A "LONG, LOVING LOOK AT THE REAL" IN SERVICE TO A DEEPENING RELATIONSHIP
WITH THE HOLY IN YOUR OWN LIFE ...
WITH THE HOLY IN YOUR OWN LIFE ...
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"To penetrate into the essence of all being and significance and to release the fragrance of that inner attainment for the guidance and benefit of others— by expressing in the world of forms, truth, love, purity, and beauty—this is the sole game which has intrinsic and absolute worth." -- Meher Baba
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Coaching focuses a bit more on Doing. Breathwork focuses more on Becoming. Spiritual Companioning focuses on Being itself -- the Deepest Truth at the heart of our existence. Whatever we call that Truth -- Love, the Holy, Mahadeva, God, Goddess, our own Buddha Nature, the Image of God within us or Ground of Being -- spiritual traditions around the world recognize it as our source, our sustenance, our destination, and our most important relationship. Indeed, the mystics of the ages suggest that our whole lives are simply a deepening into relationship with that truth. As Anselm Grün, a contemporary Benedictine monk, offers, "The path that the spiritual fathers led their disciples down was a mystical path. The most important concern for the monks was not whether the path was the path of morality and righteousness. Neither was it the knowledge or the doing of God's will, nor was it making the right choices. Rather it is always a question of achieving mystical union with God."
As a Spiritual Companion, I walk gently beside the people who come to me, engaging in what Walter Burghardt called a “long, loving look at the real” in service to a deepening relationship with the Holy in their own lives. We ask,
As in coaching and breathwork, I conduct Spiritual Companioning through phone and web sessions, face-to-face meetings, and e-mail correspondence. Dreams, serendipities, uncomfortable self-awareness, and hard-won growth experiences inform our process, as I help my clients explore and unravel their particular obstacles around their own deepest truth. We nurture deep self-compassion and cultivate practices that make them more available to their own truth. I avoid coaching, psychotherapeutic intervention, problem solving, and the subtle violence of “self-improvement” in my work, though I’m quick to refer people to those adjunct services if needed.
Of course, comfort and support, discernment, teaching, and even sparing advice are occasionally helpful, but above all we strive to listen their truth into being, allowing it to unfold gently in it’s own right timing. I stand to the side as much as possible, never coming between them and their own deepest truth, and my greatest joy is in seeing them become more fully who they really are. "Progress" in Spiritual Companioning isn't measured primarily in terms of greater success, accomplishing goals, breathing more freely, or even healing; it is expressed in the gentle deepening of our relationship with the Holy, the deepest Truth at the heart of our own being.
As a Spiritual Companion, I walk gently beside the people who come to me, engaging in what Walter Burghardt called a “long, loving look at the real” in service to a deepening relationship with the Holy in their own lives. We ask,
- what is the deepest truth of their own experience?
- What is that truth trying to communicate with them?
- How can they engage and live that truth in their daily lives?
As in coaching and breathwork, I conduct Spiritual Companioning through phone and web sessions, face-to-face meetings, and e-mail correspondence. Dreams, serendipities, uncomfortable self-awareness, and hard-won growth experiences inform our process, as I help my clients explore and unravel their particular obstacles around their own deepest truth. We nurture deep self-compassion and cultivate practices that make them more available to their own truth. I avoid coaching, psychotherapeutic intervention, problem solving, and the subtle violence of “self-improvement” in my work, though I’m quick to refer people to those adjunct services if needed.
Of course, comfort and support, discernment, teaching, and even sparing advice are occasionally helpful, but above all we strive to listen their truth into being, allowing it to unfold gently in it’s own right timing. I stand to the side as much as possible, never coming between them and their own deepest truth, and my greatest joy is in seeing them become more fully who they really are. "Progress" in Spiritual Companioning isn't measured primarily in terms of greater success, accomplishing goals, breathing more freely, or even healing; it is expressed in the gentle deepening of our relationship with the Holy, the deepest Truth at the heart of our own being.
"YOUR LIFE, MY LIFE, IS GIVEN GRACIOUSLY BY GOD. OUR LIVES ARE NOT PROBLEMS TO BE SOLVED, BUT JOURNEYS TO BE TAKEN." ― HENRI J. M. NOUWEN
My own training as a Spiritual Companion ...
Father Elias and I around 1998
My training in spiritual companioning was very traditional, but a bit broader than most. It began in earnest when I was tonsured as a Rassophore Monk in the Eastern Orthodox Church after a 12-year novitiate at Holy Protection Orthodox Skete in Albuquerque NM. At the heart of my formation was my training with Father Elias, the Reader at the Monastery. He was an Orthodox Monk of course, but he was also wildly unorthodox; he was born both Jewish and Laguna Indian, participated deeply in the Kabbalist, Bahai, Chistia, Inayati and Naqshbandi Sufi traditions for many decades, and was quietly a deep lover of the God Man Meher Baba.
For twelve years, he was my dearest Spiritual Companion, introducing me to the teachings and practices of the world's wisdom traditions, including Spiritual Companioning. For twelve years we hunched over old books in Aramaic, Arabic, Hebrew and English, sharing quiet conversation, praying, teasing, challenging, and strolling through the streets of old town Albuquerque, and marveling at the beauty and holiness of the whole, big, messy thing.
Long before my time at the monastery, I had delved deeply into other traditions: the Toltec tradition of Don Miguel Ruiz, the Turkish Jerrahi Sufi lineage, and many years of mentoring with elders in the Lakota, Shoshone, and Rinzai Buddhist traditions. All of them nourished, protected, and corrected me when I was driven too violently by the choppy currents of my self-will and trauma. It was Father Elias, however, that modeled the steady, respectful, dispassionate tenderness that are the hallmarks of real spiritual companionship. Even as he encouraged my far-ranging explorations during our time together, he invited me again and again to drop into the deepest parts of my own relationship with the holy. He helped me to soften, to cease my grasping and struggling a little, and to trust in the buoyancy of my own soul.
One terrible, beautiful day, I received a letter from the Bishop, demanding that I stop my outreach into the LGBTQ community and break off my relationships with all other communities and traditions, under threat of excommunication. With Father Elias' wholehearted and heartbroken support, I left the monastery. There was a necessary price, however: for eight years I had no contact with him. He was under obedience from the Bishop to break all contact with me -- and whether it was cowardice or bravery, he obeyed. His last words to me before the great silence became my own spiritual obedience for the next eight years. "You and I are connected in the Beloved," he said, "in a place where there is no separation, a place beyond words. Find me there."
Bereft and determined, I went out into the world living my vows as an itinerant monk and dervish. I was held lovingly by my elders in other traditions, but Father Elias' final charge -- and a great deal of relational trauma -- kept me from finding any real anchoring in the world of form. Through sheer grace, in a moment of pulverizing loneliness, I discovered another community that could hold a space for me to pursue a deeper anchoring: Quaker Fellowship. Here, at last, I found a less hierarchical and more empowering model of spiritual leading and discernment grounded in the gathered presence of loving friendship. My soul healed and I began to trust the quiet voice of my own relationship to the holy, and to hear its voice echoed in my own breath and body. Thanks to decades of deep somatic exploration, breath work, and training as a trauma and recovery therapist, I developed a profound appreciation and sensitivity to the body's crucial role in cultivating our relationships with the deepest truths at the heart of our existence. I learned the quiet art of standing with someone at their side, bearing witness to the journey but never coming between them and their own deepest truth.
For twelve years, he was my dearest Spiritual Companion, introducing me to the teachings and practices of the world's wisdom traditions, including Spiritual Companioning. For twelve years we hunched over old books in Aramaic, Arabic, Hebrew and English, sharing quiet conversation, praying, teasing, challenging, and strolling through the streets of old town Albuquerque, and marveling at the beauty and holiness of the whole, big, messy thing.
Long before my time at the monastery, I had delved deeply into other traditions: the Toltec tradition of Don Miguel Ruiz, the Turkish Jerrahi Sufi lineage, and many years of mentoring with elders in the Lakota, Shoshone, and Rinzai Buddhist traditions. All of them nourished, protected, and corrected me when I was driven too violently by the choppy currents of my self-will and trauma. It was Father Elias, however, that modeled the steady, respectful, dispassionate tenderness that are the hallmarks of real spiritual companionship. Even as he encouraged my far-ranging explorations during our time together, he invited me again and again to drop into the deepest parts of my own relationship with the holy. He helped me to soften, to cease my grasping and struggling a little, and to trust in the buoyancy of my own soul.
One terrible, beautiful day, I received a letter from the Bishop, demanding that I stop my outreach into the LGBTQ community and break off my relationships with all other communities and traditions, under threat of excommunication. With Father Elias' wholehearted and heartbroken support, I left the monastery. There was a necessary price, however: for eight years I had no contact with him. He was under obedience from the Bishop to break all contact with me -- and whether it was cowardice or bravery, he obeyed. His last words to me before the great silence became my own spiritual obedience for the next eight years. "You and I are connected in the Beloved," he said, "in a place where there is no separation, a place beyond words. Find me there."
Bereft and determined, I went out into the world living my vows as an itinerant monk and dervish. I was held lovingly by my elders in other traditions, but Father Elias' final charge -- and a great deal of relational trauma -- kept me from finding any real anchoring in the world of form. Through sheer grace, in a moment of pulverizing loneliness, I discovered another community that could hold a space for me to pursue a deeper anchoring: Quaker Fellowship. Here, at last, I found a less hierarchical and more empowering model of spiritual leading and discernment grounded in the gathered presence of loving friendship. My soul healed and I began to trust the quiet voice of my own relationship to the holy, and to hear its voice echoed in my own breath and body. Thanks to decades of deep somatic exploration, breath work, and training as a trauma and recovery therapist, I developed a profound appreciation and sensitivity to the body's crucial role in cultivating our relationships with the deepest truths at the heart of our existence. I learned the quiet art of standing with someone at their side, bearing witness to the journey but never coming between them and their own deepest truth.
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Slowly, people began to seek me out -- mostly retired clergy, healers, and soul-weary leaders -- seeking spiritual companioning. After thirty years of deep listening to the lives and hearts of my clients, I have learned to listen more deeply, to love more courageously, and to trust that the truth in the heart of every person, yearns to be known ...
It belongs to another story, but I did indeed meet Father Elias in the inner space he described; and when I had, the doors opened for us to reconnect in this world as well. He has passed from this world several years ago, but the journey we took together built a bridge that we meet on still as spiritual companions, marveling at the beauty and holiness of the whole, big, messy thing ... |
Father Elias and I in 2017
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