Metamorphosis Medicine REFUGIO—Lauren’s Update Nov 2020

The concepts of sanctuary and refuge have been strongly with me this year.  The Seed House, in addition to being a headquarters for educational activity was meant to be a demonstration project that the place we offer care can support the wellbeing of the providers of care as we intend to support our patients. The precursor to this was an idea of a hospital that supported the wellbeing of everyone who entered. This was prompted by my observation that hospitals are unhealthy places for just about everyone despite the fact that certain kinds of care and healing depend on them. But did this mean we had to accept the whole package just as it exists or that all the assumptions were necessary to the successes experienced in them?  I was limited by language, but expressions like “temple of wellness” or a sense of the role medieval monasteries played in preserving culture and being places of education, shelter, and healing were in my mind.  See more in the section on Sanctum.  Refugio is a program of in-residence reflection, learning, practices, and support for making concentrated change or transitioning through crisis and of one-week intensive courses. In-residence experiences could range from 1-week to 3-month retreats built around a basic structure. In addition, Intensives would feature content relevant to the Missing Curriculum and other dimensions of MM such as fostering the creation and enactment of personal practice prescriptions and building community.  The benefits of the in-residence and Intensive experiences would extend into maintenance resources through online availability to drop into the daily practices, accountability within the MM Refugio community, and reports of ongoing events.  

With just 6 people in residence at a time and 2 1-week intensives per month for 10 months each year and 10 participants per intensive, net income to the program for administration based on preliminary calculations using comparable programs/retreats would be ~$400,000. It is work that also allows me to live and breath and think about the things that matter to me and that I seem somewhat uniquely disposed to concentrate on.