SDI Encounters

A Conversation with Busshō Lahn - Singing and Dancing are the Voice of the Law

Busshō Lahn is a Zen student and teacher, and the guiding teacher of Flying Cloud Zen Spiritual Practice Community. He’s also a popular speaker, retreat leader, spiritual director, author, and a Senior Priest at Minnesota Zen Meditation Center.
Busshō has just published his first Zen book, Singing and Dancing are the Voice of the Law, by Monkfish Publications.
In this episode we discuss this book and its exploration of the Zen poem, The Song of Zazen, and other things such as how we first connected at SDI, persevering with ideas we feel called to create and make, paradoxes such as giving up safety in order to find Safety, the Nature of the Universe – you know, the things we commonly talk about here on this podcast. Bussho is a friend and a lively conversationalist and deeply contemplative - I hope you enjoy the conversation.
Singing and Dancing Are the Voice of the Law introduces us to one of the great works of Zen literature, “The Song of Zazen.” Zen teacher Busshō Lahn illuminates Hakuin’s enigmatic poem in plain language, unpacking it and applying it to contemporary life. His book offers a wealth of information on the context and content of this eighteenth-century work, clearly evoking its themes of abiding wisdom, meditation, compassionate self-regard, and our own everyday life’s potential to express deep spiritual truth.
Learn more about the book, and purchase links, here: Singing and Dancing Are the Voice of the Law - Monkfish (monkfishpublishing.com)
Busshō first came to Soto Zen Buddhism in 1993, was ordained as a novice in 2009, and received Dharma Transmission (authorization to carry the lineage and teach independently) in 2015. Busshō remains rooted in his Zen tradition but cultivates an openness to the beauty and wisdom of other faiths. Through appreciatively understanding other paths, he feels that he becomes a better Buddhist.

An Exploration of the Psalms - Song and Poetry Swap with Simon de Voil and David Wallace

In this week's episode, Rev. Simon Ruth de Voil and Rev. David Wallace swap poetry and song ahead of their upcoming 4-part webinar series entitled "Deep Calls Unto Deep: A Contemplative Exploration of the Psalms in Our Life and Practice", which begins on January 30. 
This Interspiritually-minded and experiential webinar highlights works from The Book of Psalms, a revered sacred text across Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, which is cherished for its deep wisdom, beautiful poetry, and broad exploration of the joys, sorrows, despairs, and longings at the heart of the human condition. We will be learning about and engaging with the Book of Psalms through teaching, music, writing, and contemplative listening, with opportunities for sharing and for spiritual companionship. All spiritual wayfarers from any spiritual orientation or tradition will find wisdom, song, and practice to nourish their souls.
Learn more and register for this webinar series at sdicompanions.org.
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Rev. Simon Ruth de Voil, is an ordained interfaith/interspiritual minister, trained to be a sacred presence outside the conventions of traditional religion. As a sacred musician, spiritual mentor and worship leader he incorporates chant, ritual, poetry, storytelling, and mindful practice to create a space for profound connection and sacred witness. Simon provides music for worship, ceremony, and prayer in a wide variety of churches and non-religious spiritual communities. He particularly loves to create music for meditation, healing services, and rites of passage.
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.
Learn more about Simon on his website: simondevoil.com
Rev. David Wallace recently retired as a dean and senior teacher for One Spirit Interfaith Seminary in New York City, and is a faculty member of the spiritual direction program at the Rowe Center and an active officiant and spiritual director.  He is a graduate of St. John’s College in Santa Fe, NM, and has continued those studies as a lifelong student of the “great books” of philosophy and archetypal psychology.  Rev. Wallace offers teaching and retreats at spiritual venues worldwide, and specializes in poetics, contemplative practice, and the wisdom texts of both the Eastern and Western traditions.
 

An Interview with Lerita Coleman Brown - The Enduring Wisdom of Howard Thurman

SDI Executive Director Rev. SeiFu Singh-Molares and Lerita Coleman Brown discuss the work of Howard Thurman, anticipating the upcoming webinar series from SDI - Listening for the Sound of the Genuine.
This 4-part series will provide an overview of Howard Thurman’s contributions to spirituality, mysticism, and sacred activism. During this webinar, we will walk through the life and writings of Howard Thurman and listen for the genuine; the words and ideas that Spirit holds uniquely for each of us and our ministries of spiritual direction/companioning. With this clarion call for the authentic, what do we hear about living as a contemplative, a holy child of God, an everyday mystic, a prophetic leader, and with inner authority as we answer our sacred call? In what ways does it help us to companion ourselves and those we journey with? Join us as we uncover the depths of inner freedom that emerge when we listen for the genuine, to what makes us come alive.
Sign up for this four part webinar today at https://www.sdicompanions.org/product/listening-for-the-sound-of-the-genuine/
 

Aimee Bostwick - Community and Spiritual Life at Kanuga Conference Center - Forest Bathing Journey with SDI

Hi! Matt Whitney here – Creative Director, and one of the Guides for the Nature Immersion and Deep Listening Journey we have put together for all spiritual directors, companions, and wayfarers.
In this episode, I have a conversation with Aimee Bostwick, who is Coordinator of Community and Spiritual Life at Kanuga Conference Center (our hosts for this retreat) in North Carolina about what it's like to live and work there, being in the landscape, and what retreat participants can expect.
We still have spots for YOU! As I write this, we are a little more than three months away. Our retreat dates are March 19-25, 2023. This is the perfect time to register. Right now, SDI is having its Solstice Sale, with 15 percent savings across all our offerings. A single room reservation saves $375!
This is my dream retreat. I designed it the way I would want a retreat to be. What would I need to find deep rest and reconnection? Where would I want to be? What would the flow of a day look like? Who would I want to share this with? All are welcome. 🌲🌳
 

Cynthia Bailey Manns - Reflections of a Soul Companion

Recently, Cynthia Bailey Manns came off of the SDI Coordinating Council, now called the SDI Board of Directors, and also wrote a reflection for Presence – our journal on spiritual direction and companionship. Cynthia and I discuss her written reflection, her time serving on the Coordinating Council, and her work as a soul companion.
Cynthia Bailey Manns, D.Min., is an experienced soul companion,  supervisor, workshop and retreat leader, Movement Chaplain, spiritual direction training program leader, Lilly Grant program leader and author. Her passion for soul care and sacred activism is foundational to her current service as the Adult Learning Director at St. Joan of Arc Catholic Community in Minneapolis, Adjunct Faculty in the Theology department at St. Catherine University in St. Paul, and accompanying lay and ordained spiritual leaders.  She is the US Catholic representative and author for the 2023 World Council of Churches Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, and served as the past Chair of SDI's Coordinating Council. 

Nature Immersion and Deep Listening - A Forest Bathing Retreat from SDI - Dr Jeanette Banashak

SDI is offering a very unique Forest Bathing Journey – a travel experience hosted by us – to the Blue Ridge Mountains for a Nature Immersion and Deep Listening retreat, for seven days in March 2023. In this conversation, the retreat facilitators, Dr Jeanette Banashak and myself, discuss our themes and hopes for this time together, to give you a better sense of what is being offered. 
For all spiritual directors, companions, and seekers, we invite you to spend a week immersing in nature, breathing the clean forest air, finding silence and stillness, and experience deep listening on new levels.
With this SDI Journey we are able to offer reasonable pricing, with a significant Early Bird discount if you register before October 8th. We are offering standard single and double rooms in both a contemporary inn setting, as well as multi-room cabins and cottages. Bring a friend (or a few friends!) And let us know with whom you’d like to share lodgings. If four or more of you would like to reserve a cabin or cottage together, call us and we’ll work something out.
Designed by spiritual directors and companions, for spiritual directors and companions, this Journey retreat is sure to nourish, restore, and intimately connect you to Nature, Contemplative Community, and the Essence of your very Being.
Learn more at SDI Journey - The Forest as Companion - Nature Immersion and Deep Listening - March 19-25, 2023 - SDI Companions
 
 
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 nature urban immersion experiences as an act of justice, as well as is working on a piece that explores interspirituality and trees. She is the co-founder/director of The Spiritual Guidance Training Institute, an organization providing training in spiritual direction/companionship with an interfaith, interspiritual, inter-contemplative focus. Jeanette is the author of The Mindful Pilgrimage: A 40-Day Pocket Devotional for Pilgrims of Any Faith or None and a 30-Day ezine of haiga from the Camino. In 2018, she became a “dual pilgrim” after walking the Camino de Santiago in Spain and Kumano Kodo in Japan. Jeanette also teaches social and emotional learning and development at Erikson Institute and spiritual direction at the Graduate Theological Foundation. 

Dr. Bruce Tallman - New Book on Francis de Sales - Making a Living in Spiritual Direction

Since 2002 Dr. Bruce Tallman has been a full-time spiritual director and marriage coach in private practice. He is passionate about his mission, which is to help people grow in wisdom and love. Bruce wrote the manual on how to make a living as a spiritual director – a seminal text for most working spiritual directors and companions called Finding Seekers: How to Develop a Spiritual Direction Practice from Beginning to Full-Time Employment. He also participated in our recent Making a Living 3 Webinar series, which is available as a recorded purchase on the SDI website. Bruce has a new book out, an exploration of the 17th century saint Francis de Sales and his 1616 Treatise on the Love of God. This book is called God’s Ecstatic Love and is available for purchase on Amazon, and on Bruce’s website – brucetallman.com. Bruce and I recently spoke about this recent book and caught up on all kinds of topics around spiritual direction.
In spiritual direction, he has worked with laity and clergy from every Christian denomination. He has published two books for spiritual directors (one of them, Finding Seekers: How to Develop a Spiritual Direction Practice from Beginning to Full-Time Employment, is a bestseller in the field). He has also published two books on spirituality for clergy and lay people (see the "Books" page). He has had hundreds of articles on spirituality published in the London Free Press and other newspapers and is an adjunct faculty for the Haden Institute for Spiritual Directors Training. From 1988 to 2002 Dr. Tallman was the director of two adult religious education centers for the Roman Catholic Diocese of London, Ontario. He holds a Doctor of Ministry degree in Spiritual Direction/Counselling from the Graduate Theological Foundation, which is affiliated with the Gregorian Institute in Rome and Oxford University in England.
Francis de Sales, bishop, doctor, saint, and mystic, published Treatise on the Love of God in 1616. Scholars consider it to be one of the classics of Christian literature, on the level of The Cloud of Unknowing, The Imitation of Christ by Thomas a Kempis, and The Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola. Yet, most people have never heard of it.
Dr. Bruce Tallman’s new book God’s Ecstatic Love takes de Sales’ spiritual masterpiece and updates it in a way that makes sense to 21st century minds.
Learn more about Bruce's book at BruceTallman.com

A Contemplative Approach to Sexuality - Dr. Westina Matthews

In the June 2022 issue of Presence Journal, Dr Westina Matthews writes,
“We will not attempt to convince another to adopt any view but rather offer a safe and sacred space to share knowledge and to engage in open and honest dialogue about what is usually considered to be a taboo topic.  In spiritual direction, often resisted is the topic of sex, sexuality, and sexual orientation. We have found that both spiritual director and spiritual directee tend to avoid these “taboos,”
So why the silence? (We) are convinced it is due to the shame.”
How does one begin to overcome this shame?”
In this interview, we talk with Dr Matthews about how spiritual directors and companions can begin to create a safe, holy space in their sessions to allow for safe, brave conversations about sexuality. Approaches, icebreakers questions, acknowledging sexual confusion and harm, and understanding sexuality from a contemplative grounding are discussed.
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Dr. Westina Matthews, PhD, is an author, public speaker, retreat leader, and theologian. She is an adjunct professor at General Theological Seminary in the Center for Christian Spirituality in New York, New York, USA, where she teaches contemplative spiritual direction.
Further reading and resources can be found at https://www.spiritualityandsexuality.org/
Dr. Westina’s website: Westina – Author (westinamatthews.com)
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Presence is the flagship publication of SDI. It comes out four times a year, and is an international journal on spiritual direction and companionship. Presence Journal is available in print and on the web to SDI Members. 
Read the current issue on the web, with exclusive video interviews, here: Presence - 28.2 - June 2022 - SDI Companions
Become a Member of SDI and support our work to bring spiritual direction and companionship to the world by clicking here: SDI Membership - Join the Community of Spiritual Companions (sdicompanions.org)
 
 

EP133 - Rabbi Rami Shapiro - Wandering the Pathless Land

Recently I had the amazing opportunity to chat with author and teacher Rabbi Rami Shapiro, who has written an article for Presence Journal – the SDI quarterly publication on spiritual direction and companionship. It was meant to just be a quick 15 minute conversation that I could use to create a short video to go with the article in the Online Edition of Presence. Because Rabbi Rami was so generous with his time, and our conversation so fascinating, it ended up going for almost an hour. We talked about spiritual companionship, when our own beliefs and worldviews get in the way of doing this work, Mysticism, embracing the shadow and evil within ourselves, and the necessity of our spiritual work in a rapidly changing world. So in this podcast episode we are releasing the entirety of our conversation. Rabbi Rami is delightful to listen to and I hope you enjoy it.
Presence is the flagship publication of SDI. It comes out four times a year, and is an international journal on spiritual direction and companionship. Presence Journal is available in print and on the web to SDI Members. 
Read the current issue on the web, with exclusive video interviews, here: Presence - 28.2 - June 2022 - SDI Companions
Become a Member of SDI by clicking here: SDI Membership - Join the Community of Spiritual Companions (sdicompanions.org)
Rabbi Rami Shapiro is an award-winning teacher and author of over thirty-six books on religion and spirituality. A rabbinic chaplain with the U.S. Air Force for three years, a congregational rabbi for twenty years, and a professor of religious studies for ten years, Rabbi Rami currently codirects the One River Foundation, a 501(c)3 educational institution devoted to perennial wisdom (www.oneriverfoundation.org). Rami is also a Contributing Editor at Spirituality and Health magazine where he writes the Roadside Assistance for the Spiritual Traveler column for the print magazine, the Spirituality & column for the digital magazine, and hosts the magazine’s bi-weekly podcast, Spirituality & Health with Rabbi Rami (www.spiritualityhealth.com). Rami's personal website is www.rabbirami.com
 

EP132 - Engage 2022 Conference Debrief with Rev SeiFu

Executive Director Rev SeiFu Anil Singh-Molares and Matt Whitney have a conversation in which they debrief the 2022 Engage Conference, which took place May 11-15 in Santa Fe, New Mexico. What were the takeaways? What were the lessons learned? How do we continue to engage with the theme 'Engage' as we go about our spiritual direction and spiritual companionship work in the world?
If you missed the conference, you can still catch up by purchasing access to all the conference recordings - 10 dynamic speakers and  32 diverse workshops totaling over 55 hours of content on contemplative action and spiritual direction and companionship. Available Now - SDI Conference Recordings (sdicompanions.org)