COURSES
SOUL CARE FOR END OF LIFE
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​​The Soul Care course, which has been running since 2019, provides an integrated approach to caring for someone through the different stages of dying - including its relational, psycho-social and spiritual aspects, as well as end of life rituals and memorials. It is intended to equip a carer to support another, and to find depth and meaning in this very human experience that we will all confront someday.
The course is offered two or three times a year and takes the form of 5 weekly sessions on zoom. It includes information, readings, reflection on experiences, discussion and a contained space to explore aspects of death and dying through an inter-spiritual framework.
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Testimonials
As someone brand new to the world and work of soul caring, I found the course and the format to be very supportive and I really felt held by the group in general, and Mary in particular. For me it was especially valuable to have been doing the course during the Covid-19 lockdown period, as it provided a sense of connection with people when all around was distance and disconnection. Also, going through a time of being far away from my ailing mother, where I'm watching her deterioration from a distance, this course gave me tools with which to open up conversations with her, as well as to help gird me against the impending loss. I was very grateful for the readings we had and the videos we watched and the many and varied profound processes that we were introduced to, like the death poems of Japanese nuns and monks...I just loved those! Mary is a gentle carer, patient teacher and an adept at comfort.
Rhoda
The course is wonderful...helpful, insightful, brave and filled with how to provide a gracious and accepting way forward to those who are facing what we will all one day face.
Diana
I don't know if there are words to describe what my experience has been but it has been enlightening and transformative, a once in a life time experience so concisely and thoughtfully in these 5 sessions. Enriching, everyone should do this course, and it should have more light shone on it.
Mumtaz
Thank you for sharing your wisdom in this area, and for a course so rich in learning, and so well put together. The order of the sessions made so much sense and I feel I have a great deal on which to dwell and follow up.
Caroline
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Mary is an expert facilitator, who moves between her own input, group discussion, group sharing and silent reflection. The resources have been carefully selected and one comes away with a very valuable ‘library’ on the theme. I found this course profoundly valuable and also deeply challenging at a personal level. I highly recommend this course for both personal growth as well as preparation for taking up the role of soul carer - formally or informally.
Kathy
This is a fabulous training, a practical experiential programme where change is seen in practice.
Hilary
I absolutely loved the course and I wish it was longer.
Lyndi
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Contact Mary for more information and upcoming courses.
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IN CONVERSATION
WITH OUR GRANDMOTHERS
Many of us have complicated relationships with our mothers and mothers-in-law and perhaps these are unresolved and still painful.
This course provides a safe space to engage with your story in conversation with your grandmothers. Through a creative process including different activities and reflections, you will be able to tap into the life and world of your grandmothers, honour them, and draw on them as resources for healing in your current relationships.
The course is offered 3 or 4 times a year and takes place on zoom, once a week for 4 weeks.
Testimonials
The course has definitely opened up doors inside me for my grandmothers, known and unknown, to visit. I am experiencing a real shift too in my life and work, that I believe this openness and peace with past has enabled.
Wendy
I loved the way you got our grandmothers closer and closer. It moved a lot in me..
Thank you for having accompanied my way a little bit, it has been exciting and very interesting what we all found out in those few weeks.
Kristin
Just wanting to say that I am very grateful for your beautiful Grandmothers process and grateful to our wonderful group of women. It was really transformative for me in creating healing relationships with women in my past, including with women about whom I wasn't aware. And it is helping me with the mother wound.
Brenda
I’m experiencing ongoing support from the unseen ancestors and encouraging others too…
It feels really important to affirm and appreciate the bonds.
Alexandra
While I began it with few expectations, the sense that this was a well-timed invitation, was steadily affirmed with each session, and the magic that unfolded in the weeks between them.
At all times, I felt held and expertly guided through a process that at all times felt like a retreat, a mystical journey with a small group of strangers that welded together in such a short space of time. It has also unlocked a new way of connecting with my own mother, potentially unravelling generations of repressed hurt and wounded relationships. A fresh way to make peace with what was, and release new possibility.
Wendy
Contact Mary for more information and upcoming courses.
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Forthcoming New Course ….
FINDING SHELTER
Contemporary society is hard and lonely and there are few places of shelter for the modern soul.
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As formal religion loses traction for many spiritual seekers, we are left in a solitary wilderness, or more confusing still, in the marketplace of competing spiritual vendors. And still, we long for meaning and a glimpse of the eternal, we ache for connection, and we constantly seek our unique creative purpose in the world.
In Finding Shelter, we will explore these questions and longings, rekindle our kinship with nature, and draw nourishment from ancient wisdom.
Contact Mary for more information and upcoming courses.
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LISTENING TOGETHER
I offer ‘spiritual hospitality’ to you as you discern next steps to be taken, a decision to be made, or a threshold to be crossed.
Listening is much more than allowing another to talk while waiting for a chance to respond. Listening is paying full attention to others and welcoming them into our very beings. Listening is a form of spiritual hospitality by which you invite strangers to become friends, to get to know their inner selves more fully, and even to dare to be silent with you.
Henri Nouwen
The human soul doesn’t want to be advised or fixed or saved. It simply wants to be witnessed — to be seen, heard and companioned exactly as it is. When we make that kind of deep bow to the soul of a suffering person, our respect reinforces the soul’s healing resources, the only resources that can help the sufferer make it through.
Parker J Palmer
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Contact Mary for more information.
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CEREMONIES
As an ordained presider, I create personalised ceremonies and rituals including:
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Blessings and Baptisms
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Marriage preparation, service design, and wedding ceremonies
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Anointing, funerals and memorials for those who have died.
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Testimonials
The marriage ceremony was everything we could have wished for, and more. Mary's insights were truly inspired, as she tapped into our ethos. Her homily will stay with us for the rest of our married lives.
When my beloved father died recently, we asked Mary to lead his memorial service. Coming into our family required the capacity to hold those of us that held deep spiritual beliefs and those of us who felt science excluded all spirituality. Mary’s gracious inclusivity held the span of us, stood alongside us, saw and held each of us. At the service she represented us beautifully with her large capacity for compassion and insight. She brought the weight of her learning and presence but moved amongst us with great spiritual and psychological agility.
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Contact Mary for consultation.
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