Save this love for you son
I want to put the moment in a bottle 
Your life has only just begun

These days 
The awareness of our mortality
 hovers in the air

These days
While were dancing in the kitchen 
I try hard to be all the way there
Your face so full of love and life
It glows without a care

My heart tug’s with worry
Of what your future will bring
Still dance with me in the kitchen
This dance is everything

Despite impermanence' 
Insistence 
Because all things come and go
Take my hands
let's spin 
And never let go

We hurt to love 
But I enforce my resistance on this 
Lingering persistence
That to love is to let go 
Our love lives forever 
This moment is all there is to know

So dance with me in the kitchen 

​Written for Culain Silver (2017)

March 10th, 2021

Idun’s Choice
By ~ Joy Jech 
Artist of Beach Painting Unknown

There is a meeting of souls that happens sometimes, an unspoken sisterhood that dances with recognition. My sister-in-law and I have a special saying about who we are to each other; "sisters beyond blood." For us, our ethereal sisterhood has nothing to do with genetics and everything to do with the heart and the spirit. Of course, if you're an atheist like our family friend Idun, you might see this phenomenon differently. She might call this "a meeting of like-minded people in this one tangible life." 

My biological sister and I go way back. Since our mother was a baby, we were there together, nestled in the hammock of her ovaries. To be fair, our brother was there too, but this is a story about sisters. Unlike boys who produce sperm throughout their lifespan, baby girls are born with all of the eggs they will ever have. Over the course of a female's lifetime, these little bundles of DNA will drop one by one into her womb with the fullness of each passing moon and the invitation to bring forth new life. 

Our grandmother, Anita, was born in Eden, Idaho, on November 24th, 1917. Depending on how you define the self, in a purely biological way, if nothing else, half of my mother was born that day, right along with our grandmother. Practically microscopic, my mother waited there silently, patiently for twenty-three years. Until, with the Zen-like precision of the Tao, she chose the perfect moment to let go. She was rewarded for her superb timing and made whole in a sweaty matrimonial moment of rapture. Her gooey, complete, and perfect self was finally born on December 5th, 1940. 
Science tells us that by this day, my sister and brother and I were all cuddled up together inside of her ovaries. Well, half of who we would one day be, anyway. Following in her footsteps, we quietly prepared for our entrance into this world. Waiting, we were there the day our mom learned to walk, the day she got bit in the butt by a horse, and the day she almost drowned in the irrigation ditch but was rescued by their ranch dog, Pepper. We were there with her as she walked for miles to school every day in the deep snow of Pendroy, Montana, where she was sometimes teased and called "Carrot Top." We were there for her heartbreaks, her triumphs and fears, and even on the lonely nights. We were there. 
My sister Jenna was eight years in front of me in line for life. I imagine this must mean that even when we were huddled together in our mother's ovaries, she was already ever untouchable. 

​When I was little, whenever Jenna would allow me to be in her presence, I was momentarily relieved of my lonely childhood. Since most of that time she was a teenager, it was not as often as I had wished. In those precious moments, I tugged on her coattails and looked up to her decisive face, scanning for clues as to who I might one day become. 
My relationship with Jenna shifted in my teenage years as we started to spend more time together. One hot summer night, I brought some LSD with me when I visited her in Seattle. In general, Jenna was pretty straight-laced, but I had a way of rebel-rousing her to explore the inner worlds that psychedelics offer. We sat on the old carpeted floor of her apartment, coloring and talking about our family dynamics. The window was open, and the breeze brought intermittent wafting of cigarette smoke from the passers-by. Jenna's smile seemed to take up her whole face when she brought up the time I took the Green Tortoise hippy bus from Seattle to Santa Cruz to visit her there at college when I was just thirteen. "Remember how we cruised all over the streets of that city? Me on my bike and you in rollerblades. I pulled you along as you hung on to the back of my seat for dear life!"

"Yea, that was so fun!" I was fond of that memory, too, since it was the first time in my life she had let me into her world. Then my enthusiasm dropped to a more serious tone. "Do you remember how on one of those excursions you asked me if I would be sadder if you died or if mom died?" 
"Of course I remember; you answered mom." Jenna wrinkled her forehead and shone her electric eyes at me in a put-on pout. 

"Yea. And then when I asked the question back to you, you said you would be sadder if I died because we are sisters. You said, 'We have our whole lives together. Mom is going to die one day, but we will still have each other.' I've been thinking about that lately, and I get what you mean now." 
She grinned up at me and winked. "Good! I knew you just needed a few more years to come around. Now, pass me the red, will you?"

At some point, we decided to venture through the University District's streets to find the grocery store. Our eyes were playing tricks on us in the dark. Thinking we saw gang activity, we ran and hid behind a car only to look again and realize it was merely regular people out walking just like us. We fell to the ground behind the car in hysterics before we were able to collect ourselves enough to make it to Albertsons. 

On another visit to Seattle, while waiting for my sister in her fifth-floor apartment on Capitol Hill, I decided to stroll down the hall and knock on her friend Idun's door to kill some time. The two of them had just returned that summer from two years of college in Marburg, Germany, where they met. They had hit it off so swimmingly that Idun decided to come back to Seattle with Jenna, where they could move into the same apartment building and explore the city together. To a young untraveled high school student like myself, Idun and Jenna were cultured and intriguing. Jenna was studying foreign language and was on a mission to travel the world and become a Spanish teacher. Idun was a librarian, a historian, and becoming a German translator. They were both fluent in three languages. 

Tap, tap, tap, "Hello?" I called out over the loud music. The door swung open, and there Idun stood in a messy old classic apartment full of books. The mix of musty with new paper smell alone transported me back to my last trip to the library. There were books everywhere--on the bookshelves, on the coffee table, and the kitchen table. One wall was made up of bricks entirely and met a well-worn wood floor also scattered with books. As she scurried, tripping over her novels to get to the stereo and turn it down, I called out, "Cool tunes! What band is this?!" When she spun around to reply, 

"The Ramones!" I could not miss the way her chestnut brown hair danced about her, draping clear to her knees. 
My eyes grew wide with amazement. "Oh my God! Your hair is so long!" She shrugged and started spinning the substantial mane into a twist that would land almost to the top of her head. Even though Idun had a gregarious and enchanting cadence about her, she also had just enough humble nerd vibe going on to put anyone at ease. And her smile did not hide from her face often, exposing her zest for life. Everything interested her. To my pleasant surprise, this included me. 

Sauntering toward the kitchen, she looked back at me, "You want a beer"? The sparkle in her eye said it all. This was a meeting of two rebellious young women. Okay, so one of us wasn't quite a woman yet, but Idun had a way of making me feel like we were standing on even ground. I tried to sound cool, "Sure." She handed me a Heineken and raised her's high in the air, "Prost!" I lifted my bottle, and that was the start of our sisterhood.

From that point forward, she came with Jenna to the family farm for almost every gathering we had. Each year that passed, she became further etched into our family tree. Since she wasn't blood, nor was she married in, she couldn't be one of the leaves. So we carved her name into the trunk. 

After the family festivities at Christmas time, you might have found Jenna, Idun, and I "prosting" in the hot tub at the farm on Dry Slough road under a dark and star-splattered sky. Together they told me stories about Germany and their travels across Europe. Jenna described the cultural differences. "It's more crowded there, and people don't care if they get too close to you the way they do in the states. At the grocery store, someone might bump into you, and they won't even bother to say 'excuse me.'" 

Idun clarified, "Yea, it's not considered rude. It's just a completely different relationship to personal space. You get used to it." She went on, "They also go naked or topless a the beaches there. Bodies are not over sexualized in the same way they are here."

Although Jenna and Idun had inspired me to travel the world, my fate turned in a different direction when at age twenty, I gave birth to a fiery redheaded baby boy. I named him Mountain and raised him on my own while going to midwifery school in Portland, Oregon. 

At some point, Jenna met her goal of becoming a high school teacher, was married, and bought a house in the outskirts of Seattle. When she had a son, we welcomed another redheaded baby into the family, Julian. Idun moved into a small bedroom in the upstairs of Jenna's house and was like the Aunt everyone wishes they had to Julian. The two of them became very close. This room was much smaller than her old apartment, so there was less space for the books. Now her books might as well have been very thick wallpaper because you couldn't see past them to the walls. When I traveled from Portland to Seattle to visit my sister, I often ended up hanging out up there with Idun drinking Corona after my sister had gone to bed. 

Inevitably, Idun would end up giving me some sort of history lesson until we could hear the birds chirping outside her window. On one of these nights, we scoured through an old box of family photos and letters from the late eighteen hundreds. Idun told me all kinds of things she could decipher about our family history by looking at the pictures and reading the letters. "Your family had money. You can tell by the clothes they are wearing and all the photographs. You wouldn't be able to have so many photos taken in that era if you didn't have the money to pay for it either. And most people didn't." I was fascinated by all that she knew. Of course, I didn't remember everything from the lesson the next day, the hangover took care of that, but somehow that didn't matter. Idun was a blast to be around, and her thirst for knowledge infected me. 

​She used to tell me, "You Jech's are the smartest people I know. I wish I could be as smart as the Jech's." I tried to let her words settle somewhere into my feelings about myself, but I couldn't help but think that was crazy. She was the smartest person I knew. What I had learned in my youth from the media and school socialization was that what mattered for girls was to look good. But Idun planted a seed in me that I could own my intelligence. And intelligence might even be cool. 
When Mountain was nine, we started receiving boxes of books in the mail from Idun. They were all for him, and he devoured them. To name a few of the books she sent; the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling, Percy Jackson and the Olympians series by Rick Riordan, and The Carpet People by Terry Pratchet. When many things in his life were hard, he now had books. Mountain climbed the rungs of the lifeline she threw him, and chapter by chapter explored other worlds. After that, on our trips to Seattle, it was him that spent time with Idun into the wee hours of the morning. She searched universities abroad online to expose him to all that was possible for his future. She turned him onto Bollywood movies, more and more books, travel stories, and culture, all with that great big laugh of hers. 

These shared times waxed and waned. Over time when the stark differences between Jenna and I began to reveal themselves, they just waned. On the path of life, my sister has always paved her road wide like a five-lane highway that goes on for miles. She laid out a clear plan for achieving exactly what she wanted, the way she wanted it. After high school, she went to college, traveled, became a teacher, bought a condo, found a husband, bought a house, and then had a child. All destinations were tidy and clearly marked. It was almost like this approach allowed her to fasten her seatbelt and switch into autopilot whenever she wanted to. It was her way of taking care of herself. We came from a "take care of yourself" kind of home.

My way is different. I came into this world with a machete in one hand, a blazing torch in the other, and headed straight for the jungle. I cleared as I went and made decisions on the fly. An obstacle? I'd find a way around it. I was like a girl on fire, moving with the shifting wind. Driven by a thirst for thrill and intimacy in human connection, I went by feel. 
I wanted to confide in Jenna about the challenges of my untethered life, but when I tried it seemed to make her feel uncomfortable. Over time, I stopped sharing and mostly listened. Our connection eroded in the wake of this new dynamic, and we visited each other less and less.

On one of these infrequent visits, I stopped in Seattle to see Jenna on my way to our mother's place in Skagit Valley. Pulling into her driveway, I turned off the car, threw my tote over my shoulder, and made a break for her covered porch. I knocked and shivered while watching the drops of rain slide down the tendrils of my hair and scatter onto the deck. Staring at the plants in terracotta pots surrounding the entrance, I wondered how they felt hearing that rain pelt loudly on the glass ceiling while they sat thirsty right underneath yet unable to drink. Maybe they feel quite like I do, I thought. 
The door swung open. Jenna greeted me with a smile and her flashing blue eyes. "Come on in! Let me take your coat. You want some hot tea?" Heading for the heater vent in the living room, I gratefully accepted. The wood floor was hard under my weight, but I welcomed the warmth pushing through the duct and onto my back. My eyes rested on a familiar painting she had brought back from Mexico years before. Diego Rivera's iconic image of a native woman wearing colorful traditional Mexican attire knelt and seemed to offer me the bouquet of Calla Lilies she held in her arms.

"Tea's ready!" Jenna appeared at the dining room table, holding two steaming mugs. She started telling me about some issues arising between her and Idun. "Idun is reading the books to my son that I should be reading to him. I feel like she's taking my place with him. She doesn't ask me first if I want to read him classics like The Lord of The Rings. She just gets started, and then I can't take over because she's so damn good at all the different characters' voices; I just can't compete." Her eyes turned glassy, and her words caught in her throat before she shifted to something less personal. 
"It drives me crazy that she refuses to drive. She's still harming the environment. She's just using my gas and my time to do it! She and my husband are now at odds too. I don't know how I can keep the peace in my marriage with her living here." She paused, taking a sip of tea. 

I took a deep breath considering her words. I myself was gasping for air caught in life's undertow. Still, I tried my best to sympathize. "That does sound hard. But, you two have been great friends for a long time. I'm sure you can work it out." 
She batted the idea away. "I don't see how." Then she lamented about some other friendships she had been trying to form who weren't reaching back to her with the same enthusiasm. I listened and offered feedback for a while until my thoughts drifted back to the plants on the covered porch and how they couldn't even get a drink in this downpour with that damn glass, sealing out the sky. 

She must have noticed my retreat because the "what's been up with you lately" formality flew from her lips. I took a deep breath while my inner self warned, don't do it, don't do it. She doesn't really want to hear it. 
Then a flood of words burst from my mouth with the momentum of an old and tired hope to be heard. "I don't know what to do. I don't think I can stay with my husband. He used to be so good with Mountain. But now that Mountain is getting older, Gemini is isuddenly the one acting like a teenager. His emotions are all over the place, and the other day he actually called Mountain an 'asshole.' I can't keep…"

​My words were cut short by her tension. "It sounds like you should see a therapist." She had a shut-down look in her eyes. The kind of self-preservation that I had seen so many times before. In that look lived the expanse of the Skagit River by our mother's farm. She stood casually on one side, and I knelt on the other. 
Clearing my throat, I looked away. "Maybe you're right." 
She stood and gathered both of our empty mugs, "I need to make a trip for groceries; you want to come along?" 
"Sure," I shrugged.

It wasn't long before Idun moved out of Jenna's place. Jenna and I continued to stoke the embers of our friendship over family get-togethers just enough to keep it from going out entirely. Idun no longer came with Jenna to the farm for the holidays. Our lives got busy. And that's how Mountain and I lost touch with Idun, the wild intellect who inspired us to recognize our own intelligence. 

My marriage dissolved, but my midwifery practice thrived, and I loved my work. One night I lay in bed with my youngest boy sleeping beside me after a long day of prenatal appointments. Scrolling through Facebook on my phone, I came upon a rare post from Idun. My breath froze as my mind processed the words I read on the screen. "I have terminal brain cancer (seriously terminal!) WISHING YOU ALL WELL." 

​Glioblastoma is a fatal brain cancer that causes the affected person to rapidly lose their mental faculties, followed by a slew of unthinkable symptoms until they find their way to their grave. 
Reading through the comments, I discovered she had already had surgery to remove what they could, but the doctors gave her less than twelve months to live. I did not comment on the post. It seemed too big to touch when I hadn't even seen her in a couple of years. No, this needed direct contact. 
I immediately thought of Jenna. The next day I called my sister for the first time in over a year to see if she knew about Idun's condition. 

"Hello?" Her voice on the other end wasn't warm, but it was not curt either. 

"Hi," I stuttered slightly, getting the first words out. "I was calling because I saw on Facebook that Idun is sick. Do you know about this?"

A short silence was followed by, "In the last couple of months that she was here, she kept telling me she was having seizures in her brain. I couldn't see anything happening. I asked her what she wanted me to do about it. If she was having seizures in her brain, then she should see a doctor! I didn't know what to think, but what did she expect me to do? You know Idun; she's eccentric and set in her ways. She wouldn't see a doctor. Just like she will never cut her hair and never get a car. That's all I know. I haven't talked to her since she moved out." This time, a long silence as I realized Jenna did not know Idun was terminal.

"Jenna, she has brain cancer, and she is going to die. You need to reach out to her. You will never forgive yourself if you don't make things right with her before she dies." 
Her cavalier attitude turned to shock, "Wait, what?!"

"Jenna, I am so sorry."

A few days later, my phone rang. "Hey, Jenna!" 

She got straight to the point. "I tried to reach out to Idun. I called, I sent a card and went to her house. She won't speak with me, and she definitely won't see me."

"Really?! Why not? I can't imagine how scared she must be right now. I'm sure she will come around. Don't stop trying." 
A few days later, my mom came to visit us in Portland. She had brought Jenna's son Julian to say goodbye to Idun over lunch on her way. She discovered Idun was planning an assisted suicide and had picked out a date, 11/11/2014, Veteran's Day. The thing Idun valued the most in this life was her mind. I had a pretty good idea why she made this decision; she wanted to go before it did. But I was still stunned to hear we didn't have months to reconnect. We only had a couple of days! 

I went for a walk through the neighborhood and called Idun myself to say goodbye. My feet crunched through the afternoon sunlit piles of yellow, brown, and golden leaves fallen beneath the deciduous trees. With heart-pounding palms sweaty and my breath quick, I gathered the courage to hit the call button. What can you say to someone you love who's leaving this world in a couple of days? While on the phone, she invited us to come to her "Last Night On Earth Party." I said we would be there. 

I went back into the house to make sure Mountain and my mom wanted to come. Neither of them hesitated to start packing their bags. The next day we drove straight to Seattle to meet "the party" at the boardwalk. On the way there, we sat in heavy silence. 

After parking the car, I stepped onto the city street and took a deep breath of fresh ocean air. Looking up at the stars sparkling in the night sky, our reason for being there felt like a dream. 

When we found Idun among all the people, I noticed there was something different about her. And it was more than her missing hair. She had a radiant presence that seemed to live in the acute awareness of her own transience. She appeared to meet the fullness of the moment with her whole being. And her diagnosis did not diminish her big welcoming smile. Running her hands across the smooth roundness of her head, she moved first to embrace Mountain. Now, at sixteen, he towered above her, and she looked small in his arms. It was hard to believe she would just be gone tomorrow. 
When a person's fate allows them to see death approaching, there is a unique invitation to step completely into the present moment. There is no longer a future to consider. And maybe the past becomes like a fading dream. Idun took this opportunity and claimed these last moments among us.     

About twenty people in the party started walking along the boardwalk in small groups of three or four. The marina lights reflected and danced upon the water as she moved between us along the strip that hugged the Puget Sound. 
Being cold is something I typically avoid at all costs. I'm skinny, and it makes my bones hurt. As we walked, I found myself thinking, I wish I had worn different shoes and thicker socks. My feet are so numb! Why would Idun want to be so cold in her final hours on earth? Just then, guilt rode in on the frigid wind that pressed my back, slipped up my jacket, and invaded my warm body. How dare I wish to rush any part of this? Just because of my frozen feet!? This is Idun's last night on earth! 

When she joined up with our small group of three, we split off one at a time so she could have a little time alone to talk with each of us. When it was my turn, she took my hand, and we walked and talked about the sculptures of marine vessels that we passed along the way. 

"So, what's new with you?" She asked me after a while. What I was doing seemed irrelevant, but I told her how I had just bought a sailboat and planned to get rid of all my belongings and sail it back home to the San Juans to live on it there. 
"That is so cool! I love sailboats!" her voice pushed into the wind and met my ears just like it would have on any other night. I forgot about my freezing feet and slipped into her moment in its totality. From this silent space, her vulnerability emerged, "I can't believe my time is up," her voice cracked slightly to eke out the words. 
I squeezed her hand. "Me neither." 

We didn't talk of Jenna. Maybe I should have brought it up, but I knew that her response or lack thereof to Jenna's attempts at reconnecting was her choice, and she must have had her reasons. I wasn't there to talk her into anything. I was there to love her, support her, and honor her.  

After a couple of hours passed, we turned around, and Idun escorted the group to the Chowder House for dinner. When I walked through the door, the warm air hit my face, and the chorus of people talking under the soft light offered a welcome and soothing ambiance. We all huddled by the door, waiting as Idun spoke with the hostess. Then we followed her in a single file line and made our way to one very long table in the center of the restaurant. I happened to be right behind Idun, so I had the privilege of sitting next to her in the middle. This is so much like The Last Supper, I thought as I took my seat. I felt both lucky and unsure if this spot would have been better suited to someone else. 

Her sister and mother sat across the table. It was the first time I had met her family. Her sister was beautiful and kind with a big open smile like Idun's. But her quivering lip revealed the grief behind it. Her restless eyes jumped from mine to the chandelier and back down, landing on Idun. 

Most of the other people there were friends from her book club, and the conversation centered mostly around books. Idun told me she had been up all night the night before so that she could finish a great read, Transitions by Ian M. Banks. 
"I had to find out the ending!" 

Feeling more than I wanted to, my insides quaked and refused to settle. As the waitress made her way around the table, I felt a familiar eagerness to order a beer. She took Idun's order before she got to me, and I noticed that Idun did not order a drink. Peculiar, I thought, she loves beer!

I was not dissuaded. "An IPA, please. I'll go with your Space Dust." 

Once the waitress had passed us, and everyone else was still distracted ordering or choosing their food, I asked Idun why she hadn't ordered a beer. "I quit about a week after discovering I was terminal. For as long as I am here, I want to feel everything. As much as I love the taste of beer, it doesn't allow me to do that," she said.

"Good for you," I responded sincerely and searched my reservoir for any motivation towards my own sobriety. When the waitress came back around and set my foaming cold beer down in front of me, I looked at Idun, who was already wholly engaged in a conversation across the table. Then I looked back down at my beer. Maybe I'll quit tomorrow, I thought. 
When my glass was empty, I excused myself to use the restroom. Exiting the bathroom stall, I found my mom and Idun talking in hushed tones in front of the sink. They moved over so I could wash my hands, and then I joined them. Idun was talking about tomorrow evening's plans for her death. Without thinking, I spoke from the heart. 
"Do you want us to come, Idun? To be there for you tomorrow?"

A tear escaped down her cheek, which was countered by a smile. "I would like that."
"Then we'll be there," My mom said. I nodded and we all hugged.

When we arrived at Idun's house the next evening, she graciously greeted us at the door. "Come on in! I'm so glad you could make it! I guess you already met everybody last night." There were flowers on the coffee table and about ten people sitting around talking. If we hadn't known we were going to a unique kind of wake that would start just a couple of hours before the guest of honor would die, we might have thought we were showing up to a birthday party. 

Idun was a gracious host, "follow me, and I'll show you to the snack table." We followed her into the kitchen, and I asked her where the bathroom was. Pointing to the stairs, she fluttered away to do some more mingling. There was a spread of baked goods laid out across the table. We stood in front of it and looked at each other. None of us made a move on the food. Instead, we awkwardly started making our way back to the living room. "I'm gonna run to the bathroom; I'll meet you guys in there," I told them. 

I walked up the stairs and saw two women who hadn't been out with us the night before sitting at a small table. Without thinking, I asked the casual question, "Bathroom?" pointing around with my finger. As they looked up to reply, I noticed they were carefully involved in pouring powders from tiny capsules into a cup. For a second, I froze as I realized it's the Death Doulas. 

When I returned to the living room, I sat next to Mountain on the floor. My mom was sitting next to us on the couch. I reached for a small photo album displayed next to the flowers on the coffee table. When I opened it up, Mountain and I discovered photo after photo of my sister Jenna. Jenna and Idun in Germany, Jenna and Idun in Seattle, Jenna and Idun on Orcas Island, Jenna and Idun at Dry Slough. Among the photos there were some sprinkled in of just about every member of our family on various adventures which Idun had joined us on.

One of her roommates leaned over and said, "She looks through this album every day." My mom looked over at me in curiosity, wondering what the roommate was referring to. I handed her the photo album. When she opened it and flipped through the first few pages, our eyes locked in mutual disbelief. Our shared exchange seemed to ask, If she was looking through this album full of Jenna pictures every day of her final few months on earth, why did she refuse to see her? Why did she refuse to make amends? 

Just then, Idun squeezed through Mountain and me and made her way to sit next to my mom on the couch. After a few minutes, my mom started to rub Idun's back. At which point I heard Idun say, "Don't do that. It will make it too hard to go."
"Okay, I understand," my mother lowered her arms. I looked down, pretending not to notice, and fell into my thoughts. I wondered if maybe for the same reason she couldn't let my mom rub her back, she couldn't make amends with Jenna. Perhaps she loved her so much that making their relationship right again might have made it just "too hard to go."

Suddenly I heard the sound of Idun's loud jest toward Mountain, "You don't know the chicken dance?!" Then she promptly jumped up and announced, "Everybody, here is your lesson in the chicken dance!" Then singing a tune, she unabashedly bent her hands in towards her armpits and started flapping her arms like wings, shimmied down, and shook her tail feathers. A few of us jumped up to join her, and for a brief moment, we all laughed and forgot the evening's plans.

The next thing we knew, we were all following her down the stairs and into the basement. A couple of glaring fluorescent lights in the background hardly cut the dark and musty overtone. There was a tall workbench table against the corner. Grime and cobwebs streaked the windows. She didn't hesitate to take her final seat on the bench. "I meant to spruce up the place, but I never got around to it." She laughed, wiping a few of the cobwebs away with her hand. "You know the original owner of this house used to work down here. He was a maker," she told us as she reached up to tap the old cracked hanging light that now swung softly above her head.

Mountain, my mom and I held on to each other as we stood witness among the other guests gathered around Idun. Her voice filled the dingy space, "Mother, will you please tell us all again? What is the prognosis of this disease?" 
Scientifically, her mother answered as if she was a physician making her rounds, "Idun has been diagnosed with Glioblastoma, an aggressive malignant brain cancer. There is no treatment for this disease. If left to run its course, the patient will endure a slow and painful death." 

Wasting no time, the two Death Doulas came forth. One of them held out a cup of liquid poison, "Are you ready?"
"Yes." Without a moment's hesitation, she knocked back the liquid as if it were a shot of whisky. The room fell quiet. Idun cut the silence. "Well, don't just stand there. Somebody say something." 
No one said a word. So I offered Idun an adventure upon which to rest. "We will be sailing our boat to the San Juan Islands soon with your name on the side. Picture the sails full with the swift wind, cruising through the waves in the sun. Of course, there will be whales. We will prost to you, Idun Reisender."
Her last words were almost curious, informative; they echoed against the cement walls. "I'm starting to see double." And then she fell back onto the table, dead. 
    
Her mother and sister let out their repressed sobs in unison, and someone asked that we give the family some space. That was the last time we saw Idun. Everybody but her immediate family made our way back up into the living room and sat in silence for a while before we began to share Idun stories. 

Mountain and I drove back to Portland the next day. I had mothers on the verge of giving birth to see. I had brand new babies just a few days old to check up on. 

There were things that occurred in the aftermath of Idun's death that I was not expecting. As I went about my days, my mind replayed a loop. Idun was sitting there talking to us and joking one moment; she drank the poison and then fell back dead. This imagery haunted me. Over and over, the scene repeated for weeks as I tried to wrap my mind around the finality of death. 

During this time period, I discovered there are many ways besides death to lose someone. You see, something else died along with Idun on 11/11/2014. My relationship with my sister Jenna would never be the same. To my surprise, my being there for Idun in those final moments was like a hot iron in my sister's side. The embers of our relationship turned to ashes. I discovered coming to life through the same set of fallopian tubes doesn't exactly exempt one from this kind of loss. The bond between sisters turned out to be as fragile as the eggs we rode in on. 

When I tried to explain and offer my empathy for my sister's pain, she shut me out. Similar to the way Idun closed the door on her. On the surface, it may seem like she shut me out for a different reason. But Idun's choice was universally human. However good something feels-- it has the equal potential to hurt when it comes to it's inevitable end. Sometimes we turn away from our heart's longings because to let in all that love; we have to risk everything. Our open hearts break. So let them break because, alternatively, a closed heart shrivels. 

I never got to tell my sister about the photo album or my reflections on why Idun wouldn't see her. Although I suspect our mother must have at least told her about the photos because somehow, my mother and Jenna found a way to repair this wound. I don't know why Jenna forgave our mom and not me for being there for Idun. I am left wondering and making up my own versions of her truth. 

​In my life, I have been faced with the option to find forgiveness for some unthinkable grievances or to carry the burden of resentment. What I have learned about forgiveness and letting go of pain inflicted by others, whether intentional or not, is that we do the work of forgiveness when the relationship is important enough to us to push through the pain and find our way to the other side. But for whatever reason should we choose not to let go and forgive, it is our own heart that suffers. 
My wish for you, dear reader, is that you cherish your sisters. When death comes, don't let it drive a deeper wedge between you and the living. Receive its lesson of impermanence and embrace your loved ones with your whole heart, knowing that none of us will live forever. As for Jenna and I, our story is not yet over. Maybe we will find our way back to each other before this ride of life is through. Maybe we will end up back where we started, kicking it in the ovarian hammock together, waiting for another turn. Or if you see things through the atheist lens that Idun did, this is our one chance. This could be your one chance. Let's take it. ~ Joy Jech 

In the 2013 article, ”Can MDMA Play a Role in the Treatment of Substance Abuse?” by Lisa Jerome*,1 and Shira Schuster2 and B. Berra Yazar-Klosinski1 they report that in 2010, ”an estimated 23.1 million individuals aged 12 years or older (9.1%) needed treatment for a substance abuse disorder, while only approximately 11.2% of those needing treatment (approximately 1% of the general population over 12 years old) received treatment [1].”

MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for the treatment of addiction just might bring the much-needed relief of treating substance abuse to millions. Through rigorous scientific research, psychedelics like psilocybin and LSD's effectiveness for treating addiction has been revealed. ”A recent meta-analysis of randomized, double-blind, controlled studies suggests that people diagnosed with alcoholism reduced alcohol use after a single exposure to LSD [12].” Since MDMA is an entheogen that is similar enough in effect to psychedelics, researchers began to wonder if MDMA may also play a role in addiction treatment. Like an old married couple, addiction and trauma are intricately tied. So too, separating the effects of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy and psychedelic-assisted psychotherapies on addiction and PTSD may prove to be a challenging if not impossible task. However, because trauma and addiction are so causational, it may not be necessary to tweeze the two apart when it comes to finding effective treatments. What treats one, will naturally affect the other. 

MDMA's value in assisting psychotherapy is not new on the scene. Lisa Jerome and Shira Schuster et al. inform, ”MDMA was used by some psychotherapists as an adjunct to psychotherapy, prior to becoming a Schedule 1 controlled substance due to extensive use in non-medical settings [15, 17-19]. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, therapists around the U.S. combined MDMA with psychotherapy to address neuroses, relationship difficulties, psychological problems, and PTSD [20, 21].” Because of MDMA's euphoric effects, the biggest concern posed for the use of MDMA in addiction treatment is its potential for being an addictive substance itself. The article, ”Can MDMA Play a Role in the Treatment of Substance Abuse?” posits, ”While MDMA appears to be a promising treatment for at least one psychiatric disorder when combined with psychotherapy, it also possesses moderate abuse potential.” And yet other studies have supported the notion that intention for its use as a therapeutic drug may minimize if not void its potential to trigger addiction. Authors point out, ”In another study of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy in people with PTSD, urinary drug screens taken during follow-up assessments were all negative [26].” While euphoria will undoubtedly be part of the experience, during an MDMA facilitated psychotherapeutic session clients may experience a range of emotions, including painful or fearful memories. This challenging faucet of the MDMA psychotherapeutic use, in theory, mitigates the risk of future repeat "high" seeking behavior. 

How Does MDMA Work to Treat Substance Abuse? 

MDMA decreases activity in the amygdala, the part of the brain that detects threats. With the amygdala less active, feelings of fear are reduced. MDMA affects facial expression threat signals, decreasing the subjects' ability to detect anger on the faces of those around them. This decrease in facial threat expression perception means the subject feels more trusting, open, and close to the people around them and therefore more likely to open up about their trauma. In couples therapy, it means that the defenses which have built up between the couple come down. In the article MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for PTSD: Are memory reconsolidation and fear extinction underlying mechanisms? they explore the specific actions MDMA has on brain activity.”Studies in healthy individuals have demonstrated that MDMA mediates emotional memory processing. MDMA reduced left amygdala response to angry facial expressions (Bedi et al., 2009) and caused unpleasant memories to be rated as less negative, visualized as less activation of the left anterior temporal lobe and greater activation of the superior frontal gyrus/dorsal medial prefrontal cortex (Carhart-Harris et al., 2014).”  

Studies show that MDMA increases empathy and prosocial behavior. The exact mechanism of this function is still being investigated. We do know that MDMA increases both serotonin (the feel-good hormone) and oxytocin (the bonding hormone). Studies done on rodents with MDMA and an oxytocin receptor agonist that blocks the production of oxytocin, have shown no increase in prosocial behavior. This points to MDMA's action of increasing oxytocin as the key feature for the prosocial aspect. Oxytocin alone has decreased self-administration of methamphetamine in rodents which has led to the proposal of Oxytocin itself as a potential treatment for substance abuse and PTSD. While many studies point to MDMA's action on decreasing amygdala and hippocampus activity, some studies do show increases in anxiety. With the amygdala quiet, it seems unlikely that an increase in anxiety would be chemical. Nevertheless, Lisa Jerome and Shira Schuster et al. assert, "MDMA produces increases in positive mood, energy, and anxiety, and like psychedelics, it induces altered perception, which can include viewing events, thoughts or feelings in a new way [22, 45].” 

Could it be that MDMA's action of increasing activity in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) stimulates memory recall which facilitates the unearthing of traumatic memories to be processed? In this process, an increase in anxiety may be a natural byproduct, however much less than it would be to relive the traumatic event unassisted by the MDMA. According to Wikipedia, ”An important function of the DLPFC is the executive functions, such as working memory, cognitive flexibility,[9] planning, inhibition, and abstract reasoning.[10] However, the DLPFC is not exclusively responsible for the executive functions. All complex mental activity requires the additional cortical and subcortical circuits with which the DLPFC is connected.[11] The DLPFC is also the highest cortical area that is involved in motor planning, organization and regulation.[11]” 

A Shortcut to Classical Conditioning - Exposure Therapies 

Horses are prey animals with an enormous amygdala. For this reason, horses live in a heightened state of fear much of the time. They need this fear detection superpower in the wild so they can detect the presence of a predator early enough to have a chance at getting away. In the human-horse world, there is a common practice of desensitization. When a horse is scared of something, which could be anything from the sound a tarp or plastic bag makes to a riding lawn mower, the more exposure to the scary object the better. It's not safe for humans to be around horses that spook at the drop of a hat because they are upwards of a thousand pounds. If they get so scared they run in a panic, the handler might get run right over. To minimize this risk, the handler will intentionally expose them to the scary object, wait for their fear response to relax ever so slightly, and then retreat from the scary object, take a short break and then go back to the scary object again. The repetition of this process allows the horse to make new associations with the scary object. After they have been exposed to it a hundred times and their handler was right there with them to protect them, they learn that it's not a scary object after all and trust is built.

There is a similar process for treating PTSD, called Classical Conditioning. In the article MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for PTSD: Are memory reconsolidation and fear extinction underlying mechanisms?, they explain "The process of learning through repeated exposure to the conditioned stimuli without encountering the unconditioned stimuli is known as extinction and leads to reduction in the fear response while leaving the original fear memory intact (Ponnusamy et al., 2016).” Imagine a war veteran who has just returned home from Iraq walking down the street and immediately hits the deck when he hears the sound of a car backfiring. This is a conditioned reaction related to trauma. This same veteran will need to be exposed to many sounds like this without anything around him blowing up or anyone getting shot to recognize he is now safe even in the presence of sudden loud noises. Expounding on this, the article explains ”Exposure therapies used to treat PTSD aim to extinguish fear by presenting fear-triggering cues in imaginal narratives and reality-based situations while the person is in a safe setting.”

The effects MDMA has on memory recall coupled with the feelings of euphoria and safety that accompany it allows for this exposure therapy to unfold throughout one treatment. When the clients can recall traumas that happened a decade ago as if they occurred just yesterday and process them without the triggered fear response, without feeling unsafe, the effects are lasting. ”In context of PTSD treatment, the authors suggest that reducing details of emotional events may be advantageous to re-encode trauma memories with novel emotional associations.” (Allison A. Feduccia a, Michael C. Mithoefer, 2018) ”Hypothetically, when trauma memories are retrieved while under the influence of MDMA during therapy, a strong prediction error is generated by the unique internal state of MDMA-stimulated elevation of neurochemicals/hormones and the supportive therapeutic setting. This mismatch of experience, i.e. recall of memory with strong fear/anxiety vs. recall with additional emotions such as love or empathy, would allow for an update of information through molecular mechanisms.”

Life Stories, Personality and Memory Reconsolidation

Epictetus said, ”Circumstances don't make the man, they reveal him to himself.” Similarly, esteemed personality psychologist Dan Mcadams tells us that our personality resides in how we tell our life stories and the meaning we give to the events of our lives. Memoirist William Maxwell is quoted in the book, Mistakes Were Made (but not by me), "What we...refer to confidently as memory... is really a form of storytelling that goes on continually in the mind and often changes with the telling." Memory research has revealed that memory is subjective and dependent on self-concept, confirmation bias’ and the avoidance of cognitive dissonance. Personality has been shown in large part to be genetic. Through genetics and epigenetics, our family stories about the way we see ourselves in the world are passed on to us. Studies have shown entheogens have the power to change our epigenetics; the codes on top of our genes. Could it be that this happens by giving us access to a new way of telling our story? MDMA-assisted psychotherapy supports us in doing just that through memory reconsolidation. The article MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for PTSD: Are memory reconsolidation and fear extinction underlying mechanisms? explains it this way, ”The term, memory reconsolidation, describes a type of neuroplasticity that involves the process of an established memory being reactivated, destabilized, and then modified or updated with additional information.” Furthermore, ”Once a memory becomes destabilized and labile during a therapy session, MDMA may influence activity in neurocircuitry necessary for learning and memory.” This approach is based on observations that the pharmacological effects of MDMA in this setting facilitate a variety of therapeutic experiences. These typically include reprocessing of traumatic memories with clearer recall and increased equanimity without emotional numbing or dissociation.“

Belonging

The need to belong is one of the most fundamental aspects of our well-being. In Elliot Aronson's book, The Social Animal, he writes about the consequences of a lack of belonging, “On a less extreme level, feeling socially disconnected can cause people to lose the ability to regulate their emotions and control their attention, behavior, and impulses. Rejected, isolated students tend to do worse on tests, eat more junk food, and behave more aggressively than do students who feel part of a group.” It should be argued that Aronson's examples are just the tip of the iceberg. Some people may eat more junk food, others may inject heroin, smoke crack, or imbibe large amounts of alcohol. The bottom line is that feeling that one doesn't belong deregulates emotions and often leads to self-destructive behaviors. The closeness, lack of social anxiety, and connection one feels while undergoing MDMA-assisted psychotherapy begin to open the door to social belonging. People feel accepted and seen for who they truly are. Just a few hours of experiencing this can have an enormous impact on the individual's overall sense of belonging. The article Can MDMA Play a Role in the Treatment of Substance Abuse? asserts, “People report experiencing greater compassion, feelings of sociability, closeness and empathy for others and themselves while under the influence of MDMA [39, 52, 65, 68-70].” 

A renaissance of the effects of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy on PTSD, addiction, and couples therapy is well underway. In stage three clinical trials, the compound's unique impact on memory reconsolidation, reduction in fear response, feelings of closeness, and self-compassion is evidenced in helping individuals rewrite their narratives and the meanings they give to the traumatic events of their lives. This aid in assisting people to process and re-code their painful experiences is promising for the treatment of PTSD and addiction therapy alike. The sense of belonging that one feels during the MDMA-assisted psychotherapy sessions ripples out into real-world social confidence and self-acceptance. 


​

Unity Consciousness Through Quieting the Default Mode Network - The Wonders of Psilocybin 

From MAPS (Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Study) to Harvard, to Yale to Johns Hopkins University, to the University of Zurich, the study of psychedelic therapy is exploding across the academic domain, and the results are legitimizing. These groundbreaking studies have revealed some profound common threads between reports and brain scans of long-term meditators and those partaking in psychedelic therapies. 

From the fourteen-month follow-up interviews with Roland Griffiths's 2017 study participants, some words echo the theme of Positive Psychology concepts. "The part that continued to stick out for me was "knowing" and "seeing" and "experiencing" with every sense and fiber of my being that all things are connected," "The sense that all is One, that I experienced the essence of the Universe and the knowing that God asks nothing of us except to receive love." Furthermore, "The feeling of no boundaries - where I didn't know where I ended and my surroundings began. Somehow I was able to comprehend what oneness is." 1 Johan Hari writes about these findings in his book Lost Connections - Why You're Depressed and How to Find Hope, "As he read through this, Roland noticed one thing in particular. The way people described feeling when they took psychedelics was strikingly similar to the way people said they felt if they had a deep, sustained program of meditation." 2 (276) "Roland was curious to learn whether there was any connection between the experiences long-term meditators were having and the experiences people have when they are given psychedelics. If these are two different routes to feeling the same thing, would that help us figure out what was really going on? "2 (276) 

The John Hopkins University study, "Psilocybin-occasioned mystical-type experience in combination with meditation and other spiritual practices produces enduring positive changes in psychological functioning and in trait measures of prosocial attitudes and behaviors," 1 done by Roland Griffith, involved 75 participants who were separated into three groups of 25 each based on six factors to keep the groups as balanced as possible. The factors were; gender, age, lifetime psychedelic use, baseline lifetime Hood Mysticism Scale score, baseline frequency of meditation, and staff judgment about whether the participant was especially likely to engage in spiritual practices. That last factor seems highly subjective for a scientific study. Nevertheless, it is unlikely to have a strong influence on the study's outcome. The group was overall highly educated at 87% with a college or postgraduate degree. They had a mean age of 42. 31% were practiced meditators; however, the mean time for meditation practice was only once a month before joining the study. 

The three groups received different dosages of psilocybin and differing levels of social support. Low dose with standard support, high dose with standard support, and high dose with high support. Standard support consisted of 7 hours and 20 minutes of one on one time throughout the study up to 6 months after. The high support group received 35 hours of one on one time through 6 months post-study. A general spiritual meditation practice was introduced to participants one month before the first dosing session and two months before the second. All participants were given the book, Meditation: A Simple 8-Point Program for Translating Spiritual Ideals into Daily Life by Eknath Easwaran. Dosing sessions took place in a living room type setting with an eye covering to minimize external distractions. Participants wore earphones with the same classical and world music playlist played for each of the participants. Seven hours after dosing and once the effects had worn off, the participants filled out four questionnaires: Hallucinogen rating scale (HRS), 5-Dimension Altered States of Consciousness (5D-ASC), 9 - point Mysticism Scale, and the States of Consciousness Questionnaire (MEQ30). There was an interesting finding shown in figure 2. of the "guide ratings of volunteer and mood assessed throughout the psilocybin session." 1 Of the three groups, the level of the positive emotional experiences of Joy and Intense Happiness, and Peace and Harmony, in all three dosing categories, it was the groups with "standard" and not "high" support that scored the highest. This finding speaks to a level of personal agency that may contribute to these emotions. Alternately, in the MEQ30, all five factors of Mystical Experience, Positive Mood, Transcendence of Time and Space, Ineffability, were elevated the highest in the high support groups. Even though these categories are not entirely alike with the positive emotions I listed above, they are all in effect, of the positive emotion scale; therefore, it is curious that the contradictory findings were revealed for this particular questionnaire. Perhaps it has to do with the difference between the self-reporting system of the MEQ30 and the guide/observer's reporting system of the latter. 

Essentially, the results show that the high dose groups, both with standard and with high support, showed significantly higher lasting positive psychological effects. "Similar findings were shown for the percentage of each group providing strong endorsements of these same three dimensions. For example, 12%, 76%, and 96% of the LD-SS, HD-SS, and HD-HS groups, respectively, rated the experience(s) among the top five most spiritual experiences of their lives, with 0%, 40%, and 56%, respectively, indicating it to be the single most spiritually significant experience of their life." 1

The Harvard study," Functional-Anatomic Fractionation of the Brain's Default Network," 3 shows with brain scans the default mode network is composed of two cores; the posterior cingulate and anterior medial prefrontal cortex. The posterior cingulate cortex is responsible for the perception that distinguishes us from another person or object. The medial prefrontal cortex is responsible for our perception of time. Brain scans show there are two known things that shut down the default mode network; meditation and psychedelics. Ordinarily, when the brain is not engaged in a task or specific function, the DMN runs wild. In the meditation community, this is often called "the monkey mind." Through meditation, especially concentration practice, we learn to bring our mind back to a certain point of attention. The Buddha used the place on the nose where the breath enters through the nostrils. This practice is called Vipassana Meditation. When we sit in meditation and watch our thoughts arise, we witness the DMN in action until the brain calms down. When we choose not to follow the impulse to become absorbed into our thoughts but instead continuously turn our attention back to the sensation at the nostrils as the breath enters and exits, we begin to quiet the DMN. For some, the DMN calms down in a matter of minutes. For others, it may take years of practice for it to settle down to a significant degree. When the default mode network shuts down, we lose our perception of ourselves," other," and time. 
Gary Weber Ph.D. has said in Happiness Beyond Thought a Practical Guide to Awakening, "We have found in the on-going Yale study that experienced meditators can permanently change their DMN to one that does not have the randomly wandering self-narrative, as mine has done, to one of stillness." 4 The Yale study he speaks of, "Meditation experience is associated with differences in default mode network activity and connectivity," 5 was able to confirm through brain scans that the DMN of Gary Weber and other long term meditators had, in fact, been deactivated. 

If meditation and psychedelics alike have the power to still the default mode network, the next logical question is; what happens when these two modalities are combined? Lukasz Smigielski, Milan Scheidegger, Michael Kometer, and Franz X. Vollenweider of the University of Zurich Switzerland sought answers to this very question when they conducted the study, "Psilocybin-assisted mindfulness training modulates self-consciousness and brain default mode network connectivity with lasting effects." 6 Picture a serene meditation center located in the Swiss Alps with silent participants dressed in monks robes during a five day silent Zen and Vipassana traditional meditation retreat, which included sitting meditation, walking meditation, physical mindfulness work, and psilocybin. "Both psychedelics and meditation exert profound modulatory effects on consciousness, perception, and cognition, but their combined, possibly synergistic effects on neurobiology are unknown. Accordingly, we conducted a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study with 38 participants following a single administration of the psychedelic psilocybin (315μg/kg p.o.) during a 5-day mindfulness retreat." 6 Participants had a collective active high level of meditation experience with a mean average of 5,600 hours of meditation experience. Each participant had little to no psychedelic experience before the study. These were fifteen-hour days of meditation, which began with three days of pre-psilocybin mindfulness preparation. On day four, a double-blind placebo-controlled administration of psilocybin or placebo was administered, and the same daily mindfulness practice activities of the retreat were carried out. Day five was a deep meditative integration day. Brain MRI scans were collected on the day before and after the retreat. At the four-month post-retreat mark, a self-assessment was done by participants as well as close family and friends regarding psychological well being, behaviors, and attitudes using the HOOD mysticism scale. The psilocybin group scored much higher on this HOOD assessment than did the control group. Also significant was the observed lack of anxiety, which can be present to varying degrees in other psilocybin study settings. The lack of anxiety noted offers strong evidence that a mindfulness centered approach to psilocybin therapy may be a highly beneficial method. Each evening of the retreat, participants filled out a "depth of meditation" questionnaire. Depth of meditation scored higher across the board in the psilocybin group than that of the placebo. Also, higher levels of ego disillusionment were reported in the psilocybin group. The MRI findings showed decreased activity in the default mode network in both the placebo and the psilocybin group, with a more significant decrease shown in the psilocybin group. The reduced activity in the DMN is a groundbreaking discovery for depression recovery. The Default Mode Network is the network involved in maladaptive self-referential processing associated with depression. "The study highlights the link between altered self-experience and subsequent behavioral changes. Understanding how interventions facilitate transformative experiences may open novel therapeutic perspectives." 6

The study's findings support the theory that compounding effects of meditation and psilocybin together have a more profound impact on the default mode network than meditation alone. "Psilocybin administered in a mindfulness retreat setting significantly potentiated positively felt states of ego dissolution (i.e., OSB, oceanic self-boundlessness) compared to the placebo." 6

In his forward of The Translucent Revolution, Ken Wilber asserts that psychedelics can open people to unity consciousness differently depending on their current outlook. "If you are in an ethnocentric stage of development and you have a unity-state experience of being one with everything, you might interpret that as an experience of oneness with Jesus and conclude that nobody can be saved unless they accept Jesus as their personal savior. If you are at an egocentric stage and have the same experience, you might believe that you yourself are Jesus. If you are at an …integral stage …you are likely to conclude that you and all sentient beings without exception are one in the spirit." 7 (22) Could it be that the meditation component included in the University of Zurich study brought the study subjects into an "integral stage," and thus, the psilocybin group had the outcome of sensing that "all sentient beings without exception are one in the spirit?" 7 (22) 

The reports of unity consciousness activation by way of the therapeutic use of entheogens are numerous. A questionnaire study post-psychedelic therapeutic session punctuates this in The Psychedelic Explorer's Guide "What single event or insight, if any, during the LSD experience do you consider to have been of greatest meaning to you?" are of sufficient interest to be worth summarizing briefly." 7 Out of 158 people, 53 reported the same answer, "Experiencing an underlying reality, a sense of oneness with all of life, of unity and purpose, of love, of the presence of a Higher Power." 7 (302)

Johan Hari, in Lost Connections, adds to the scientific findings of ego disillusionment, "They found that if you give people psychedelic drugs—mostly LSD, which was legal at the time—under clinical conditions, you can fairly predictably cause them to have what feel like spiritual experiences. You can make them feel they are transcending their egos and their everyday concerns and connecting intensely with something much deeper—with other people, with nature, even with the nature of existence itself. The vast majority of people given the drug by doctors said that it made them feel this way, and that the experience seemed profound to them." 2 While Hari's intent is to point out the antidepressant quality of psychedelics, the terminology, "cause them to have what feels like a spiritual experience" may be missing the mark. Perhaps instead, there exists in the human brain, something like a separation valve; the DMN. This separation valve acts as a veil or a filter, which prevents us from seeing things as they truly are, all one consciousness. In this sense, when we deactivate the DMN through meditation or plant medicines such as psilocybin, the blinders are removed, making visible the spiritual experience which is always present. Instead of plants as a way to "make them feel they are transcending their egos," the plants are lifting the filtered glasses of the ego."

Our confirmation bias acts as the seal on the envelope of our perceptions. William James is quoted in Ram Dass' book Be Here Now," 'No account of the universe in its totality can be final which leaves these other forms of consciousness quite disregarded. How to regard them is the question, for they are so discontinuous with ordinary consciousness. They may determine attitudes, though they can not furnish formulas and open a region though they fail to give a map.' At any rate, concludes James, 'They forbid our premature closing of accounts with reality.' In spite of what he said, we've closed our accounts with reality (most of us)." 8 The newfound access to science-based research regarding the use of entheogenic medicine alongside meditation may very well be that map we need to get us past our individualistic closed" accounts with reality" and thereby open us up to the awareness of our greater oneness. 

The Scientific American published an article by John Horgan shortly after the death of Baba Ramdass that tells the story Ramdass himself has told in many of his lectures. It is a story about what happened when he gave a very high LSD dose to his spiritual guru, Maharajji, in India. "The guru asked him for the "medicine." Then they sat in Satsang all day together, and absolutely nothing happened." LSD didn't affect Maharajji, Ram Dass implied, because the guru already had such a profoundly mystical outlook. This message corroborated the overarching theme of Be Here Now, that spiritual practices such as meditation and yoga can induce the same powerful mystical states as psychedelics but in a more stable, permanent fashion." 9

It has been said that lasting change happens through repetition or impact. Change through meditation occurs over a long period of time. Through repetition, we can create lasting brain changes in which the default mode network is turned down. Long-term meditators may experience a sense of oneness as this occurs. The sense of "selfness" dissolves. In this case, meditation is the cause of change through repetition. Psilocybin and other psychedelics create brain changes that happen quickly through impact. As Roland Griffith was quoted yet again in Lost Connections, "If meditation is the tried and true course for [discovering this]," Roland said, "psilocybin surely has to be the crash course." 2 When used in combination, the results have shown to be substantial for creating lasting psychological benefits. When our sense of self and otherness dissolves, we experience a state of ultimate connection with the world around us and our fellow human beings. In this sense, maybe meditation and psychedelics have the power to cure us of our egos' tendency toward "othering" and, therefore, help us heal the wounds of division, like racism, sexism, ageism, and every other "ism" known to humankind. 

References:

1. Psilocybin-occasioned mystical-type experience in combination with meditation and other spiritual practices produces enduring positive changes in psychological functioning and in trait measures of prosocial attitudes and behaviors - Roland R Griffiths, Matthew W Johnson, William A Richards, Brian D Richards, Robert Jesse, Katherine A MacLean, Frederick S Barrett, Mary P Cosimano, and Maggie A Klinedinst
   
2. Lost Connections - Why Your' e Depressed and How to Find Hope by Johan Hari
   
3. Functional-Anatomic Fractionation of the Brain's Default Network Jessica R. Andrews-Hanna, Jay S. Reidler, [...], and Randy L. Buckner https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2848443/#!po=1.31579 
   
4. http://happinessbeyondthought.blogspot.com/2011/12/what-is-default-mode-network-folk-on.html
   
5. Meditation experience is associated with differences in default mode network activity and connectivity Judson A. Brewer,a,1 Patrick D. Worhunsky,a Jeremy R. Gray,b Yi-Yuan Tang,c Jochen Weber,d and Hedy Kobera https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3250176/
   
6. Psilocybin-assisted mindfulness training modulates self-consciousness and brain default mode network connectivity with lasting effects - Milan Scheidegger and Franz X. Vollenweider
   
7. The Translucent Revolution by Arjuna Ardagh, forward by Ken Wilber
   
8. The Psychedelic Explorer's Guide by James Fadiman
   
9. Be Here Now - Baba Ram Das AKA Richard Alpert P.h.D
   
10. The Scientific American:https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/baba-ram-dass-and-the-tale-of-the-acid-gobbling-guru/https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/baba-ram-dass-and-the-tale-of-the-acid-gobbling-guru/
    
11. Validation of the revised Mystical Experience Questionnaire in experimental sessions with psilocybin Frederick S Barrett, Matthew W Johnson, and Roland R Griffiths
    

I've been thinking a lot about control and belonging lately and wondering how they relate to the dichotomy of freedom versus safety, especially in our current cultural experience of COVID-19. There is a lot of struggle between the two in the media, on social media, at the grocery store, and displayed at a diverse array of protests. Some people appear to be ready to accept the "new normal" of restricted movement, mandatory mask-wearing and mandatory "vaccination" in the name of safety. Others vehemently oppose the removal of these "freedoms" and would rather take their chances with the virus than lose a shred of personal agency. Freedom is a form of having control over one's life. Whether it is scientifically sound or not, there is a message of safety in the action of wearing a mask and vaccine passports in order to escape the virus and protect others from it. There is also an element of safety (virus escaping aside) that masking and the receiving the injection has on our sense of belonging. Belonging represents safety in the sense that we find safety in the herd. Baumeister elaborates on belonging in his article, The Need to Belong: Desire for Interpersonal Attachments as a Fundamental Human Motivation, "The innate quality presumably has an evolutionary basis. The desire to form and maintain social bonds has both survival and reproductive benefits." Conforming to the rules of the group not only gives us a sense of belonging, but our desire to belong is also enmeshed with our need for safety. Elliot Aronson has described this dichotomy of needs in another way in his book, The Social Animal, "One consequence of the fact that we are social animals is that we live in a state of tension between values associated with individuality and values associated with conformity."

Aronson uses a story from humorist James Thurber's autobiography to discuss this topic further in the chapter on conformity in his book, The Social Animal. If the group around us is running in one direction, is it safest to assume they must be running from something dangerous and join the crowd? Alternatively, we could choose to be individualistic at that moment and declare our freedom to do our "own thing." But if we are wrong, the consequences can be deadly. Adding another layer to this decision-making process is considering whether or not our choice to buck the herd may cause harm to others. This is the conundrum of our present-day situation. To mask or not to mask. To be injected or to trust our immune systems. At the very least, those decision call into question the impression of the potential for causing harm to others. Aronson describes this well in a different context, "That conformist reflex was undoubtedly crucial in our hunter-gatherer past; indeed nonconformity can be disastrous. Suppose I suddenly decide I am fed up with being a conformist. So I hop in my car and start driving down the left-hand side of the road—not a terribly smart or adaptive way of expressing my rugged individualism and not very fair to you if you happen to be driving toward me (conformist-style) on the same street."

On the other hand, Elliot warns, "Sometimes the need to conform will even silence an individual's certain knowledge of a forthcoming disaster." Evolutionarily speaking, our inclination towards conformity has proved to be a successful survival skill. Aronson also points out that historically, our tendency to conform has equally had devastating consequences. He cites the example of what occurred in Nazi Germany, among others, "In his memoirs, Albert Speer, one of Hitler's top advisers, described the circle around Hitler as one of total conformity—deviation was not permitted." Indeed, the Nazi’s had a phrase to justify and conceal their intentions for the Jews, ”für ihr sicherheit” which means, ”for your safety.”

I've been spending some time with horses lately. Horses are well known for their representation of freedom. However, they are also prey animals and find their safety in the herd. One interesting thing about horses is that what they really want from humans is the promise of safety. These prey animals will acquiesce to the will of their human captors but not without gain. In a sense, they revoke their freedom in trade for safety. Once in the safety of the pasture or the barn, they no longer have to worry about survival in the same way. Their handlers meet their food and water needs, and protection from other predatory animals is established. This is quite appealing to vulnerable animals. 

What about human animals? We are at the top of the food chain because of our brains' capacity. But we are also incredibly vulnerable, naked, delicate creatures. Desmon Morris goes into great detail regarding this unique quality of our species in his book, The Naked Ape, "The temperature-controlling devices are of vital importance, and the possession of a thick, hairy, insulating coat obviously plays a major roll in preventing heat loss. In intense sunlight it will also prevent over-heating and damage to the skin from direct exposure to the sun's rays." Our vulnerability goes far beyond our hairlessness. If we were alone and naked in a field with no weapons, our food chain status would suddenly drop significantly. Part of what keeps us a dominant animal is our connection to each other. Our society and culture functions in a similar fashion as does the horse and it's handler. 

As long as we go along with society's rules, we get to enjoy a certain amount of safety and security. What we trade for that sense of safety are varying degrees of freedom. In 2020 as the media bombards the citizens with mortality reminders, real or imagined dangers lurking behind that conceptual curtain of security in our perception has ballooned. The media has thereby increased the appeal for safety in the human brain. The prospect of trading more personal agency for greater protection from the looming threat seems logical. In this sense, all that a manipulative social system has to do to gain greater control over its people is to present a more significant outside threat. As society adds more and more rules to its domain, the human-animal looking for safety will gladly follow each additional restriction and willingly succumb to submission. 

On the other side of this spectrum, we have the freedom fighters. Many of which appear to be of the right-wing ideology (at least that is what is portrayed in the media). It is suspect that some of their behavior may be motivated by the need to display Sociopolitical Control. According to the article, "Desire for control, perception of control: their impact on autonomous motivation and psychological adjustment" written by, Camille Amoura, Sophie Berjot, Nicolas Gillet, Emin Altintas, "Sociopolitical Control refers to the individuals' attempts to defend their personal goals and values in the political and social world." Many people representing the right wing group have shown up at various state capital buildings across the country with their assault rifles to protest and rebel against the societal force of law that threatens their personal agency. What the media has not portrayed is that many have protested the same removal of freedoms in a more peaceful fashion. 

Through fear tactics, the media puppeteer and its comrade social media seem to have convinced us that the majority of the left-wing has taken the safety the new rules offer and willfully given up their freedom to do so. While we are told the right-wing hasn't taken the bait or at least doesn't value society's protection but instead sees the government as the threat itself (What the media doesn't point out is that there are more than a few genuinely rogue non-partisans who oppose the mainstream storyline). Prominent social psychologist Jonathan Heidt talks about this polarization phenomenon in a recent interview in The Atlantic. "And when you look at the people who are loudest on Twitter and elsewhere, it's quite clear that this pandemic is turning into just another culture-war issue, where people on the left see what they want to see and people on the right see what they want to see."

Social psychologist Elliot Aronson expands on the driving forces behind this phenomenon in his book, The Social Animal. "These tendencies helped keep us alive when we fought with stones and clubs, but over the millennia the human tendency to see the world in tribal, us-and-them terms has laid the foundation for conflict, political division, hatred, and war." Our us-and-them tribal mind drives the stake of our confirmation bias' deep into the ground of our selective thinking. Thus, through the "us" group of our choosing, our biases and values become firmly rooted in our constructed reality's groupthink structure. Elliot defines it this way, "groupthink: a kind of thinking in which maintaining group agreement overrides a careful consideration of the facts in a realistic manner." This oppositional nature of politics is far-reaching, and the chasm that divides us appears to be growing deeper every day. 

Those with a greed-driven intent have indeed been using the science of Social Psychology to weaponize against us our human needs for control and belonging for quite some time. Intentional societal manipulation has been in play, at least since the onset of the Industrial Revolution. This phenomenon has been made clear in "The Century of The Self - Happiness Machines" documentary. One iteration of this manipulation was the "Torches of Freedom" slogan calling for women to pick up the habit of smoking. In this example, "Torches of Freedom" preyed on the personal agency aspect of control. The control over one's life to do whatever they want, to have the freedom to smoke. Once enough women fell into the trap and started smoking, it's enticement would expand to include filling the need for belonging, since everyone was doing it. Knowing of the capitalistic manipulative nature of the media, it is a wonder that most educated people still take what they hear on the media as gospel and still believe the powers that be have the people's best interest at heart. 

Looking through today's pandemic lens, the media’s use of the words "for your safety," might be interchangeable with the words, ”control over the population.” It all depends on what is true. And how are we to know what is true, when we  know that the media has been manipulating us for their own interest at least since the Industrial Revolution? In the face of a global pandemic, public relations has aptly targeted our need for personal control and safety alike. In the article "Desire for control, perception of control: their impact on autonomous motivation and psychological adjustment," they explain this universal need well. "Personal Control is close to SE (Bandura 1977; Skinner 1996). It refers to the individuals' perception (or belief) that performing the required behaviors can lead to the desired outcome. In other words, personal control is a judgment that one has the ability, resources, or opportunities to take action to increase the likelihood of obtaining positive outcomes or avoiding negative ones" (Thompson and Schlehofer 2008, p. 42). Take wearing masks, for example. Wearing a mask in public has become one of those new societal rules that we must abide by. The idea is that if we wear a mask out in public, we are gaining some sense of personal control in the hopes of a more favorable outcome. From a psychological perspective, regardless of the efficacy of masks to prevent viral spread, this "perception" of control may very well be helping people maintain their sanity in the midst of what otherwise feels like a completely out of control situation. Since science is ever changing and by no means free from political bias, there are a plethora of scientific studies that support both the idea that masks do help and also the idea that they are making things worse. But for this specific psychological exploration, that particular debate is beside the point.
 
What if someone is not agreeable with trading their freedom for the safety of the herd or society's rules and regulations? What if they don't believe the media messaging and the imposition of fear? One might choose to head to the Capital wielding semi-automatics. This certainly is not a very diplomatic option. So, what can they do if they don't agree with the ideology of toting big guns around to prove their freedom? What of the citizen who respects the needs and feelings of those around them and yet also desires to maintain their own need for personal agency? Going back to the analogy of handler and horse as a metaphor of society's hold on the individual, this nameless character might feel like a captured horse who senses that its handler's intentions are impure. After all, it is the building of trust that makes this arrangement work. Building real trust with its people is something the United States government has failed to achieve in any real way. 

The contrast of Sweden's response to the pandemic is stark. There appears to be mutual trust between their people and their government. Instead of mandates, they have simply advised their citizens to take common-sense precautions, and the people have gladly agreed. This difference may be attributed to the theory of external justification versus internal justification. In the book The Social Animal, Elliot Aronson defines external justification as "a person's justification for his or her dissonant behavior that is situation-determined." He describes internal justification as "the reduction of dissonance by changing something about oneself (e.g., one's attitude or behavior) in the direction of one's statements." A government like the USA who uses mandates and fines, and scare tactics to impose mask-wearing, provides plenty of external justification to wear a mask. External justification works so long as the person thinks someone may be watching who could impose consequences if they don't wear a mask. But since it requires no personalization of the decision, the person is likely not to wear one when they think no authorities are looking. Contrarily, a country like Sweden has offered its citizens the opportunity to formulate internal justification. With no outside threat of consequences, if a person makes the initial choice to wear a mask despite it being uncomfortable, they will have to increase their internal belief in the benefit of wearing one. They will naturally do this to reduce the experience of cognitive dissonance that choosing to wear a mask even though it is uncomfortable, may cause. A causality of this as Aronson points out is that, “It is those who are threatened with mild punishment who develop a dislike for the forbidden activity; people who are severely threatened, if anything, are even more drawn to the forbidden activity.” Therefore the Swedes who were under mild to no threat of external punishment, if they have ever worn a mask, are more likely to continue to wear a mask even when they think no authority is looking. 

Due to the mistrust between the United States government and its citizens, some may resist submission to either party and their groupthink agendas. However, as much as any of us claim to be non-conformists, rugged individualists, we still can't extract the particular spice that is ourselves from the soup of the society we swim in. Like it or not, we do not exist as sovereign animals. We are "Social Animals." As Fyodor Dostoyevsky puts it in his novel The Brothers Karamazov, "Rebel comrades are after all, not natural friends, not community, not family but merely, unchosen, inescapable company." In this sense, we may be inseparable from the herd and yet left with a feeling of being tribeless. 

One of the most significant ways we are intertwined with society at large is through the media. Indeed it is striking to realize the impact of "media contagion." And the effect it has on the emotions and actions of those who are tuning into it. Which incidentally is almost everyone. Aronson writes about the impact of "Emotional Contagion, which occurs when one person's emotional behavior triggers similar emotions and behaviors in observers." He gives the example of the spike in teen suicide that followed the sensationalized media coverage of four teenagers who died after carrying out a suicide pact in the 1980s in New Jersey.

In another example, Elliot wrote about the cyanide-laced Tylenol that killed seven people in Chicago in 1982. Even back then, when we didn't yet have internet or social media, the media's message of these poisonings we're unavoidable. This caused mass paranoia, and people began going to the hospital for every little discomfort, afraid they had been poised. Aronson expands on media manipulation as he tells us, "when the media bombard viewers with bad news about crime and terrorism, people will overestimate the prevalence of violence and disaster." In 2020, one could insert "COVID death tolls" into that sentence as we can see the effects of hysteria, causing some to wear masks even while driving alone in their vehicles. While Elliot referred to the perception of violent threats in the country, it stands to reason that anything repetitious that instigates a person's fight or flight response would have the same effect. He goes on to say, "Such coverage obviously presents a distorted picture of the world." Aronson points out, "It is good to be informed, and the media play a crucial role in keeping us informed. However, there can be a downside to this kind of exposure, as well. Whether it is intentional or not, repeated vivid imagery of this sort shapes attitudes and opinions." 

One human cognitive skill of efficiency that we use regularly is called Availability Heuristics. “The availability heuristic is the tendency to predict the likelihood of an event, or judge how risky it is, based on how easy it is to bring specific examples to mind.” When we are bombarded with media messaging, whatever the message is, it will be readily retrieved through heuristics causing us to psychologically inflate its prevalence. This is one of the ways we make sense of a world in which we are continually required to ingest enormous amounts of information and make decisions based on that information. Awareness of the way external input affects our world view is paramount. But is awareness itself enough to reign in its effect on us? Or is it better to turn off or at least dial back the amount of media and social media we ingest? 

Turning off the media may not be enough, either. We will be presented with choices like, should we send our children to school wearing masks all day? We may wonder what kind of psychological impact will this have on them. Perhaps this is the era where the commune will thrive. If we can not separate ourselves from the masses with whom we disagree, we might consider looking to create smaller communities of like-minded individuals with whom to strike the perfect balance between safety and freedom. Maybe this is our best option, considering how populated the planet has become and considering Elliot's assertion that human groups work most optimally with 150 or fewer members. "A useful implication of knowing the 150-person limit is that human organizations function better when they don't get too large when they can operate like communities rather than bureaucracies. Small schools have lower rates of violence and absences, better relationships, and higher-quality learning than larger, impersonal schools do. Being mindful of the limitations of our evolved hunter-gatherer minds provides ways of optimizing our lives and institutions." (Kindle location 502) . 

To escape society's grip, we would need to develop a self-sustaining model of life. This would have to entail learning to live off the land, growing our own food, and developing our own form of government. However, we need to be ever mindful of our susceptibility to entrapment as it relates to cognitive dissonance theory. Even if we decide to join a smaller unit of communal living and renounce our larger society, we are still susceptible to the problems associated with groupthink mentalities. Aronson defines entrapment as "the process by which people make a small decision, justify it, and over time find themselves increasingly committed to a belief or activity." He describes this entrapment process to be precisely the way many cult leaders have gotten their followers to commit terrible atrocities. 

To achieve harmony, peace, freedom, and belonging in just the right ratios, we will inevitably face the centuries-old human quest for Utopia and Self-actualization. Maybe it comes down to mindfulness and balance. Through mindfulness, we can gain awareness of our evolutionary biases born through cognitive dissonance theory and question our own perspectives. And if we are smart, we might adopt the strategy of the first president of the United States. In The Social Animal, it states, "As the historian Doris Kearns Goodwin75 pointed out, it was precisely for this reason that Abraham Lincoln chose a cabinet that included several people who disagreed with his policies about how best to end slavery." We can follow suit by including in our innermost circle those who are like-minded and also those who hold different perspectives from that of our own.

In conclusion, whether we call these diametric concepts, "safety and freedom," "control and belonging, or "conformity and individuality," just like horses, humans require a healthy balance between each. We are made from the fabric of our culture as much as we are a part of it. Like one piece in an elaborate quilt, we are bound together. Our humanity's very nature is to find ways to cooperate as we can not change the truth of our interdependence. And yet we all require the respect and dignity that can only be found in the personal agency to decide how we want the stitching and design to look on our particular patch of life.    

References:

1. Baumeister - The Need to Belong: Desire for Interpersonal Attachments as a Fundamental Human Motivation

2. The Social Animal by Elliot Aronson

3. The Naked Ape - Desmond Morris

4. "Desire for control, perception of control: their impact on autonomous motivation and psychological adjustment" written by, Camille Amoura, Sophie Berjot, Nicolas Gillet, Emin Altintas * "SE refers to "the belief in one's capabilities to organize and execute the courses of action required to manage prospective situations" (Bandura 1995, p. 2)

5. The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoyevsky




​

​The whole world walked into a cinema  
All were enthralled in the show 

So absorbed were they                            
they forgot they paid the dough 

They began to believe 
This story was their life 

When an actor yelled out, “Shooter!”   
You can imagine the strife
 
The whole world ran out of the theater
and poured out onto the streets 

They all scattered and scrambled        
to get home for relief

Everybody rushed 
To shelter in place     
 
The big plan 
Was to isolate        

With the world 
On the run     

No one stopped
To scout the gun  

In fact,
No one looked around at all         

In their minds, their neighbors 
One by one did fall

They battened down the hatches
They closed up all the walls
 
They turned on their televisions
To see the news of the streets 

To no one's surprise, they saw
The gunman on their screen

The death toll was rising 
The people were scared

By way of the panic
Prefrontal cortex impaired

All the while the film kept
Lacing through the reel

Which fed their adrenaline 
And told the people how to feel

Someone flipped a breaker
And the screen went black

With revolution calling
The reel fell off the track

The streets were empty
The sky was blue

The animals aplenty
They knew just what to do

They knocked on their neighbors doors
And exclaimed, “Come out and play!"

It was only a movie
"Come out and seize the day”

The people poured out of their houses
The oceans were clear, the rivers too

The sun was out and shining
The sky was crystal blue

Just when they
Were wondering “how?”

The projectionist pulled back the curtain
And took a bow