WEBVTT

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In the dark of the night, 4 a.m.,

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I look over and my husband's not there.

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I look further, and I find him

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flat on his back,
looking at the ceiling, arms out.

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"Our lives are hollow
and meaningless without children."

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It had been two-and-a-half years

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of hopes and prayers
and failed fertility treatments.

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No one had come.

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And the despair that ripped through
our hearts woke us night after night -

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to the point where friends and family
called just to see how we were doing.

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Because we so clearly were depressed.

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As a clinical psychologist and scientist,

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I had been trained to see
that depression is a disease.

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Much like cancer or diabetes,
depression as a disease had symptoms

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of despair and isolation.

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And yet that simply did not explain
the road we were traveling,

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nor did it explain the depression
that follows loss of a spouse,

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miscarriage, trauma,

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or the natural transitions
sophomore slump, mid-life crisis,

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portholes in passages - chapter breaks
that seemed core to who we are -

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were not aberrant illnesses.

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They were not diseases.

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And so my husband and I continued

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with each cycle ending in a disappointment
that felt like a funeral.

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And as we continued
down our road of trials,

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we started ever so gradually,
over months and years

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to open our eyes from a dark
and isolated place, quite alone,

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to a place where we started to hear
the guidance of helpers and healers:

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the folks who, on the Appalachian Trail,
through hikers called "trail angels"

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for bringing food and water
when they need it most.

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Our trail angels brought
what we needed most:

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wisdom and guidance.

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So one day I came home
after yet another in vitro

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with the haunting feeling
as I drove my car

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that this too was a failure.

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And sure enough, as I stepped to the door,

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the evidence was incontrovertible.

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A tiny dead duck embryo
lay on my threshold.

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And I knew it was not possible
the embryo in me was alive.

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And so I went to bed
and had a long depressing nap

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to awake - (Imitating knocking sound)
to a duck -

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the mama duck,

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who had lost her aspirational baby.

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And the mama duck was persistent.

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I thought what would the duck
want with me. (Imitating knocking sound)

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She wanted to come towards me.

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And as I opened the door,
I saw she had brought me a gift -

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the most precious thing
in the world to her.

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She had brought me a plump, juicy worm.

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Mama duck and I, there we were,
two aspirational mothers, not alone.

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Not alone because duck and I
were side by side,

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and not alone because
of the great force that brought duck.

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And so, too, through that force
came the guy on the bus.

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And the guy on the bus winked,
leaned over, and said,

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"You seem like just type of mother
that would go all around the world

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adopting all types of kids,"
opening up that new possibility.

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Listening to the helpers
and healers opened my awareness,

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so that the next time
I was woken in the night

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was not by the rip of depression,

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but by a great
and clearly sacred presence -

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a presence with a love so great
and a gravitas that I sat up.

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And the presence said,
"If you were pregnant, would you adopt?"

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And I said something so awesome
and great: the truth, which was, "No".

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But I also knew that this journey

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was more than a disease,

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and that this depression
was opening the door

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on a path of "becoming" -
a spiritual path.

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Continuing down this path,

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I wanted that baby.

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It was great that I was on
a spiritual path, but I wanted that baby.

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And so we didn't quit.

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Up and down the East Coast
to the best IVF labs in the country.

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We went so far as to find
the team that invented IVF,

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and sitting there in solidarity
on bed rest with my spouse,

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we found that the remote was stuck
in our hotel room on one channel -

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one interminable documentary,
four hours

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(Laughter)

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of a little boy -

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a little boy who stood
in a garbage dump alone,

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and said, "I don't care that I'm poor.
I don't care that I can't go to school.

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But it hurts so much to not be loved

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that I sniff glue
to make the pain go away."

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And lying there
in our multiple rounds of IVF,

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my husband and I looked at each other.

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And he said it first.

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We knew there was a child
out there for us.

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We made our way

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to a wise woman
and hovered around her table,

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the daughter of a once clergyman.

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She looked at us and said,

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"Frankly, what is it that you are
looking for in your child?"

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And I leaned in and said,

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"Well, I don't care
if this is a boy or a girl.

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I don't care what race this child is.
Just please, a child who can love."

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And my husband jumped in and he said,
"Well yes, all that, but kind of a girl."

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(Laughter)

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What we knew in common
was that the voice that said

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you will never be parents, the voice
that came from being alone in darkness

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was now a voice
that said parenting is love.

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It hurts so much to not be loved.

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All he wanted was a mom,
all I wanted was a child.

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What would have made us family was love.

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Parenting was love.

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This was depression as a portal
to a world of connection, a world of love,

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a world in which we walk a spiritual path.

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This was depression
as only one side of the door.

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And on the other [side of the] door
was illumination, warmth, light,

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and spiritual path, a spiritual passage.

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Now, as a clinical scientist, 
it was clear to me

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that anything true

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through yet another human lense
of knowing can be again shown.

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The certainty I had

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that depression and spirituality
are two sides of one door

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seemed well within reach of science.

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And so my lab, together with that
of Myrna Weissman and Brad Peterson

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and Rafi Bancell, did the science:

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two sides of one door -
where is it in the brain?

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Where is depression as the portal
of the spiritual path, not the disease.

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And we found it.

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And we found it in broad
and pervasive regions of the cortex.

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We welcomed into our lab

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deeply depressed people from families
loaded up with generations of depression,

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and similar people with families
loaded up with generations of depression

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who through their journey of suffering

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had reached a foundationally
spiritual path.

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People whose lead foot was now depression
for having traveled the darkness.

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And what we found

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was that in precisely
those regions of the brain

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which atrophied and withered
in lifelong depression.

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For those people with a strong
personal spirituality,

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there was a thickening
of those very same regions.

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The cortex was thick

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as if you were looking
at a tree in the Amazon

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versus a tree whithering
under the cold and drought.

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Two sides of one door is in us. 
Depression is not always an illness.

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It can be.

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We can need to be rebooted
or recalibrated or medicated.

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It can be.

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But very often, depression
as everyone will face it

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is core to our endowment,
and core to our development.

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My husband and I continued
now with this knowledge:

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that we were on the spiritual path
in search of our child.

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It was clear that our suffering
was not for naught,

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it was not an empty symptom,

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and with the awareness
that we were "becoming,"

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the presence came back.

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The presence asked the same question
in a deep and profound way.

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And my answer was honest, 
which is I am getting there.

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I can feel we're down the road.

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There is the possibility

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of spiritually evolving into
the person who would answer yes.

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But no, I'm not quite there

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where I would still adopt
a child if I were pregnant.

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My love has grown,
but is my love that great?

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Not yet.

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And so we continued, and I found myself

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in the community of those
who for generations have known

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that depression
is but one side of the door,

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and spiritual awakening the other.

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Seated on the floor
of the "Inipi", the sweat lodge,

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among the Lakota in South Dakota,
I joined the circle of women.

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And here, each woman talked about
the suffering which had brought her

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to our collective prayer.

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'My son, he's 40.
He has not come home to his family.'

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'My son, he's 14, and he's starting
to use substance.'

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I, in turn, shared that I was
searching for my spiritual child.

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Together, we prayed and we sent it up.

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We sent our prayer both for one another,
ourselves and the collective, up

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to Great Spirit, "Wananchi."

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That night, a call came.

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They had found him, that very night
on the other side of the earth.

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We have found the Miller's child
was the message.

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There are great girls
and we can sure find you a girl,

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but this is the Millers child,
and this is a son.

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This time, clinical science

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had something to say
to the spiritual path.

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When we looked at the women
who, through suffering,

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had come to a spiritual path,
with nice thick cortexes,

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they also had another quality:

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the back to their head gave off
a certain wave length of energy

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that we call "Alpha."

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And it's also found on the back
of the head of a meditating monk.

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Alpha has another name,
it's Shuman's constant.

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It's the wave length of the earth's crust.

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The spiritually engaged brain vibrates
at the frequency at the earth's crust.

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From the Inipi across the globe
was found Isaiah, in through this matrix

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of consciousness, love, this sacred field
that is in us, through us, around us

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and covers all living earth.

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This is the world in which we live -
a world in which we're never alone

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and in which there is guidance,
trail angels, helpers and healers.

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And through the field of love
comes just the person,

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the guy on the bus, the medicine woman,
just that living being, the duck,

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the wise, generous animals,
our sisters and brothers.

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In fact, we can no longer begin to think
that we are actors on an inert stage,

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but that the world is alive

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and infused with that sacred field
we might measure as high amplitude alpha.

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Knowing this, we live
into an inspired life -

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a life of meaning
that is not one that we create

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but meaning that is truly
in the fabric of the world.

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We live in an inspired life.

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Isaiah, my son, had been found,
named Isaiah,

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for "one world" in Lakota
for those who helped find him.

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And yet, we still,
although far less depressed

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and much more full of love and connection,

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had the anxiety of actually
meeting him, finding him,

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bringing him home.

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And then one day, the FedEx came
and we peeled it open

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and there was the video.

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We popped it in

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and the most joyous little boy,
full of happiness, arm around the nurse -

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a love like I had never felt lifted me up,

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and any remnant of depression
were shards on the ground.

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And together, my husband and I
went to bed as parents.

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That night, the presence came back -

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the great sacred presence
for the third time.

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"If you were pregnant now,
would you adopt?"

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"Yes, I found my spiritual son, yes."

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And that night,
we conceived naturally -

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his sister.

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We had spiritual twins.

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So when you hear the knock,

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consider the invitation.

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What sounds shocking, and as if the hand
that takes from inside the darkness

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when we walk through the door
is the hand that invites

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that guides and ultimately gives.

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On the other side of the door
is the inspired life

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brought to us by the presence.

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Thanks.

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(Applause)