Episode 5: Standing in the Circle with Cancer Week 1: Ros & Amelia
Stand in the Circle Month 2, Episode 5
Standing in the Circle with Cancer week 1: Ros and Amelia
Nearly one in two of us in the UK will face cancer in our lifetime. Survival has never been higher. And yet the person at the centre of it so often hears, I didn't know what to say. This month, Dr Rosalind Watts opens the territory of cancer, not the medicine, but the loneliness, the fear, the missing village, and the connection that can hold us through it.
In this first episode, Ros sets out the ground for the month and shares her own family's story. Her cousin Tom was diagnosed with a rare cancer at ten and died at thirteen. His mother, Ros's aunt Amelia, speaks about walking him through it, the night he died, the community that held her, and a connection to him that has never ended. Ros also tells her own story: carrying the BRCA gene, the preventative surgeries, and what it took to stop doing everything alone and let herself be held.
Underneath it all is the shape of the whole month: three ways to stand in the circle with cancer. With ourselves. With each other. With the living world.
Please note: this episode holds the story of a child who died of cancer, and the grief around his death. If you have lost a child, or you're walking through serious illness with someone you love, please go gently, and see the support resources below.
Amelia's shared crossingThe experience Amelia describes, witnessing part of Tom's journey as he died, is what researchers call a shared death experience. Her account is part of the work of the Shared Crossing Project, founded by William Peters, whose book is At Heaven's Door (2022): https://www.sharedcrossing.com
The prayer Ros mentionsThe reimagined, feminine Hail Mary comes from Way of the Rose, by Perdita Finn and Clark Strand, and the community they founded: https://wayoftherose.org. The words Ros says are her own remembered version:Hail Mary, full of graces, thy lover is with thee, blessed art thou amongst mothers, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, life. Holy crone, queen of the cosmos, pray for us now in the hour of our death.
The book Amelia used: Spiritualism and Clairvoyance For Beginners: Simple Techniques to Develop your Psychic Abilities, by Elizabeth Owens
ReferencesCancer survival statistics (American Cancer Society, 2026): https://acsjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.3322/caac.70011UK lifetime risk (Cancer Research UK): https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/health-professional/cancer-statisticsThe Watts Connectedness Scale (2022): https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00213-022-06187-5Psilocybin for cancer distress, 2016 trials: Johns Hopkins, https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0269881116675513, and NYU, https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5367551/MD Anderson psilocybin nerve-damage trial: https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT07227909Katherine MacLean's Being Ground: https://www.katherinemaclean.org
Support lines Cruse Bereavement Support (UK): 0808 808 1677. The Compassionate Friends, for bereaved parents (UK and US): tcf.org.uk, compassionatefriends.org. Macmillan Cancer Support (UK): 0808 808 00 00. CancerCare bereavement counselling (US): 1-800-813-4673.In crisis: Samaritans (UK) 116 123. In the US, call or text 988.
ACER Integration: https://acerintegration.com/Submit a question for the Q&A episode: https://forms.gle/jVcGniTN3uS1bjz18
Next week: Ros is in conversation with ACER members Rebekah, who is living with metastatic breast cancer, and Kim, whose son survived cancer. Both describe psychedelic experiences that helped them find connection in the hardest times.