Both Uses of

transcend
in
A Thousand Acres

Although I liked to think of my Davis great-grandparents seeking the American promise, which is only possibilities, and I enjoyed the family joke of my grandfather Cook finding possibilities where others saw a cheat, I was uncomfortably aware that my father always sought impossibility, and taught us, using the Ericsons as his example, to do the same—to discipline the farm and ourselves to a life and order transcending many things, but especially mere whim.†
p. 46.9

transcending = exceeding or surpassing

My love, which I had always believed could transcend the physical, had failed, too—failed with Ty, failed with my children and Rose's, failed, in a bizarre way, with Daddy, who in his fashion loved Caroline and Rose but not me, failed with Jess Clark, and now had failed with Rose herself, who clearly understood how to reach past me, to put me aside, to take what she wanted and be glad of it.†
p. 307.8 *

transcend = exceed or surpass

Definition:

exceed (go beyond); or surpass (to be more or better)