Our conference theme this year is “Navigating the Global Dark Night of the Soul of Spiritual Directors and Companions.” We will create an opening and a field for spiritual directors and companions to listen, and speak, into the hardships, struggles, and opportunities we have encountered over the last few difficult years.  Unfortunately, the world’s circumstances don’t seem to be improving, but rather, progressively worsening in many ways.  So we will need particularly effective tools to address empathy fatigue, burnout, and the very same afflictions that can ail all of us at any time: isolation, loneliness, despair, and loss of meaning and purpose.