Integrating spiritual and psychedelic care
Moana Meadow is an interfaith chaplain and the Program Staff Director at UC Berkeley’s Center for the Science of Psychedelics. She has served as a birth doula, hospice chaplain, spiritual director, writer, teacher, and mother. She works at the edge of life, death, earth, prayer, and education. She encourages you to sing, play, and live and die well.
Learning opportunities
Drawing from her interfaith education, Moana creates custom learning opportunities for groups and educational programs on the topics of spirituality, chaplaincy, and psychedelic care. She has contributed to the design and implementation of the BCSP spiritual care curriculum, as well as curricula on reciprocity, ecological awareness, and ethics for expanded states.
From her perspective, the grit and shadow of our lives—loss, grief, fear, and shame—is as important and beautiful as the joy, love, peace, and bliss. Committing to both sides of life—the dark and the light—is the combined effort of being both spiritual and mortal. Our lifetimes include birth and death, marriage and betrayal, and we can honor the growth and truth that emerge from each. Psychedelic care provides a unique opportunity to harvest and integrate these precious and painful teachings.
Background
Moana Meadow was born and raised in rural Hawaii. She is a psychedelic educator and curriculum consultant focused on spiritual care and ethics in expanded states of consciousness. She completed four units of Clinical Pastoral Education at hospitals in California and Hawaii, and has worked as a hospice chaplain and spiritual director for over ten years. She was ordained as an interfaith minister at the Chaplaincy Institute, where she served as guest faculty and academic advisor until 2018. She has served as Executive Director of a non-profit church in Sonoma County and has studied with indigenous elders in the United States and Mexico. She holds a BS from MIT, an MA from Boston University, and an MDiv from the Pacific School of Religion.
Media
- Psychedelic chaplains: In clinical trials, a new form of spiritual guide emerges, by Kathryn Post, Religion News Service
- Free talk from the the Graduate Theological Union’s Psychedelics and Religion Speaker Series: Attunement to Diverse Traditions in the Training of Psychedelic Guides, an interview with Moana Meadow by Jewish Studies Professor Sam Shonkoff (Note: must create your own login to access.)
Training
- Bachelor of Science
Massachusetts Institute of Technology - Master of Arts
Boston University - Master of Divinity
Pacific School of Religion - Interfaith Ordination
Chaplaincy Institute - Spiritual Director Certificate
Chaplaincy Institute - Comprehensive Training
Hakomi Institute of California - Center for Indigenous Lifeways Program
Ancestral Voice