Profiles in presence: Angelique Loscar
Interview with Angelique Loscar in her own words:
Angelique Loscar has had a longstanding interest and comfort with illness, death and dying dating back to pivotal childhood experiences with both loved ones and pets. This also manifested in her long-time career choice in biotech, developing medicines for cancer.
After moving to Oregon, Angelique began volunteering with hospice and has truly loved being able to support dying patients: “I really enjoy talking with people and hearing their stories. I’ve heard so many wonderful, heartfelt stories and a few that were pretty surprising. They’ve taught me so much about acceptance and grace. Being with someone in their final months, weeks or days, feels very sacred to me. The conversations are different. My patients talk about what’s really important to them at this point in their lives. It’s always the people that they love.”
To deepen her knowledge base and skills, Angelique trained as an end-of-life doula. Shortly thereafter, she wanted connection with doulas in Central Oregon and came upon The Peaceful Presence Project. In 2022, Angelique was asked to join the board of directors. “The organization is doing such extraordinary work to address a tremendous unmet need in our society. We don’t like to think about death in this country and talking about it makes people deeply uncomfortable. I love what the team is doing to increase conversations about it and normalize it.
I am also especially impressed and inspired by their goal of creating, and supporting, a statewide doula network. That will touch the lives of many, many Oregonians and help dying people and their families in so many ways.”
During Angelique’s two year tenure she was instrumental in helping staff with strategic planning, assisting in the creation of the organization’s current five year plan. In addition, she researched and helped draft several grants that have enabled strategic objectives to become funded projects for the organization.
Angelique was then called to another area of service: “A few years ago, I started hearing about psilocybin use for treating anxiety and depression in people who are dealing with a terminal illness. I’d known almost nothing about psychedelics prior to that but the research coming out of Johns Hopkins University was astonishing. Study after study showed a reduction in depression in these people who are living with a very scary diagnosis. Some even said that they no longer feared death.
Then in 2020, Oregon passed Measure 109 which created the Psilocybin Services program. I became a licensed psilocybin facilitator earlier this year. I see this as yet another way that I can help people – and their families – who are dealing with all of the fear and stress of a serious illness. I really enjoy working with people who are new to psychedelics and are at transition points in their lives, asking the big life questions around meaning and purpose. I draw on a lot of my doula skills- deep listening, empathy, compassion, non-judgement.”
Under the Oregon law, psilocybin can only be administered by a licensed facilitator at a licensed service center. After carefully reviewing the options, Angelique chose to work with Bend Inner Alchemy, https://www.bendinneralchemy.com/ a service center in downtown Bend. In this work she pulls from a lifetime of skills and experiences in service to people facing illness and death. (For those who would benefit from financial assistance, the facilitation fee can be covered by the Psilocybin Access Fund https://www.sherieckert.org/paf.) We are so grateful to Angelique!