I should've gone to Divinity school
Meditations on wayward spirituality, supernatural patient encounters & the Tarot
Hi all,
I began this newsletter seventeen days ago. Before Russia’s criminal assaults on Ukraine, before Ash Wednesday, before a patient hugged me for the first time. Now, one of my best friends from Austin, TX is sleeping on my bedroom floor. After 48-hours of huge laughter, tumbling, twirling and loving, I'm ready to share these bits with you. Because it’s not all that serious.
Reader, I invite you to send your angels to Ukraine; that just one soul may be shrouded under a shield of miraculous grace. In this time of hideous, inhumane violence, I know prayer to be an unstoppable instrument of change.
I began 2022 with two distinct desires; to study the Tarot and to dance with discipline.
My journey with the Tarot began just a few months ago, and has already been one of the most revelatory, rewarding and enriching feats. My primary text, “Meditations on the Tarot: A Journey into Christian Hermeticism” (CMOTT), works through the 22 cards of the Major Arcana, handling each image as a spiritual exercise and “Letter”. This approach is completely divorced from the secular view of tarot as a fortune-telling mechanism. Instead, CMOTT treats the Tarot as an assembly of sacred symbols which reveal truths proportional to the depth of contemplation directed into each card.
Studying the Tarot has been enlightening beyond every expectation and measure of objectivity. It has also aggravated a deep spiritual and practical dissonance I wasn’t expecting to harbor.
I wish I had gone to Divinity school. Right now.
Instead of preparing for the medical school application process beginning in June, I’ve been researching Divinity school programs; poring over a fantasy in which I can pursue a Masters in Divinity (MDiv) while still holding my beloved, full-time clinical research position at the hospital. I thrifted a Boston College hoodie so I can wear it & pretend I attend their School of Divinity.
I want to go to Divinity School because I want to be heard. I want to have to read mystics like Simone Weil and Teresa of Avila and I want to write a dissertation on utilizing Tarot to elucidate the sacred magic of Catholic sacraments. Yesterday, I yelled to my dearest visiting friend that I want to be a Jesuit. I want to pursue heady theological works and utilize its language to support a career in palliative medicine.
Maybe this wanting is a systemic or academic issue. Maybe the desire can be assuaged with just more writing. But Divinity School also comes with a rostered community, built-in mentors and structured scholastic achievements. Instead of squirming around in spiritual solitude (Lenten desert), a circle of folks to engage with would be comforting. That’s all.
Spirit Serum was made to illuminate Spirit in everyday life. This means the mystical shows up in boxes of junk on the sidewalk, anonymous exchanges on public transit, in goals-of-care conversations in patient rooms. Most predictably, volunteering at the hospital every Wednesday evening continues to be my Daily Bread. (I’ve written about this more in-depth, here.)
Over the past two weeks, I spent time with a certain patient whose companionship has left an imperishable mark on my heart.
(I’ll call him) Hal was introduced to me, via his medical chart, as a classic-rock-loving, middle-aged male in a “vegetative state”. His social support consisted of a mostly-absent partner. Visits from volunteers were requested for ministerial presence.
I can’t and won’t articulate the nuances of the medical term, vegetative state, or what this means for a patient’s brain activity, but upon meeting Hal, his eyes and mouth were wide open.
When entering a patient’s room, I always give the same meek, radio-voice introduction, “Hi, I’m Abby. I’m a volunteer with the hospital. I heard you might want a visitor.”
Hal was unresponsive to verbal and visible cues. I pulled up a chair close to his head, which tilted backward, creating a tiny arch through his neck and spine.
Sitting with patients who are sedated, in a coma, “persistent vegetative state” or any form of unconsciousness has let me in on a novel sense of supernatural presence. Regardless of what the patients’ brain activity monitors may indicate about their sensory capacities, a palpable energy hovering above their recumbent body is irrefutable. Any verbal exchange between us is merely a fraction of the communication occuring in the astral plane.
After a couple of minutes with Hal, I felt a nudge to play classic rock aloud. I had never played music for a patient before. I didn’t know how the vibrations emanating from my phone’s speaker would shift our fragile environment.
The only band I know to classify as “classic rock” is Pink Floyd. Without much thought, I scrolled to my favorite song of theirs, Fat Old Sun.
The slow-moving, soft-toned verses filled the space between us with grace. Almost immediately, Hal’s eye movements reactively sped up. His mouth closed and fell back open. I stared into Hal’s frantically oscillating pupils with reverence and intrigue. With one eye on Hal’s vitals monitor, I watched his respiratory rate (which was mechanically regulated by a ventilator) rise. An alarm triggered by a rapid breathing rate set off. I braced for his nurse to come running in; awkwardly finding us, both wide-eyed, listening to Pink Floyd.
Thirty seconds later, his breathing stabilized, although his rapid eye movements sustained through the end of the song. An etheric force materialized between us; an obscurity I can only name as Hal’s soul or astral body floating over his ailing skin.
The remainder of the visit consisted of reading Mary Oliver poems to Hal, although I couldn’t shake a feeling that he may really enjoy hearing Frank O’Hara. His eyes continued to staccato along with Oliver’s stanzas.
I saw Hal once more before he was discharged to an extended care facility.
One week later, I strolled into his room to find him physically unchanged. His eyes were open but drowsy. We greeted each other somewhere outside of space. I decided to play yet another Pink Floyd song: Wot’s…Uh The Deal?.
This time, I sang along.
Heaven sent the promised land,
Looks alright from where I stand,
‘Cause I’m the man on the outside looking in.
The song’s opening words pierced our intersecting gazes with humbling profundity. I had chosen the song for David Gilmour’s meek vocals and because it’s my second-favorite PF song. I didn’t expect the lyrics to resonate so deeply.
So hear me shout, “Come on in,
Wot’s the deal, where you’ve been?”,
Cause there’s no wind left in my soul
And I’ve grown old.
Gilmour’s guitar and vocals faded, leaving our own rapid eye movements. Then, our silence was enough. No Mary Oliver poems followed. Just our own etheric entanglement; left to Spirit.
Upon exiting the room, I noticed a mobile vitals machine was left in the entryway of his room – meaning, at some point, a nurse walked in, saw us entranced in song, and turned around, leaving us undisturbed.
Hal reveals the principal intention of this newsletter: to reveal the work of the Spirit in everyday life.
Spirited allyship, connection and love maximizing on a spiritual dimension is exactly what I aim to unveil in these letters. This is the work which sustains me in the desert.
This motive, in conjunction with my time with Hal, finds particular fulfillment in the thirteenth card of the Tarot, The Hanged Man. This card teaches that the visible dimension in which we find ourselves confined to and operating within, is the least relevant. It images “...the irresistible attraction from above and of the passage from the field of terrestrial gravitation to the field of celestial gravitation.” (CMOTT)
The Hanged Man, the ideal of the spiritual man, hangs suspended between Heaven & Earth. He rejects terrestrial gravitation with ease; “His will is connected with heaven and is found in immediate contact with the spiritual world.” (CMOTT). While the flesh anchors us in ideals of possession, power and pleasure, the Spirit draws man instead towards, “the ideal of radiation…poverty, obedience and chastity.” (CMOTT)
It is only through an innermost act of love that our center of gravity may shift from the physical to the invisible, as we await the celestial design of the future.
The Hanged Man is the maxim of divine time and an exercise in allowing divine intelligence to work within us. It is the image which feeds hope to the resolute wanderer. Although I sometimes long for a tighter community, I know the Lord has me by my feet, Their blood rushing to my Temple.
As we remain in winter just a while longer, may our feet rise above our heads, leaving the will up to Providence. May our perceptions shift inward and upward, expanding in depth and height to reveal the soul which contains our bodies, and to draw us closer to that which is good, true, and beautiful.
Thank you for being here.
Blessings,
Abby