SDI Encounters

In this week's episode, SDI's Executive Director Reverend Seifu speaks with Roshi Joan Halifax about confronting mortality and The Landscape of Compassion as a lead up to her keynote address at our SDI Renaissance 2021 virtual conference , which kicks off at the end of April. Roshi Joan explains that the questions that arise in people who are at the terminus of their lives are also fundamental que...

In this week's episode, SDI's Executive Director Reverend Seifu speaks with Father Richard Rohr , a keynote speaker for our SDI Renaissance 2021 virtual conference , which kicks off at the end of April.   Father Richard talks about how spiritual direction helps us to find firmer ground to stand upon, particularly in these difficult and unpredictable times. He is keen to be in conversation with us...

In this episode, Matt Whitney talks with Rev. Andre van Zijl about art and spiritual companionship. Andre is a cofounder and codirector of All Paths Divinity School , an online interfaith seminary promoting and nurturing sacred community through the arts. He is a spiritually inspired, award-winning artist, poet, published author, and non-dual philosophy teacher. Andre is also the founder and direc...

In this episode, Ann Lancaster and Matt Whitney (SDI's creative team) discuss all the new enhancements and features of the online version of Presence and the labor of love that goes into producing our flagship publication in a new format. --- SDI members tell us that Presence is one of the best things about membership. They say it offers them a way to stay current on our calling and learn from the...

Here at SDI we have an initiative that brings emerging spiritual companions in the first half of life to our community, helping us weave a web of intergenerational wisdom and practice, which we call the New Contemplatives initiative. These New Contemplatives enrich the SDI community with new forms and paradigms of spiritual care, bringing their voices to the center of the organization and the broa...

Here at SDI we have an initiative that brings emerging spiritual companions in the first half of life to our community, helping us weave a web of intergenerational wisdom and practice, which we call the New Contemplatives initiative. These New Contemplatives enrich the SDI community with new forms and paradigms of spiritual care, bringing their voices to the center of the organization and the broa...

In this episode, I continue my conversation with John Mabry, longtime friend of SDI and former Presence editor. This week we get into the modality of spiritual companionship at its essence, which is helping people to grow spiritually. For John, who wrote a very practical book about this called Starting Spiritual Direction , its about creating safe space for others to explore mystical experience (w...

In this special episode of SDI Encounters, Director of Programs and Events Frederica Helmiere talks with Beth Bartlett about their upcoming course offering from SDI Education – Feminist Perspectives on Spiritual Companionship. This 12 week course is for anyone who offers spiritual companionship to women, and anyone who receives spiritual companionship from women. The course begins live on January...

John Mabry is beloved in the SDI Community. He’s been with SDI for over 20 years in a number of ways. He is the former editor and a longtime contributor to Presence Journal – our quarterly magazine on spiritual direction and companionship. He does…so many things. He’s a spiritual director, he’s a prolific author, having written dozens of books on spirituality and mysticism, (I counted 23 books jus...

Spiritual companionship is for everyone. The gifts of spiritual companionship are meant to be given to others, and to be received by ourselves. There are opportunities everywhere, all the time, to cultivate a contemplative heart, to be a better listener, and to help others realize they have dignity and are beloved. Archbishop Desmond Tutu, in the Book of Joy , calls us to be in the world as “an oa...

Thank you to everybody who has supported the SDI Encounters Podcast, by listening, sharing with a friend, writing a review, or by being a guest. At SDI, we see the podcast as a vital part of our outreach to the public on the merits, value, and necessity of spiritual companionship in the wider culture. Much of our work at SDI is to provide educational media and resources that are for the broader pu...

Bernadette Miles is co-director at the Kardia Formation and Training Program in Victoria, Australia . She trained in spiritual direction and theology after twenty years of computer consulting and business management and has a special interest in formation of apostolic leadership and applying the concepts of Ignatian Spirituality to organizational development. Bernie, as we know her, is a member of...

Who is a spiritual companion? A spiritual director is a spiritual companion, as is a life coach, a chaplain, a hospice nurse, really anybody in a caring vocation. But it can also be a type of person who lives and listens in ways that embody this type of caring. That is, a spiritual companion need not do it as a job. Some of us are spiritual companions in the way we honor our relationships to famil...

Please enjoy this short (10 minute) guided meditation, which I (Matt Whitney) wrote and recorded this week as an offering to spiritual companions. It offers a few specific gratitude prompts, each related to key aspects of our service as spiritual companions. Each prompt is followed by 30 seconds of silence, with a chime sounded to move between each phase. Gratitude is a universal practice of orien...

We at SDI are so excited to announce an unprecedented virtual conference for April 2021 which we are calling Renaissance – the meaning of the word being, “rebirth”. This season of pandemic, and political uncertainty in many countries around the world, have been difficult for all of us. But for every season, there are new beginnings, and out of the mulch and the compost, new life can grow. This con...

Who is a spiritual companion? A spiritual director is a spiritual companion, as is a life coach, a chaplain, a hospice nurse, really anybody in a caring vocation. But it can also be a type of person who lives and listens in ways that embody this type of caring. That is, a spiritual companion need not do it as a job. Some of us are spiritual companions in the way we honor our relationships to famil...

Who is a spiritual companion? A spiritual director is a spiritual companion, as is a life coach, a chaplain, a hospice nurse, really anybody in a caring vocation. But it can also be a type of person who lives and listens in ways that embody this type of caring. That is, a spiritual companion need not do it as a job. Some of us are spiritual companions in the way we honor our relationships to famil...

This week’s episode is a conversation I had about companionship with Joe Sehee. I very intentionally refer to ‘companionship’ here, as Joe approaches this work from a non-theistic, non-religious perspective. We discuss topics around finding meaning and universality in suffering, human connection, using silence to be in conversation, compassion fatigue, and remembering to have a sense of humor. Tal...

This week, Frederica spoke with Dr. Kenneth Porter , author of the book Apollo's Lyre: The Art of Spiritual Psychotherapy . Dr. Porter is a spiritual psychiatrist and psychoanalyst. He has taught Buddhist Insight Meditation at the New York Insight Meditation Center, was a long-term student of the Kundalini Master Chandrasekharanand Saraswati, was President of the Association for Spirituality and P...

This week, I spoke with Angie Fadel - a spiritual director who engages in somatic methods of healing by teaching archery to her companions. Among other things, we discuss the necessity of opening up to being vulnerable in our spiritual journeys, feeling anger and even rage, privilege and identity, and the work of deconstruction in spiritual companionship, and how that can open us to excavating our...

Enjoy this lovely conversation between Frederica Helmiere and Simon de Voil. Simon is an interfaith/interspiritual minister, sacred musician, youth worker and wooden boat builder. In all these vocations, he uses music and carpentry as a means to help individuals and groups connect sacred presence with everyday life. He is also a very accomplished musician; Simon has toured internationally as a sin...

Who is a spiritual companion? A spiritual director is a spiritual companion, as is a life coach, a chaplain, a hospice nurse, really anybody in a caring vocation. But it can also be a type of person who lives and listens in ways that embody this type of caring. That is, a spiritual companion need not do it as a job. Some of us are spiritual companions in the way we honor our relationships to famil...

Who is a spiritual companion? A spiritual director is a spiritual companion, as is a life coach, a chaplain, a hospice nurse, really anybody in a caring vocation. But it can also be a type of person who lives and listens in ways that embody this type of caring. That is, a spiritual companion need not do it as a job. Some of us are spiritual companions in the way we honor our relationships to famil...

In this episode, I (Matt Whitney) go into the fishbowl of spiritual companionship with Pam Winthrop Lauer, a spiritual director and a practitioner and teacher of Nonviolent Communication, or (NVC). Also known as Connecting Communication, Non Violent Communication is a revolutionary communication model that provides concrete ways to transform judgment, anger, and fear into compassion for ourselves...

This week we continue with our four part series on the exploration of sexuality in spiritual companionship. Facilitated by Frederica Helmiere, we present to you a series of perspectives from several spiritual directors, pastors, and guides on how they approach sexuality in their roles as spiritual companions. These episodes are offered in conjunction with our upcoming webinar series S piritual Com...