Spiritual Direction Practicum
Spiritual direction is essential to the quest for justice and peace in our world. We are looking to train emerging and experienced spiritual leaders who seek to accompany those working for collective liberation.
Applications for the 2023-2024 Practicum are now closed. Stay tuned for future training opportunities!
What is Spiritual Direction?
Spiritual direction is the process of contemplative listening carried out in the context of a one-to-one trusting and confidential relationship. A trained spiritual director journeys with another person, listening to that person’s life story with attention to the movement of the spirit or sacred, offering supportive responses as appropriate and encouraging reflection about new paths of growth.
What is the Still Harbor spiritual direction Practicum?
Still Harbor’s nine-month Spiritual Direction Practicum teaches people how to be spiritual directors. The virtual program focuses on teaching participants with many religious and spiritual backgrounds and identities the practical skills they need to offer spiritual direction one on one.
The program curriculum includes readings, group discussion, written assignments, self-reflection and contemplative practice. Still Harbor’s program is set apart by its lack of affiliation with any one religious tradition, its practice-based training, and its orientation toward and experience in accompanying those working for collective liberation.
Centering Queer and Trans Leadership
The Still Harbor Spiritual Direction Practicum is queer and trans led. Still Harbor centers queer and trans leadership to center the spiritual care of queer and trans people and to resist anti-queer, anti-trans rhetoric, policies, and spiritual abuse.
Learning in Affinity Groups
Affinity groups are part of the program. Students will be invited into either a white accountability group or a BIPOC affinity group as part of their learning journey.
Program Components
The nine-month practicum consists of:
Live Virtual Classes: Twice monthly experiential sessions on Zoom including small and large group work, contemplation and reflection, individual presentations, and one-on-one practice sessions.
Reflection: Course readings, a reflection paper on political and spiritual lineages, and two papers about practice sessions to help participants integrate their experiential learning with other teachings.
Spiritual Direction Practice and Supervision: Participants will offer spiritual direction to three clients with supervision from Still Harbor instructors in March through May of the program year.
Spiritual Practice: Continued development of a life of spiritual practice, ritual creation, and contemplation as well as discernment of the call to the work of spiritual direction.
InstructorS for the Spiritual Direction Practicum
Marchaé Grair (they/she) is Still Harbor’s Director of Programs. Marchaé designs curriculum for and co-teaches Still Harbor’s Spiritual Direction Practicum. They are a spiritual director, workshop designer, storyteller, public speaker, and facilitator engaging hearts and minds at the intersections of spirituality and collective liberation. Marchaé was raised Pentecostal (Church of God and Christ) and later attended a United Church of Christ congregation. They are unaffiliated with any tradition but still love creating spiritual community and singing gospel music on Sunday mornings. They are proud to be Black, queer, nonbinary, anxious, and polyamorous. She would describe her inner soundtrack as a combination of gospel music, her grandmother’s prayers, Maya Angelou’s writing, and her karaoke greatest hits.
Rev. Molly Bolton (she/her, they/them) is a spiritual director, grief group facilitator, and poet who lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, Eastern Cherokee Land. She is ordained by the United Church of Christ and served as a staff chaplain at Cleveland Clinic for six years. Molly holds a Master of Divinity from Wake Forest School of Divinity and a Diploma in the Art of Spiritual Direction from San Francisco Theological Seminary. Molly is a weekly liturgist for Liturgy that Matters, a project of enfleshed, and is invested in expansive language as a tool for consolation and liberation. Molly loves swimming holes, porch sits, feminist romance novels, and water Zumba at the Rec Center. Learn more about their work at revmollybolton.com.
Program Schedule
Program schedule will include live Zoom sessions, peer group work, spiritual direction practice, and self-guided learning modules.
Two live Zoom classes a month. Dates for the 2023-2024 Practicum include: October 7 & 14, November 11 & 18, December 9 & 16, January 6 & 20, February 3 & 17, March 2 & 16, April 13 & 27, May 4 & 18, June 1 & 15.
The first Saturday of the month will run 10:00 am - 3:30 pm ET for teaching. The second Saturday of the month will run 10:00 am - 1:00 pm ET for practice and affinity group dialogues.
Location (Virtual):
Live Classes on Zoom
Program Fees
We value our program at $2700
We invite students to honor that valuation by paying the full amount if they are able.
We are also committed to ensuring that this program is financially accessible, and in order to do so, we offer a sliding scale. In choosing a rate, we ask that students make an honest assessment of what they are able to pay.
Sliding scale options: $2700, $2200, $1700, $1200, $700
(Program fees can be paid in installments.)
Formal Requirements for Admission
Groundedness and connection to a social justice and liberation tradition, effort, and/or movement
Rootedness in a spiritual practice, faith, or wisdom tradition
A commitment to find and sit with practice clients
Groundedness in accountability and self-reflection
A call to spiritual direction and/or other on-on-one spiritual care work
A commitment to engage with a spiritual director for the duration of the program. Contact us if you have questions about this
A commitment to attend all sessions and complete both group and individual work
A complete application, including two recommendations
WHY STILL HARBOR’S PROGRAM IS UNIQUE
Still Harbor’s Spiritual Direction Practicum centers queer and trans leadership.
Still Harbor’s Spiritual Direction Practicum includes affinity space time in either a white accountability group or BIPOC affinity space.
Still Harbor’s Spiritual Direction Practicum is for people who want to study in a space that does not center a particular religious tradition or religious affiliation. Students reflect many faiths, spiritual practices, and interpretation of spiritual leadership.
Still Harbor’s Spiritual Direction Practicum is for people who have a commitment to offer their spiritual care gifts in support of social justice and movement work.
Application & Deadlines
Applications for the 2023-2024 Practicum are now closed.
Testimonials
“Thanks for an amazing experience, it's hard to put into words how grateful I am to you for this source of joy in a challenging year.”
- JM Longworth, Practicum Class of 2022
“First of all, it was such a relief to find a spiritual direction program that was led and curated by Q/POC. I'd been wanting to be certified for at least five years, but just couldn't bring myself to join a program that was so influenced by whiteness--or, for that matter, contemplative Christianity… So to be in a program that is open to a multitude of traditions and practices (ex: dancing! To *good* music!), and more importantly, doesn't push an expectation that we have to meet a certain standard (rather, it's okay to be exactly where/how we are from day to day), normalized allowing ourselves to just BE human. I never felt pressure to perform here and felt as if the whole group was willing to bring themselves to the table, even in our differences. And I learned a lot! I also made good friends through the program, so thank you for that!”
- Jasmin Figueroa, Practicum Class of 2022
“This was an extremely difficult year with layers upon layers of trauma. I appreciated that being part of this program was not an added stress, but rather it felt like a gift and a safe place to land in the midst of the month. The ways that the value of collective liberation were taught, discussed and modeled was also so appreciated and refreshing. Thank you.”
- Danielle Humphreys, Practicum Class of 2021
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Q: How is spiritual direction different from chaplaincy?
A: Chaplains often support people in shorter-term, crisis situations or as part of an organization’s care work. Spiritual directors support people as long-term spiritual care providers through ebbs and flows of their lives.
Q: Do you already have to be practicing spiritual direction to study spiritual direction with Still Harbor?
A: No. You do not need to already practice spiritual direction to apply for Still Harbor’s Spiritual Direction Practicum.
Q: Who are the instructors for Still Harbor’s Spiritual Direction Practicum?
A: Marchaé Grair (they/she) and Rev. Molly Bolton (they/she). For more information about Rev. Molly and Marchaé, check out our team page.
Q: Why does Still Harbor center queer and trans leadership?
A: The gifts of queer and trans people are divine and sacred but often demeaned in many religious and spiritual communities. In a time when queer and trans people are under attack, we choose to center queer and trans spiritual leadership as an act of care and an act of resistance to Christian hegemony.