Maurena L. McKee is the owner of LSC, synthesizing as an esotericist, spiritual counselor, chaplain, and (decolonial) ethnographer, while practicing cinematography and studying theatre arts. The initial purpose of this ownership was to establish a private practice and personal agency, as a scholar seeking grant funding and with hope in research groundedness.
Maurena L. McKee
theology, anthropology, musicology, psychology, ecology
Ethnographic fieldwork
Forest chaplaincy
Activism:
Though coming from a background in behavior analysis and counseling, my professional focus is now solely in learning professionalism in relation to forestry and forest chaplaincy.
Represent:
embodying a variety of trades and skills, such as gardening, painting, baking, writing, and the list goes on, while also witnessing and documenting the experience of growth and transformation as a soul becoming woman
Paul Podvin Endowment
(Youth-Foused Spirituality)
Common MA Need Based Tuition Grant
(Women's Studies in Religion)
Berkeley Undergraduate Scholarship
Blue and Gold Opportunity Plan
(Federal Pell Grant)
Student Success Completion Grant
California College Promise Grant
Cal Grant B
(For transfer students who plan to attend a four-year college in California.)
Education and Training
paid online 40-hr training
Women in Entertainment Scholarship
Diversity in Entertainment Scholarship
UCEAP
private gift for tuition
out-of-pocket for tuition
Federal, Indiana, and Ball State Grants
Greenwood Community High School, ACP
Academic Background
Registered Behavior Technician (RBT) NPI 1154998532
• Completed 40-hour training on applied behavior analysis for children and youth
• Learned sensory-integration assessments, evaluations and analytic interventions
• Inspired for how to hold space for one's inner child, while personally interpreting ABA to not be as serving as mindfulness practices
• Creative Writing and Screenwriting
• Directing and Film Production
• Craft of Editing and Post-Production
• Audio for Film
2014
MiraCosta College
Psychology (Mind-Body Health)
Ivy Tech Community College
Business Law
2012 - 2013
Ball State University
College of Communication, Information, and Media
Indiana University
Biology and Psychology
European Abroad Program
• Medical Ethics, Cognitive Enhancement, Positive Psychology
The InnBetween (Student Chaplaincy)
• Studied meditative practices in a semester-long program for Maastricht University students
• Participated in liturgies, prayer circles, ‘meditation’ sessions, and student group activities
• Gained awareness about interfaith denominations, differing from the U.S. American mainstream
Highest Honors
• Activities and societies: Library Assistant, Interior Design; Film Studies and Cultural Anthropology
Dean's List
• Activities and societies: Something Else Sketch Comedy Club; Something Else Sketch Comedy Radio
Advanced Placement, Credit & Exemptions
• Completed advanced credits, enrolled in upper-level classes sooner by adding toward major and minor, administered by high school
2011 - 2012
2014
2018
Maastricht University
Psychology & Neuroscience
2021
ACES (Comprehensive Educational Services, Inc.)
Behavioral Intervention
2021 { in progress }
San Francisco Film School
Professional Digital Filmmaking
2015 - 2017
Santa Rosa Junior College
AA, AA-T, Anthropology
2021 - 2026
Graduate Theological Union
MA, Sacred Texts and Interpretation
Center for Dharma Studies - (Hindu) Yoga Studies
• GTU Common MA Capstone Culmination { this }
Department of Religion and Practice
• Interreligious Chaplaincy Program { in progress }
2017 - 2020
UC Berkeley
BA, Anthropology and Education
Honors Thesis Program
• Studied ground-level ethnography and oral history about “free speech” and the structure-agency debate
• Researched soundscapes and vocal expression with homeless in People’s Park as a place-based history
• Acquired knowledge about contradictions in democracy and efforts toward user-land development
• Supervised by anthropology faculty members, directed on critical thinking and analytical writing skills
Practicum in Education
• Studied empowering education and ecopsychology with children at a day-long summer camp
• Researched social emotional skills from an organization dedicated to “neurodiverse” learning styles
• Acquired knowledge about special education services and advanced learning objectives in practice
• Supervised by a clinical psychologist, directed on innovative curriculum and problem-solving skills
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Childhood
I lived in four states before finally following a dream to California. I was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA, into a family embracing yoga and ecology. I grew up in the suburbs of the merging city in the desert Phoenix, Arizona with my mom and three older siblings. I later lived in a small farm and cooperative in beautiful rural Wisconsin, called River Haven, organized by my dad and stepmom. I then moved to southern central Indiana and was raised by my single mother, who offered me my close canine companion as a sweet sixteen gift of a lifetime. During my early formative years, I realized anthropology needs to be included in high school pedagogy, while wishing to be an anthropologist as early as age seventeen.
Early Formative Years
Journalism
~ participation and skills-building ~
- Yearbook -
skills in networking and graphic designing
- Broadcast Production -
skills in character and team building
- Broadcast Post-Production -
skills in audio-video editing and leading
Greenwood Community High School
~ known for ~
~ solo editing the school's daily announcements, and occasionally announcing over the loud speaker (mispronounced words and once dubbed the speaker) ~
~ starting the Free Thinker's Club ~
~ actively participating in a radio station contest to win and elect Justin Bieber as principal for-the-day (squad secret: sent 10 messages at a time, directly to the radio station, on repeat, and in the back of our classrooms to make use of time) ~
~ basketball years, and softball coach's assistant senior year ~
~ growing plants in the back of the biology lab for senior project, having dirt on pants up until dressing up for presentation on the success of organic soil, presented to a public committee and marked down by a local conventional farmer for outfit ~
Mentors
Inspiring Dedication. Living Expertise. Shared Graciousness.
Thank you —
MA Thesis Second Reader
— for offering a clear possibility into a professional path, with filmmaking as a career and chaplaincy as a vocation.
MA Advisor
— for encouraging a natural pathway into contemplative science, allowing me to apply esoteric wisdom of sound within religious studies — to then become an emerging scholar as a Śākta theologian and multi-religious clergyperson.
MA Thesis Committee Member
Pravina Rodrigues
— for always sharing your in-depth thoughts on my academic writing and for encouraging me to write manuscripts.
MA Professor, PhD Methods Course
— for encouraging a mergence between iconography and ethnography, while studying and experiencing Marian art in Latin cultures through fieldwork.
ICP Professor, Chaplaincy and Psychedelics
— for sharing that you have been to Chirripó mtn., so that I felt a raw sense of reality during my surreal fieldwork and vocational path as an emerging scholar.
MA Professor, Sanskrit and Sacred Texts
— for being a raw display of the cause and effect within the tradition of scholarship, which was all the more relevant within my Sanskrit studies, becoming the predominate factor of my personal progress and academic success.
BA Thesis Second Reader
— for encouraging the pathway of expression and experience; that is all that was ever needed in my philosophical grounds in anthropology and religious studies.
BA Thesis Advisor
— for offering an ear; for appreciating my inkling toward acoustemology during my academic formative years, and for paving a research course of 'biomediatization' that allowed me to find more purpose in open-sourced media projects, and to pursue musicology within sound studies.
BA Thesis Committee Member
— for acknowledging the natural outlook toward community sovereignty, for setting the score at a high reach where ethnomusicologists are to hold space for experimental ethnographic media labs.
BA Professor, Medical Anthropology
— for making fun of my word-salad and reflecting on times of grief, so that I could study things like speech pathology and behavior analysis before going to consider myself a chaplain.
BA Mentor
— for offering the most substantial collection of texts that became the groundwork of People’s Park Soundscapes, while also reminding me that esotericism could be more readily understood across the board for the sake of interreligious and interfaith spheres.
Mentor and Longstanding Role-Model
— for being you; for your strife with the battle for People’s Park, your inspiration as an anthropologist and reminder of the necessity yet capacity to face critical issues of our time, as a woman; your conception of the “three bodies” in anthropology allowed roots for my entire foundation as a human and aspiring cultural anthropologist.
Paul Podvin Endowment
Thank you so much to everyone for your kind words and messages about winning this award with community, interlocutors, friends, family. I am beyond blessed and humbled.
