Conference 2025 Workshops
Made possible with support from the
Workshops & Interdisciplinary Companionship
Our workshops will run during independent time slots this year, so no sign up will be necessary when registering for the conference. Just show up!
We will also be offering a number of experiential sessions in interdisciplinary companionship, including musical, art, and embodiment practices.
Below you can read about this year’s workshop presenters. Details on their individual sessions will be available soon.
Robert Hull
Workshop Presenter
Robert Hull will present on Carl Jung as Spiritual Companion. First, we will set Jung within the context of his time when the familiar understanding of the historical Jesus was dismantled by Albert Schweitzer. Facing the deeply shaken faith of his clients with their personal sense of being abandoned in the world, Jung saw a way ahead. We will explore Jung’s “strategy for a loss of faith.”
Robert has been an adult educator for 50 years and a certified Myers Briggs Type IndicatorTM (MBTI) practitioner for 40 years. Likewise, he has participated in all three levels of the Progoff Intensive JournalTM workshop training over more than 35 years. He has been an adjunct university faculty member for 13 years.
Compass JournalingTM is his own development of a spiritual journaling process to track, reflect upon, and dialogue with one’s psychospiritual development over a lifetime.
Dr. Jamie F. Eaddy-Chism
Workshop Presenter
The Rev. Jamie Eaddy-Chism, DMin, works with people’s healing and well-being, perhaps especially with navigating trauma, loss, and grief. Her work intersects justice, theology, and thanatology, and she incorporates art, music, and movement when providing education and care. She is a 2015 Princeton University Black Theology and Leadership Institute Fellow. She received her Master of Divinity from The Samuel DeWitt Proctor School of Theology at Virginia Union University, and is a certified trauma professional (CTP). She is a certified thanatologist through The Association for Death Education and Counseling (ADEC). She founded The Remembering Station, a 501C3 committed to providing resources to those navigating grief, whether finances for funerals or resources for doulas.
Affectionately known as Dr. J, she facilitates sessions on the intersection of Trauma, Black Grief, and White Supremacy throughout the United States and abroad. Dr. Jamie is the author of Getting Naked to Get Free and curator of the “The Ratchet Grief Project™.
Nicholas Collura
Workshop Presenter
Nicholas Collura will present on Professional Considerations for Spiritual Directors During the “Psychedelic Renaissance.” In Nicholas’ words, “The field of psychedelics is undergoing a “renaissance,” as the FDA has approved breakthrough psychedelic-assisted therapies to treat a range of conditions, and hallucinogenic plant medicines are becoming increasingly popular among spiritual seekers today. What impact might this new frontier have on our profession, and are we prepared to accompany those who have had transformative, or challenging, psychedelic experiences?”
Nicholas is a spiritual director, Enneagram teacher, and board-certified healthcare chaplain who currently serves as a university chaplain and directs an ethics program at MIT. In the past, he has worked in population health and palliative care chaplaincy, and he is the co-founder and co-coordinator of EcoPhilly, a faith-based organizing initiative dedicated to creation care in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.
Karen Bartlett
Workshop Presenter
Karen Bartlett will present a workshop titled The Integration of Spirituality, Trauma, Attachment, and Neuroscience, delving into the interconnected realms of spirituality, trauma, attachment, and neuroscience, with a goal of enhancing understanding of both ourselves and those we guide.
Karen resides in Wichita, Kansas. Her passion for learning has resulted in obtaining the following: Licensed Master of Social Work, Masters Certificate in Theology, M.Ed in Neuroscience and Trauma, and a certificate in Spiritual Direction. Karen currently works as both a school social worker and as a spiritual director.
Keith Kristich
Workshop Presenter
Keith Kristich is a writer and retreat leader bringing an interspiritual approach to spiritual teaching, integrating wisdom from various contemplative traditions while highlighting the often-forgotten mystical teachings of Christianity. Keith is a commissioned Presenter of Centering prayer through Contemplative Outreach, trained with the Shalem Institute for Spiritual Formation in Leading contemplative prayer groups and retreats, and is a certified teacher of meditation and the Enneagram. Keith Kristich is the founder of Closer Than Breath, an online interspiritual community dedicated to the teaching and practice of contemplative prayer.
Interdisciplinary Companionship
We will also be offering a number of experiential sessions in interdisciplinary companionship, including musical, art, and nature practices.
Simon de Voil & Jeanette Banashak
Interdisciplinary Facilitators
“Grab your lunches and expand the nourishment of the meal as sacred musician, Rev. Simon Ruth de Voil, and nature companionship guide and educator, Dr. Jeanette Banashak facilitate an integrative, joyful, and reflective experience with copious amounts of song and spontaneous fun while we eat. The focus will be on relationship and reciprocity with the natural world, feel free to bring any poems that you’d want to share as we connect with the land, the Sacred, each other, our ancestors, our selves, and the collective work of this gathering.”
Reverend Simon Ruth de Voil is an ordained interfaith/interspiritual minister, sacred musician, spiritual mentor and worship leader he incorporates chant, ritual, storytelling and mindful practice to create a space for profound connection and sacred witness. Simon is also an experienced workshop and retreat leader, drawing on 15 years of study, training, and practice that grew from his time living and working in Iona Abbey. Although influenced by many traditions, Simon’s spiritual path and teaching is deeply rooted in Celtic Christianity, the wisdom of the earth, and in the Scottish land where he’s spent most of his life.
Dr. Jeanette Banashak is a queer and bilingual interspiritual and interreligious companion. She has a diploma in shinrin yoku (forest bathing) and guides people of all ages in urban nature immersion experiences as an act of justice and is deeply committed to the work of integrating life’s experiences. She is the co-founder/director of The Spiritual Guidance Training Institute, which offers trainings in nature companionship as well as interfaith & interspiritual direction. Jeanette also teaches social and emotional learning and child development at Erikson Institute and spiritual direction at the Graduate Theological Foundation. She loves to be outside and near and in the Great Lakes during her free time.
Harry Pickens
Interdisciplinary Facilitator
Harry Pickens is an award-winning musician, educator, and life transformation coach. He holds practitioner and trainer certifications in EFT and Spiritual Technology and a Certificate in Applied Positive Psychology from the Flourishing Center. He is the developer of the From StageFright To Standing Ovation™, From Burnout To Bliss™ and Rewire Your Brain For Inner Peace™ Workshops, and creator of Emotional Empowerment For Personal Mastery™, a step-by-step protocol that is designed to help his clients quickly and easily release the pain of the past, fully embrace the miracle of the present moment, and consciously create their best possible future. Harry was a recent presenter in the SDI Trauma and Wellness Course for Spiritual Directors and Companions.
Marybeth Leis Druery
Interdisciplinary Facilitator
Marybeth Leis Druery will guide participants in a creative practice titled Mandalas and Spiritual Awareness: Being Held in Our Innate Wholeness. Marybeth began creating mandalas in 2005 to reflect on her Ontario Jubilee Spiritual Direction training. She is an artist and Spiritual Companion who journeys with emerging adults from diverse faith and non-religious backgrounds through Student Open Circles, a charity she co-founded in 2001. She facilitates mindfulness and creativity circles, personal development courses, retreats, leadership development, and engages university students to volunteer with local underserved communities.
In addition to her training as a Spiritual Director, Marybeth is a certified practitioner of the NARM modality for addressing complex trauma and she received her Expressive Arts Facilitator Graduate Certificate through Haliburton School of Art where she is Part-time Faculty, teaching courses in Mandalas, Creativity, and Spirituality. She deepens her journey through practices from diverse spiritual traditions, art, dreamwork, the Enneagram, body awareness, and meditation. She is committed to working towards a world in which we value and care for each other.
Christine Hiester
Interdisciplinary Facilitator
Christine Hiester will guide participants in Creative Practice in Spiritual Direction: a Hands-on Exploration for the Soul. With gently guided practice stations, group discussion, and concrete suggestions for expanding awareness around creativity, attendees will experience a modality expanding opportunity for their spiritual companionship work.
Christine is a spiritual companion, retreat leader, supervisor, and trained grief companion in Central Ohio. Christine received training through the Wellstreams Program on the Art of Spiritual Direction in Columbus, Ohio, in Interfaith and Interspiritual Wisdom through the Spiritual Guidance Training Institute, and as a Grief Companion through the Metta Center. She is affiliated with both the Metta Center and the Spirituality Network of Columbus, Ohio as course/workshop facilitator and supervisor.
Nathan Bettger
Spiritual Companion in Residence
Nathan Bettger will be a lead and liason for our 1:1 and Group Spirtual Companionship sessions, being with and connecting those seeking, and offering, 1:1 and group spiritual companionship during specific times at the conference.
Nathan is a board-certified hospital chaplain and spiritual director from Oshkosh, WI. Deeply committed to companioning and nurturing sacred sanctuary for individuals and communities, both human and more than human, Nathan draws from the mystic tradition within Christianity and the intuitive knowledge of nature-based and animist cultures throughout human history. Nathan is dedicated to helping liberate others into a more expanded consciousness and incorporation of their heart, body, and mind. Parenting a child with a disability, walking with those at end of life, and focused attention to the natural world have led to a deep passion for paradox, process, and presence. He is a trained Enneagram facilitator, an ordained interfaith minister, a graduate of Stephen Jenkinson’s Orphan Wisdom School, and an SDI New Contemplative Alumni.