami, Florida. She has a unique clinical practice that incorporates self-compassion, creative arts, mindfulness, movement, depth psychology, spirituality, body-centered practices, and the healing power of community, music, and the natural world. Her website is tobifishelsacredjourneying.com. The guiding principles in her work are authenticity, meaning, and connection, and she encourages a deepening relationship with the innate gifts of one’s own soul.
Gisela Insuaste is an Oakland-based visual artist, educator, and cultural producer with extensive experience working with cultural and educational institutions at various SF Bay Area, New York, and Chicago. She was recently the Education and Public Programs Director at Kala Art Institute in Berkeley. Her work centers on equitable access to arts education, professional development, and public programming for diverse communities. She’s currently focusing on her art practice and projects that connect the community to art, nature, and wellness.
As an artist, Insuaste is interested in the built and natural environment. Her paintings, drawings, sculptures, and installations explore the intersection of architecture, memory, myth, and topography. She utilizes found, industrial, and natural materials to map the idiosyncrasies of the urban and natural landscapes (both real and imagined) that challenge our individual and shared cultural space and identity. She incorporates line, color, scale, and texture to create spaces and structures that highlight the precariousness of our environment. She’s inspired by the concept of the apus (Quechua word to describe the protective spirits of the Andes) as a way to connect to people, places, and things at the periphery—to (un)expected encounters or gestures that (dis)connect us to place physically, emotionally, and spiritually.
Insuaste has received various awards and fellowships including NYC SCA Public Art in Public Schools Art Commission; Montalvo Lucas Artist Residency; Hope Platform Designer-in-Residence (Seoul, Korea); apex Art Outbound Residency (Thailand); NYC Lower East Side Printshop Keyholder; Laundromat Project Create Change PD Fellowship; Smithsonian Latino Museum Studies Program (LMSP) Fellowship; Artadia/Driehaus Award, and MacDowell Fellowships. She’s exhibited nationally and internationally at Kala Art Institute, Berkeley; Southern Exposure, SF; apexart, NY; Bronx Museum, NY; Queens Museum, NY; El Museo del Barrio, NY; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Chicago Cultural Center, IL; John Allcott Gallery, UNC; Satellite Gallery, UTSA; and Centro Cultural in Riobamba and Manta, Ecuador.
Insuaste has an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a BA in Anthropology & Studio Art from Dartmouth College.
Jaime Kimmel is a Board Certified Staff Chaplain at the UCSF Parnassus Campus, working primarily in Critical Care settings. He is lay-ordained as a Soto-Zen Buddhist and has been a Buddhist practitioner for many years. He received his M.A. degree in Buddhist Studies and certificates in Buddhist Chaplaincy and Soto-Zen Buddhist Studies from the Institute of Buddhist Studies, a seminary affiliated with the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, CA. He also holds a B.A. degree in Cultural Anthropology from UC Berkeley. Prior to joining UCSF, he worked as a hospice chaplain in the Bay Area and served as a volunteer chaplain at San Francisco General Hospital.
Mikey Kirkpatrick is a musician based in London, a flute player, singer, composer, and performer with a strong interest in how deeper listening and music-making can be healing for individuals and communities. He is an associate lecturer in Educational Studies at Goldsmiths University in London, specialising in radical and creative pedagogies. He is also the founding director of Alchemy, a creative music mentoring programme created for and with teenagers facing barriers, which he has led since 2017. He teaches courses on music, healing, and deep listening for New York’s Morbid Anatomy student community, which collectively releases music created during the classes as the MHDL (Music, Healing, and Deep Listening) collective. Mikey has recently been exploring the use of masks, double flutes, ritual performance, and extended musical improvisations inspired by hypnosis, dreams, and Celtic shamanic journeying techniques, as seen in his recent albums, Wild Lakes and Songs of Liberation. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he provided over 230 daily live flute-loop improvisations on the radio, serving as a regular sonic shelter or resting place for anyone seeking such a space. He performs regularly as a solo artist under the name Bird Radio, with the Zashiki Warashi (pron. Zash-ee-kee Wa – rash–ee) Taiko and Flute Duo, bones and the aft, and the Keys Cut Almanac Theatre Company, among other collaborations.
David M. Odorisio, PhD, is Associate Professor at Pacifica Graduate Institute, Santa Barbara, CA, where he serves as Chair of the Psychology, Religion, and Consciousness MA/PhD program. David is editor of four volumes, including: Thomas Merton in California: The Redwoods Conferences and Letters, and Depth Psychology and Mysticism. He currently serves as Co-Chair of the Mysticism Unit for the American Academy of Religion.
Fr. Chris Renz, OP is professor of Catholic culture and worship at the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology, and the director of Blackfriars Gallery and Library. He holds a doctorate in microbiology from Northwestern University and theology degrees from DSPT and GTU. His research interests in culture and fine art have been an opportunity for him to reengage his lifelong interest in “how things work.” Focusing on a specialized area of research called “neuroaesthetics,” he is interested in how imagination and our natural capacity for “transcendence” can be related to our ever-present attraction to beauty through the cultivation of wonder and awe.
Amy Slonaker, PhD / Following a 20-year career in law, Amy graduated with a Ph.D. in Mythological Studies with an emphasis in Depth Psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute, where, in her dissertation, she applied theories of consciousness and the imagination by scholars like William James, C.G. Jung, and Jeffrey Kripal to the study of comic books as mystico-visionary texts. Born and raised in Santa Barbara, CA, in a Christian evangelical school and church, she went on to engage religion with a scientific lens as a Religious Studies undergraduate at UC Santa Barbara. After working as an attorney on Wall Street for 13 years, she developed Stage 4 metastatic breast cancer to the bone, which she has battled since 2017. Amy co-founded the non-profit group Survivorship Collective that supports the wellness of cancer survivors through safe and legal access to psilocybin-assisted therapies. She is also an active board member and lecturer at Morbid Anatomy, an online learning platform based in Brooklyn, NY, where she lectures and hosts speakers on esoteric art, occult histories, and mystical religions.
Kari Elam (b. Baltimore, MD) is an MTS student at the Jesuit School of Theology of Santa Clara University in Berkeley. Before joining the GTU, Kari’s professional and scholastic background traversed the scape of Media and Communication.
She received her BA in Public Communication, with a minor in Sociology, from American University in Washington, DC. She holds a dual MSc/MA degree in Global Media and Communication from the London School of Economics and the University of Southern California, respectively.
Her MSc dissertation explored how the narrative intersection between youth subculture celebrity iconography and dominant political ideology, as articulated through pop media representation and presidential keynote speech, established a discursive framework for Millennial cultural identity; her MA thesis research further delved into the cultural form and function of celebrity iconography and generational identity, by interpreting archetypes and architectures of Millennial pop media events during the mid-Aughts.
Kari’s professional involvement echoes her academic interest in media culture; collaborating and contributing primarily within the spheres of digital branding, creative direction, media production, and editorial publishing.
Centrally, Kari’s work engages with the fundamental question of how people shape contemporary culture through articulation of presence in expressed identity; subsequently, within that dynamic, how do we develop signature spaces for creative communion through the human connection of shared experience … particularly within the locus realm of music entertainment culture.
Pablo Vazquez is a Ph.D. student at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley. Previously, Pablo earned an MA in Religions with a focus on Zoroastrian Studies and New Religious Movements from SOAS, University of London (affiliated with the Shapoorji Pallonji Institute for Zoroastrian Studies), and an MDiv with a multireligious and comparative theological approach from Starr King School for the Ministry.
Pablo has also spoken at multiple conferences, written various papers, delivered a variety of lectures, and finished a new translation of Zarathushtra’s Gathas, internationally published as “The Sacred Gathas of Zarathushtra and the Old Avestan Canon,” available through Mantra Books. Pablo is the host of the crowdfunded public education series “Zoroastrianism 101,” which provides a free and accessible introduction to Zoroastrianism available on YouTube and Spotify.
With a deep interest in pilgrimage, Pablo not only studies it academically but also engages with it as a main spiritual practice with Pablo having traveled around the world to experience and explore pilgrimage sites and paths directly. As such, Pablo is proud to support the work of the Berkeley Art & Interreligious Pilgrimage Project in any way Pablo can.
Yohana Junker is an educator, visual artist, and Assistant Professor of Art, Religion, and Culture at Claremont School of Theology and Louisville Institute Postdoc Fellow. She received my Ph.D. from the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, in 2019. Her ongoing research probes the salient intersections among the fields of art history, eco-criticism, decolonial studies, and contemporary Indigenous aesthetics.
Dr. Junker’s own artwork is a continuous attempt to interpret and give meaning to life individually and collectively. In this series, she envisions the paintings, drawings, collages, and collaborations as thresholds that invite viewers to visit intimate yet forgotten recesses, vital yet unanticipated pathways in their journeys. She explores some of the polarities I see present in the creative-destructive-transformative dynamics of life:
the reaction to suffering
the certainty and resistance to death
the yearning for hope, refuge, reconciliation
Her hope as an artist is to create a transitional space where viewers can populate the canvases with their own reflections, thereby pursuing multi-layered awareness. It is also her hope that these paintings help create a space in which we can come together as humans to share, dialogue, and confront our own narratives. / https://www.yohanajunker.com/
Dr. Gina Hens-Piazza came to the Jesuit School of Theology in 1992, having completed her PhD in Biblical Studies at Union Theological Seminary in New York. With a focus on matters of social justice, feminism, and cultural issues, she has been teaching biblical interpretation to graduate students at the Jesuit School of Theology and Graduate Theological Union for the past 31 years. Involved in the strategic visioning of JST’s commitment to contextual studies dating back to 1998, Hens-Piazza sought to better ground some of her own scriptural interpretations on social justice in real-life experience. She began volunteering at St. Anthony’s free medical clinic in San Francisco in 2005. She could not have predicted the passion for medical work that she developed, or that she would soon be enrolled in the University of California, Davis Medical School, earning a degree as a Physician Assistant (previously known as a Physician Associate) specializing in the healthcare of minority populations in California. Hens-Piazza served as a PA-C 12-16 hours per week at La Clinica in Vallejo for 7 years and later ran the evening urgent care clinic at Life Long Medical in Berkeley for 3 years. Following, she volunteered for Roto Care, a free clinic in Antioch, and currently volunteers at a free clinic in San Francisco.
Hens-Piazza never imagined the intimate connection that would develop between her teaching and writing in biblical studies and her work in health care with underserved populations. Author of seven books, numerous articles, and a frequent lecturer nationally and internationally, Hens-Piazza readily acknowledges that many of the people she has been privileged to care for in the clinic have prompted what she sees and hears in Scripture. Inspired by some of her patients and their stories, her most recent manuscript, The Supporting Cast of the Bible – Reading on Behalf of the Multitude, specifically features unsung heroes and minor characters of great virtue in biblical accounts that are often overlooked. She often notes “that how we read texts influences how we read our world, but also who we take seriously and hear and see in our world influences who we see in these sacred texts.” Moreover, her medical experience, combined with her work in biblical studies, has convinced her that healing involves more than science and medicine. The potential of faith, variously expressed in formal prayer, images, art, or ritual, has a tremendous potential to promote states of wellness even in the face of exceedingly dire diagnoses.
This project was made possible by support from the Luce Foundation and the Bannan Forum.
© 2025
©2025 by author David S. Zucker, MD, PhD. All rights reserved.