Rachel Naomi Remen and Marion Weber

Being Old

The Learning Community Series at The New School

Join TNS host Steve Heilig with two long-time members of the Commonweal community, Rachel Naomi Remen, MD, and Marion Weber. Rachel is a master story-teller and co-founder of the Commonweal Cancer Help Program. She is the author of Kitchen Table Wisdom and My Grandfather’s Blessing, both international best-sellers. Marion is a pioneer of the healing arts movement, a long-time sand tray practitioner in the Commonweal Cancer Help Program, the inventor of group sand tray, and a deep seer into the wisdom and mystery traditions.

Listen (audio only)

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Rachel Naomi Remen, MD

Rachel is a Professor of Family Medicine at Wright State Boonshoft School of Medicine and the Founder and Founding Director of the Remen Institute for the Study of Health and Illness (RISHI), which was at Commonweal for decades and is currently at Wright State University Boonshoft School of Medicine. She is one of the best known of the early pioneers of wholistic and integrative medicine. As a medical educator, therapist, and teacher, she has enabled many thousands of physicians to find individual meaning and purpose in the practice of medicine and thousands of patients to remember their power to heal. More than 30,000 medical students have completed The Healer’s Art, her groundbreaking curriculum for medical students taught at the majority of medical schools in America. A master storyteller and observer of life, her bestselling books, Kitchen Table Wisdom and My Grandfather’s Blessings have sold more than 2 million copies and have been translated into 21 languages. Rachel has had Crohn’s disease for more than 65 years and her work is a unique blend of the wisdom, strength, and viewpoints of both doctor and patient.

Marion Weber

Marion is a life-long healing artist who did her own healing through tapestry making for five years, going from fire energy to light. She then worked in the Commonweal Cancer Help Program, helping patients find new meaning through playing with symbols. She developed the group sand tray to help doctors find connections that were beyond their burnout. Now she is old and the natural world continues to entrance her as do her pandemic puppets!