Facilitator
Cynthia Winton-Henry
Dates
Eight live weekly 90 minute sessions, Tuesdays beginning September 30, 2025.
4PM-5:30PM PDT
7PM-8:30PM EDT
Find your local time zone.
Duration
12 hours (total)
Webinar will be recorded.
A new 8 part online series
Somatic Spiritual Companionship
Inner Awareness for Deeper Listening
Begins September 30, 2025
Hear from facilitator Cynthia Winton-Henry in the short video below.
Somatics - the Integration of Body Mind and Soul
Somatics is a field within bodywork and movement studies that emphasizes internal physical perception and experience.
This exciting new course from SDI centers around the ways we attune to the direct experience of body and soul. In this highly experiential and collaborative online course, we will explore frameworks and methods that reliably guide people to the resilient holy ground of body and soul, offering a place for new and experienced spiritual companions to foster greater collective literacy about somatics in spiritual direction and companionship.
In each session, series facilitator Cynthia Winton-Henry, cofounder of InterPlay and Body Wisdom Inc. and the author of The Art of Ensoulment, How to Create From Body and Soul, will share core somatic tools and introduce participants to a diverse group of spiritual companions, who will share stories from their practice and guide participants in multiple forms of practice. Sessions will close with celebrating ways that somatic spiritual companionship can serve as a resource in this time of change.
Spiritual directors and companions who take this course will deepen their capacity to listen not only with their ears and hearts but with their whole bodies. They will gain practical somatic tools to help themselves and those they accompany become more present, grounded, and attuned to the sacred wisdom of the Self. Through experiential learning, storytelling, and shared practices, participants will develop greater confidence in integrating body-based awareness into their spiritual care. This course offers a rich opportunity to expand one’s toolkit, nurture embodied presence, and cultivate a more holistic and compassionate approach to spiritual companionship in a rapidly changing world.
Cynthia has gathered a broad range of somatic practitioners from across the spectrum of spiritual companionship to present throughout this series. Learn more about each of them, and the topics they will share with you, in the information below.
“When people are compulsively and constantly pulled back into the past, to the last time they felt intense involvement and deep emotions, they suffer from a failure of imagination, a loss of the mental flexibility. Without imagination there is no hope, no chance to envision a better future, no place to go, no goal to reach.”
~ Bessel Van Der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score
Who is this course for?
All spiritual directors, companions, and somatic spiritual practitioners are encouraged to participate, along with anyone curious or interested about cultivating and experiencing more body-knowing and body-awareness. No particular training or experience necessary.
Course Facilitator
Cynthia Winton-Henry, M.Div, is the co-founder of InterPlay, an international community dedicated to actively and creatively unlocking the wisdom of the body, and the author of The Art of Ensoulment: How to Create From Body and Soul. She came to spiritual companionship after decades of teaching at the Pacific School of Religion, her postgraduate work in Theology and the Arts and Multicultural Education, ordination and service in a Silicon Valley church, and continuous exploration of the nature of body and soul with people across the globe. In 2012, she created The Hidden Monastery, an online community of ensoulment coaches who offer online Dance Chapels, classes, retreats, and 1:1 companionship. Her books include Move: What the Body Wants, Dance: The Sacred Art: The Joy of Movement in Spiritual Practice, Chasing the Dance of Life, and the forthcoming illustrated intergenerational children’s book and curriculum, The Great Dance. On her The Dancing Center substack she speaks to current events as it related to the wisdom of body and soul.
Co-Practitioners
Renee Bhatia, MDiv, is a spiritual director and expressive arts facilitator with an interest in spirituality and creative expression. Through spiritual direction, retreats, and expressive arts facilitation, she creates space for participants to listen and discern the work of the divine spirit in their life experiences and to align their lives to their deepest values. Her work explores contemplative spaces and practices that support healing, growth, and transformation. She is involved in the formation of spiritual directors and expressive arts facilitators through teaching, supervision, and mentoring. Renee believes creativity is an inherent part of being human, and we make the world a better place when we allow it to flourish in everyone. www.temenosarts.com
Betsey Beckman, MM, has been exploring embodiment and spirituality since the age of six. Under the umbrella of The Dancing Word, Betsey integrates practices of movement therapy, InterPlay, performance, and spiritual direction as her passion and life-long calling. Betsey co-authored Awakening the Creative Spirit: Bringing the Arts to Spiritual Direction with Christine Valters Paintner as an SDI Imprint publication, a resource now standard in Spiritual Direction training courses. She has collaborated with Abbey of the Arts for the past 20 years creating visual, audio, and movement resources for online and in person retreats, producing six albums with accompanying video dance prayers. A resident of Seattle, she offers the gift of playful improvisation whenever possible.
Dr. Sheila Collins is the award-winning author of The Art of Grieving: How the Arts and Art-Making Help Us Grieve and Live Our Best Lives, where she explores how creativity and artistic expression can transform the grieving process into a powerful path for healing, connection, and renewal. Shiela draws on a lifetime of experience as a dancer, social work professor, therapist, writer, speaker, teacher, and improvisational performance artist as she offers thought-provoking insights and art-based, embodied practices that support people in navigating life’s most difficult passages. She shares current resources in her growing online community on Substack at sheilakcollins.substack.com.
Marla Durden, Facilitator, Healer, and Guide, is an intuitive empath, energy guide, and artist. She helps creatives, leaders, and mystics access and embody their innate creativity and Soul’s purpose through spiritual counseling and creative consulting. Marla is the author of the highly praised The Magical You Playbook and Embodied Self-Care Journal, and hosts a weekly Dance Chapel, including a Hip Hop Dance Chapel as a Chaplain within the Hidden Monastery Community. She also produces and hosts the monthly Watering Wholeness Community Call for the Women of Wisdom Foundation.
Victoria Loorz, MDiv, is a writer, spiritual guide, and wild theologian whose work emerges at the convergence of process thought, ecological consciousness, and sacred activism. As founder of the Center for Wild Spirituality and host of The Holy Wild podcast, she midwives a movement of spiritual rewilding—supporting leaders and seekers who long to restore sacred intimacy with the more-than-human world. Victoria initiated the Wild Church Network, a growing web of communities that gather outdoors in reverence and reciprocal relationship with Earth as sacred. Her books, Church of the Wild: How Nature Invites Us into the Sacred and Field Guide to Church of the Wild, reimagine church as a participatory, incarnational communion with a living, dynamic world. She lives now on the ancestral lands of the Suquamish people—among cedar trees, tides, and the teachings of otters—where she continues to listen for the voice of the Holy Wild.
Hailey Mitsui is a Spiritual Director and Somatic Coach working at the intersection of spirituality, identity, justice, and healing. Based on Duwamish land (Seattle, WA), Hailey works with individuals, groups, and communities, offering a space for questioning, anger, grief, joy, and exploration. Drawing from Christian contemplative practices, somatic therapy, and ancestral healing, Hailey’s approach is rooted in inclusivity and compassion. She centers queer, trans, and BIPOC individuals, supporting personal healing as a pathway to collective liberation. With a nuanced understanding of trauma, identity, and spirituality, Hailey helps her clients reconnect with their inner wisdom and navigate the complexities of spiritual and embodied life.
Wai-Chin Matsuoka is adjunct faculty at Christos Center for Spiritual Formation’s Tending the Holy and served on staff and as coordinator of the Chicago satellite program and as a Facilitator for Alumni Development. She is also a trained supervisor for spiritual directors and a facilitator of her Soul-Tending Retreats. With more than two decades of experience in facilitating others into healing encounters with God the Divine Physician, Wai-Chin helps others “doula” new life from the ashes of trauma, change, and transition. Wai-Chin is credentialed as an Ensoulment Coach to guide others to live from the fullness of their souls, a certified InterPlay leader, and a Focused Energy Balance Index (FEBI) coach. These somatic streams add a holistic dimension to her spiritual companionship that is mind-body-heart-spirit focused.
Donna Mazzola is a Natural Dreamwork practitioner offering 1:1 and group sessions that assist dreamers to bring to life images, characters, gestures, and feelings in dreams. It is her experience and belief that our dreams offer moments of Sacred Encounter and Helpers who are incessantly and creatively tethering us to Soul. Donna carries a basket filled with the Body Wisdom of InterPlay and creativity expressed through movement, poetry, collage, smearing paint, and the twelve initiations of the Art of Ensoulment, a core support in her transformational journey.
Dr. Connors McConville is a licensed Marriage & Family Therapist and a Spiritual Counselor. Connors was a Jesuit for 14 years, and during that time, he worked in Thailand assisting with various Jesuit ministries. When in Thailand, Connors had the opportunity to study Buddhism at Wat Bovoraniwes under Somdet Phra Sangharaja Chao Krommaluang. After leaving the Jesuits, Connors had a career in dance, performing and teaching. He is interested in bringing movement, play, and creativity into his psychotherapy practice and his spiritual counseling work. In 2023, Connors earned a PhD in the field of East-West Psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco. His dissertation focused on aging and spiritual growth. Connors is a 2009 recipient of the Star-Caregiver Award presented by the Wellness Community of Silicon Valley for exceptional work caring for cancer patients.
Jamie McHugh, MSMT, is a Registered Master Somatic Movement Therapist, an interdisciplinary artist, and the creator of Somatic Expression ® – Body Wisdom for Modern Minds. Having occupied the movement arts world in various capacities for the past 45 years as a pioneer in the emergent field of Eco-somatics he apprenticed and taught alongside dance pioneer Anna Halprin at Tamalpa Institute in 1986, at John F. Kennedy University in the Master’s Program in Holistic Health Education, and was affiliated with the Institute for Health and Healing at Columbia Pacific Medical Center and the San Francisco AIDS Foundation. McHugh currently serves on the advisory council of Embodied Jewish Learning. http://somaticexpression.com
Carolyn Renée Morris, a teaching artist, naturopathic practitioner, InterPlay leader, and Art of Ensoulment coach, served as a faculty member at A Life Of Peace, an accredited institution of the American Association of Drugless Practitioners, from 2021 – 2024. Her solo play, Womb Creations, channels the wisdom of her ancestors to blend wellness and creativity for the enhanced well-being of others. Carolyn Renee blends her God given talents with naturopathy, along with grandma and ‘em’s wisdom to make the world just a little bit better than she found it. carolynrenee.com
Christine Ng is on the faculty of Stillpoint: The Center for Christian Spirituality and the Center for Engaged Compassion, where she leads programs in spirituality and spiritual direction formation. She holds a Doctor of Ministry degree from Clairmont School of Theology in Spirituality, Contemplative Practice, and Strategic Leadership. In addition, Chris has studied and taught Tai Chi for more than 40 years. She is a spiritual director, InterPlay Leader, Art of Ensoulment Coach, and an ordained minister of the United Church of Christ. www.revchrisng.net
Manuel Falcon Padua (he, siya) is an aspiring chaplain dedicated to building relational (heart) bridges during conflict and increasing humanization. His movement praxis is interwoven in his ancestry as a Filipinx immigrant and includes the arts and mental and spiritual health as a trifecta for wellness and wholeness. Lived tensions such as sexuality, identity, homelessness, and being in the military led to his understanding that our relationships are an embodiment of what is sacred and the divine. Much of his focus has been on community organizing and tending, with an emergent passion for conflict transformation. He resides on sacred Ohlone land in Berkeley, California, as an MDiv student at Pacific School of Religion and co-director at Reclaim Dance, a monthly daytime, sober, contemplative dance party for BIPOC and/or queer folks.
Cassandra Sagan has devoted her life to helping others access their creative brilliance. A twice-ordained Maggid in the lineage of Reb Zalman Schacter-Shalomi, and ultimately the Baal Shem Tov, she is a consummate cultural creative: educator, poet, storyteller, singer/songwriter, visual artist, and InterPlay leader; creator of Moving Midrash, an embodied Torah study practice based in InterPlay; and a regular Joy Gevalt. She has been published in a wide variety of anthologies and journals, and has taught in classrooms, synagogues, libraries, and retreat centers. Cassandra weaves her tales with humor and magical realism, while making ancestral tikkunim (repairs) through her characters and storylines.
Karin Stevens, also known by her Sufi name Najma, MFA, CHT, CSSH, MDiv, is a certified Hakomi therapist, Sufi Spiritual Healing practitioner, spiritual companion, teacher, and dance artist. With over 25 years of experience in embodied movement and interfaith spiritual practices, Karin offers a compassionate, trauma-informed approach to somatic and spiritual healing through one-on-one and group sessions. Whether as a complement to spiritual practice, physical therapy, or medical treatment, or as a stand-alone healing path, Karin’s integrative approach fosters a sense of spaciousness, joy, and freedom—often leading to profound emotional and spiritual breakthroughs.
Coke Tani (she, her) is a queer 3rd-generation Asian American spiritual director and artist of Okinawan and Japanese descent. Initially formed in urban ethnic United Methodism, she now centers the Sacred Intersectional Feminine in her life and work. Her “She Is Here” individual and group offerings honor the body’s mystical senses, social and ancestral realities, mental health experiences, and creative impulses. She can be found at coketani.com and at coketani.substack.com.
Barbara Jo Stetzelberger, LCSW, BC-DTR, is a Clinical Social Worker, a Board Certified Dance Movement Therapist specializing in treating somatic concerns including trauma, depression, and limiting physical conditions, and an Art of Ensoulment Coach. She specializes in expressive arts therapies that help individuals access their innate body wisdom and capacity for healing. Barbara Jo believes in the power of purposeful Play and is a certified InterPlay leader and trainer. She offers workshops and retreats as well as clinical consultation and supervision for helping professionals. She is the Creator and owner of Wood Haven ATX, Somatic Arts and Training Center in Austin TX. www.mindbodyfit.com
Trish Watts has worked as Community Choir Director and assisted the Taizé Community of France with their Australian Pilgrimages of Trust, including retreats and events. Her life’s work is anchored in the bedrock of ‘play’, as a trained InterPlay® Leader. She cofounded InterPlay Australia. Understanding the intersection between spirit, emotion, embodiment, soul, and expression led her to study Voice Movement Therapy VMT) in 2001, with the Norma Canner Foundation in the USA. She is now a registered Voice Movement Therapy practitioner and offers workshops and sessions nationally and internationally in person and online. trishwatts.com
Linds West (pronouns they/them/theirs) of the Gather The Wild Collective (https://gatherthewild.love) weaves somatic, creative practices with mindfulness and nature-based practices. Through experiences as an educator, librarian, facilitator, and InterPlay leader trained in eco-chaplaincy, Linds loves to collaborate in offering classes, workshops, and retreats that foster collective liberation and social change. Bringing joy together with grief, Linds also offers one-on-one consultations and nature-based accompaniment to folks seeking companionship for transitions and shared holding of life’s deep questions.
Schedule
Eight live weekly 90 minute sessions, Tuesdays beginning September 30, 2025. (12 hour total duration.)
The webinar series will run 8 consecutive Tuesdays: September 30, October 7, 14, 21, 28, November 4, 11, and 18, at 4 PM Seattle/Los Angeles, 6 PM Chicago, 7 PM New York. September 24, October 1, 8, 15, 22, 29, 12 AM London; 7 AM Hong Kong, 9 AM Sydney and Melbourne, Australia.
Find your own local time here.
This series has been scheduled to be convenient to as many people around the world as possible. With that said, if that timing doesn’t work, you can enjoy the sessions any time you like.
Each session is recorded so you can watch at your convenience.
Sessions (Subject to Change)
Session 1: September 30
Rentering the Body/Navigating the Body and Soul Disconnect. Cynthia with presenters Marla Durden, Wai-Chin Matsuoka, Betsey Beckman
Session 2: October 7
Our Embodied Prayer Birthrights: Movement, Sound, Story, Stillness, and Art: Cynthia with presenters Renee Bhatia, Trish Watts, Karin Stevens, Cassandra Sagan, Manuel Padua
Session 3: October 14
Earth Bodies: Eco-Spirituality in Companionship: Cynthia with presenters Linds Roberts, Victoria Loorz, Judy Shook
Session 4: October 21
Bodyspirit Grief, Mortality, and Death:Cynthia with presenters Dr. Connors McConnville, and Dr. Sheila Collins
Session 5: October 28
Social Grace, Trauma and Genocide- Cynthia with presenters Coke Tani, Carolyn Renee Morris, Hailey Mitsui
Session 6: November 4
Lineage Care/Ancestral Bodies: Cynthia with presenters Cassandra Sagan, Coke Tani, Carolyn Renee Morris
Session 7: November 11
Somatic Tools: Enneamotion, Voice Movement Therapy, Art of Ensoulment, InterPlay, Natural Dreamwork, Somatic Expression: with presenters Trish Watts, Wai-Chin Matsuoka, Carolyn Renee Morris, Donna Mazzola, Jamie McHugh
Session 8: November 18
Supervision for Somatic Spiritual Companionship: with presenters Christine Ng, Renee Bhatia, Connors McConville, Barbara Jo Stezelberger, Wai-Chin Matsuoka
Additional Information
- Participants from all spiritual traditions and orientations are welcome in this webinar series as are those with all levels of spiritual experience.
- Each session will run 90 minutes. We understand that the timing of the seminar will not be convenient in every time zone on the planet. For those who have trouble making this time, a recorded copy of each session will be made available to all those who sign up.
- CEU credits are available for all those who participate. SDI will provide a certificate of completion for self-reporting to agencies. More information can be found here: continuing education units (CEUs).
- Cost: $299 for non-members, with significant discounts for SDI members
- Scholarships are available for those facing financial hardship. Please apply here.
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