Sweet Auburn: The Magazine of the Friends of Mount Auburn A Healing and Meditative Landscape | Page 20

The Healing Landscape:
A Source for Creativity and Renewal
By Meg L. Winslow, Curator of Historical Collections
I rush to the Dell
In this large wooded amphitheater
An audience of one
To hear the owl’s dusk crooning
To find sense in the trade I’m to
make
Excerpt from “A Trade”
by Nancy Rappaport
“The work that the staff do here at Mount Auburn is sacred. They create what psychiatrists call
a holding environment, a space where people can come with parts of their soul to find a deeper meaning.”
— Dr. Nancy Rappaport
Standing on a table in the nave
of the chapel, Nancy Rappaport is per-
forming her one-woman play, Regeneration.
As the play begins, we hear an owl calling
and are transported through her words to
the deep, natural setting of Consecration Dell.
A child psychiatrist and author, Nancy
wrote and produced this play about her
journey though breast cancer and how,
unexpectedly, she found hope and courage
at Mount Auburn Cemetery. A performance
that weaves together monologue, poetry,
and audio with remarkable candor and
humor, Regeneration premiered at Mount
Auburn in October 2016 and went on to
reach a wider audience at the United Solo
Theatre Festival in New York City.
In the summer of 2016, Nancy came
to Mount Auburn to tell me of her ill-
ness. As we began walking the Cemetery
grounds with no particular destination in
mind, we both sensed that the landscape
would give us the room and space to
18 | Sweet Auburn
Who could design it better?
Frogs in frozen ponds
Alive
Excerpt from “By Design” by
Nancy Rappaport
process our thoughts. As someone
who works at the Cemetery, I am
profoundly familiar with our mission
to bury and commemorate the dead,
comfort the bereaved, and inspire the
living in a landscape of exceptional
beauty. It reminds us of what is so
often overlooked at Mount Auburn—
that it is as much about living as it is
about dying. In the ensuing months of
Nancy’s surgery and recovery, I would
witness this firsthand.
After surgery, and once she began
to regain her strength, Nancy and I
took regular walks in Mount Auburn.
A marathon runner, cross-fit trainer,
skier, and swimmer, Nancy wanted to
connect with the sublime feeling that
an athlete feels on a hike in nature.
We always relished the sensation of
being outdoors. As we walked through
the Cemetery landscape, we would
stop at a monument that caught our