- Serving Spiritual Companions Since 1990 -
We are the Home of Spiritual Companionship
WHO WE ARE
We are an inclusive, global learning community that advocates for and celebrates the service of spiritual companionship, also known as spiritual direction, spiritual accompaniment, and spiritual guidance.
WHY WE ARE
SDI exists to support, educate and connect spiritual companions, spiritual directors, life coaches, chaplains, health care workers, and many other friends, providing a digital community where companions can find one another.
WHOEVER YOU ARE
All are welcome the way they are, carrying their own orientations and traditions (or none), where we all benefit from sharing our practices, beliefs and rituals. Here we share universal human values of love, compassion and respect.
Join Us At SDI
You can become an SDI Member, participate in an online webinar or town hall, attend a workshop or conference, or travel with us on an SDI Journey. Check out our many offerings in the Media and Events section above.
Welcome to our new SDI Website!
We have been working several months to bring you this new, streamlined website. We hope that you will be nourished in your spiritual companionship practice by the variety of offerings provided here. If you’re new here, we invite you to read through the pages in the ‘About’ section at the top. If you’ve been with us awhile, we’ve created an FAQ for some of the new things going on here. We are so glad you are here! (Also, we’re still working out a few bugs – thanks for your patience!)
"Exploring Spiritual Companionship Across Traditions"
A twelve-part course exploring what spiritual companionship looks like across ten different spiritual traditions and orientations
Who is a spiritual companion?
Spiritual companions support people on their spiritual journeys through life.
Spiritual companions are welcoming and present with those they companion, listening and responding without being judgmental.
Spiritual companions are contemplative and honor silence as a spiritual practice.
Spiritual companions recognize the agency of the people they companion.
Spiritual companions are intuitive spiritual friends — accountable and compassionate, hospitable and open, loving yet independent.
Find a Spiritual Companion
Locating and interviewing a spiritual companion, chaplain or life coach is an important step in your spiritual journey. SDI’s desire is to provide an easy, inviting way for seekers to connect with a spiritual companion, to find a training program and/or a retreat center. We also help existing spiritual companions find supervisors and additional training resources.
"What is Ours to Do?"
Featured in the July 2020 Issue of
listen - a resource for spiritual companions
Featured Products from the SDI Store
Learn from Our Community
Spiritual direction or companionship inspires people to experience authenticity in their lives as they connect with and explore the ground of all being, that deepest of truths which is beyond life and death and goes by many names, including God, and no name at all.
The spiritual companions of SDI share their stories on our blog. Receive nourishment, learn a new practice, and gain insight into the healing modality of spiritual companionship through one of the stories shared below.
Peeling Carrots – A Spiritual Practice
PRACTICE CHALLENGE Inspired by Anne Hillman and her book “The Dancing Animal Woman.” 1) Find a lovely large carrot. Top and tail it. Then peel it. Save peelings for compost.
The Wall
Truth is the ultimate spiritual companion. And honesty can transform foes into partners. This is a story that has been told as fiction, but its roots are in truth.… Sunrise
Handouts for “Wisdom in Hardship” with Rabbi Amy Eilberg
Wisdom in Hardship – Online Webinar Series for SDI Led by Rabbi Amy Eilberg July-August, 2020 Still time to register – click here Key Definitions Mussar (literally, “correction” or “instruction”)
Join Us - Become a Member of SDI
We are the Home of Spiritual Companionship. Join our Tree of Life, and find a community that will feed your soul and nourish your companionship practice. Members also receive large discounts on all our offerings.
Updates from SDI
Subscribing to SDI’s Mailing List provides you with a deep connection to our offerings and updates, including:
Digital Refuge – a Weekly newsletter with links to our free Town Halls, new Webinars, and the latest Encounters podcast, and a contemplative practice.
Discover – a Monthly newsletter of everything going on with SDI, including conference updates and new gatherings. Find your place in the Public Square of Spiritual Companionship.
Listen – a quarterly contemplative publication with a reflection on spiritual companionship, poetry, and art.
Spiritual Companionship For Our Times
What are the questions you are sitting with in this global pandemic? Listen to the ways some of our spiritual companions are walking alongside others.
![THOMAS MERTON - CONTEMPLATIVE PRAYER "LIKE A SKYROCKET" - This comes from a fascinating little book called "Spiritual Direction and Meditation," written by the Catholic monk, best-selling author and social activist Thomas Merton... We found this passage beautiful and wanted to share it...
"Kindled by a spark of divine love, the soul streaks heavenward in an act of intelligence as clear and direct as the [sky] rocket's trail of fire. Grace has released all the deepest energies of our spirit and assists us to climb to new and unsuspected heights. Nevertheless, our own faculties soon reach their limit. The intelligence can climb no higher into the sky. There is a point where the mind bows down its fiery trajectory as if to acknowledge its limitations and proclaim the infinite supremacy of the unattainable God.
"But it is here that our 'meditation' reaches its climax. Love again takes the initiative and the rocket 'explodes' in a burst of sacrificial praise. Thus love flings out a hundred burning stars, acts of all kinds, expressing everything that is best in man's spirit, and the soul spends itself in drifting fires that glorify the Name of God while they fall earthward and die away in the night wind!...
"The beauty of the rocket is in its 'death,' and the beauty of mental prayer and of mystical contemplation is in the soul's abandonment and total surrender of itself in an outburst of praise in which it spends itself entirely to bear witness to the transcendent goodness of the infinite God. The rest is silence.
"Let us never forget that the fruitful silence in which words lose their power and concepts escape our grasp is perhaps the perfection of meditation. We need not fear and become restless when we are no longer able to 'make acts.' Rather we should rejoice and rest in the luminous darkness of faith. This 'resting' is a higher way of prayer."
Fruitful silence. Luminous darkness of faith. May we all rest and rejoice like this.](https://www.sdicompanions.org/wp-content/plugins/instagram-feed/img/placeholder.png)