The Most Spiritually Enriching Experiences Happen Outside the Box

You know that feeling when you've been searching for spiritual depth, and the places that are supposed to provide it just... don't quite fit? Maybe the language is wrong, or the framework too narrow, or the theology at odds with what you know in your bones to be true.

You've been looking for formation that honors earth-based practices, that makes space for complexity, that doesn't ask you to check parts of yourself at the door. You want to serve as a spiritual companion, but the training programs you've found feel like they're preparing you for a world that doesn't exist, or worse, for work you don't actually want to do.

What if there was a different way?

Cherry Hill Seminary Spiritual Direction Certificate

A 24-Month Formation Outside Institutional Containers

One of our current students, Matt, just wrote something that stopped me in my tracks: 

"Some of the most spiritually enriching experiences I've ever had have occurred outside of institutional religion. This course would be one of those experiences." (Matt, Class of '26)

This is what we're building. Not another institutional program that asks you to conform. Not another certificate that checks boxes but leaves your soul untouched. This is formation for people who seek something the traditional containers can't provide.

Applications due February 15 for Cohort 5 starting March 4, 2026

Two Ways to Join

Year One (New Students): Begin the full 24-month journey with live classes twice monthly, supervised practice starting in Year 2, and a cohort community of up to 14 international students. You'll move through four semesters exploring contemplative practice, diverse spiritual traditions, trauma-aware approaches, and sustainable ethical vocation.

Year Two (Already Credentialed): If you're already a credentialed or partially credentialed spiritual director from another program, you can join Year 2 of Cohort 4 (currently in progress) or wait for Year 2 of Cohort 5. This option is for practitioners who want the specific training in earth-based, multi-religious, trauma-aware, justice-rooted approaches that most programs don't offer. (Learn more about this option, here.)

What Makes This Different

We begin with the truth that you are already whole, holy, and worthy. Your formation isn't about fixing yourself first... it's about deepening your capacity to witness that wholeness in others.

The program grounds you in three sources of wisdom: Moon (teachings and traditions), Forest (relationships and community), and Bone (your own inner knowing). Everything we do is consent-based, trauma-aware, and rooted in justice work.

You'll learn from diverse faculty: Pagan, Indigenous, Catholic, Sufi, Animist, and other traditions. You'll be prepared for the actual complexity of contemporary spiritual companioning, not an idealized version of it.

This is infrastructure for resistance. The companions we're training aren't just supporting individual seekers; they're tending the souls of justice workers, activists, and organizers. They're creating fierce support in safer spaces for people whose spirituality doesn't fit traditional religious containers.

The Practical Details

Investment: $3000 for the full program ($375 quarterly payments)
Format: Online, with live sessions and recorded content
Time Commitment: 24 months for full program, 12 months for Year 2 only
Cohort Size: 8-14 students

Application Process:

1. Schedule a discovery call to explore fit
2. Submit application with two essays and references
3. Admissions interview

Applications close February 15, 2026, or when the cohort fills. Six spots remain.

• Schedule Discovery Call - https://SpiritualTendingWithAmy.as.me/SpiDirInquiry
• Begin Application - https://cherryhillseminary.org/academics/certificate-programs-at-cherry-hill-seminary-2/#spidir-anchor

Some of the most spiritually enriching experiences happen outside institutional religion. This could be one of those experiences for you.

Rev. Amy Beltaine
abeltaine@uuma.org

From Helping to Witnessing: Transformation at the Heart of Spiritual Direction

From Helping to Witnessing: Transformation at the Heart of Spirit Tending

What does it take to truly accompany someone on their spiritual journey?

For many who come to spiritual direction from helping professions: ministers, therapists, teachers, healers, the answer requires a profound shift. Robert, a graduate of our 2024 cohort, describes this transformation:

"This program has invited me, over and over again, to ask Why Am I Talking, and to be more aware of the Witness that I am and practice intentional witnessing with seekers."

This is the heart of what we teach in the Cherry Hill Spiritual Direction Certification Program. Over 24 months, our students learn to rest into presence rather than rush toward solutions. As Robert discovered:

"The program has been, for me, about resting into more silence in the presence of another soul who is searching for ways to make meaning out of their life's unfolding. Their life's unfolding is not ours to 'fix' or direct or heal."

Our fifth cohort begins March 3, 2026, with 8 fantastic students already enrolled. We're now accepting applications and conducting discovery calls for the remaining 6 spots. The program is capped at 14 students to ensure intimate, personalized training.

This 24-month online certification program trains spiritual companions for earth-based, Pagan, and multi-religious communities, emphasizing consent-based, trauma-aware practices in safer spaces.

Application deadline: February 15, 2026

Learn more about Robert at Cor-Connection: Robert Patrick, M.Div, PhD 
https://www.corconnection.us/

Ready to start the journey? You can offer spiritual direction work [Click Here]. You can receive spirit tending [Click Here].

Beloved, you are whole, holy and worthy,

Amy

Thunder Candles and Ginger Cookies: Reclaiming My Grandmother’s Light

My paternal grandmother was known for three things: her warm hugs, her ginger cookies, and her complicated relationship with where she came from. She was first-generation Slovak, born to immigrant parents, and she spent much of her life embarrassed by them, their accents, their old-country ways. She got teased. So even though she still cooked traditional Slovak foods like cabbage rolls, she never spoke the language to us, never taught us the folk traditions her parents would have known. What she passed down was ginger cookies and the best hugs you’ve ever felt.

Her birthday was in February. And I have a friend in Ontario, Canada, whose grandmother did pass on the old traditions, Slavic practices her maternal grandmother taught her. My friend tells me that in Ontario right now, there is absolutely no sign of spring. Just the Snow Moon, the traditional name for February’s full moon because this is when the heaviest snowfall comes. Just cold and white and waiting.

But something else happens in February. Something my friend’s grandmother taught her, and something my grandmother’s parents knew about, even if it never reached me directly.

On February 2nd, the old Slavic peoples celebrated Gromnica, the feast of the thunder candle. The name comes from grom, which means thunder. Families would bless thick beeswax candles on this day, then save them throughout the year for protection. You’d light one during fierce thunderstorms to guard your home from lightning. You’d light one during illness. You’d light one at births and deaths, those threshold moments when we most need the reassurance of sacred flame.

Gromnice "Thunder Candle"

This is the day when the goddess Dziewanna, protectress of wolves and wild animals, Mistress of the Wild Wood, begins her slow dance back toward spring. Some say this is when she and Marzanna (the death goddess of winter) start switching places, a transformation that won’t complete until the spring equinox. This is also Bear Day in the old traditions, when the bear emerges from hibernation to check for her shadow, predicting six more weeks of winter or the early arrival of spring. (Yes, our Groundhog Day comes from these ancient Slavic and Germanic bear traditions.)

The Christian church painted over these practices, as it often did, renaming the day “Matki Boskieg Gromnicznej”—the Festivity of the Holy Mother of the Thunder Candle. But underneath that veneer, the old knowing persists: that light grows even in the deepest cold. That we protect what is vulnerable—homes and travelers, wolves and wild things, the dying and the newborn. That transformation happens slowly, goddess by goddess, week by week, as winter loosens its grip.

I didn’t learn any of this from my grandmother directly. The thread was fragile, nearly broken. But here’s the beautiful part: in her seventies, my grandmother went back to Slovakia. She reconnected. It’s never too late to find your way home to what your people knew.

And I’m finding my way there now too. I’m learning about Gromnica from my friend whose grandmother kept the practice alive. I’m researching the traditions my grandmother’s parents would have known. And when I make ginger cookies in February, her recipe, her gift, I light a candle. Not just for nostalgia. But because this is the work of honoring: claiming both what was passed down (the cookies, the hugs, the Slovak foods, the love) and what was nearly lost (the language, the rituals, the sacred knowing).

This is the invitation I want to offer you: You don’t have to be Slovak to do this work. Most of us come from people who had complicated relationships with their heritage. Who got teased for their parents’ accents. Who lost the thread of their grandmother’s grandmother’s grandmother’s practices somewhere along the way.

Ginger Cookies CC0

But February is a threshold month. The Snow Moon hangs full and bright. The bear checks for her shadow. The goddess of the wild wood begins her slow emergence. And we, too, can emerge from what was buried or forgotten.

Maybe you don’t know your people’s February traditions. Maybe they were lost, or never spoken aloud, or sit in that complicated space between shame and pride. That’s okay. You can light a candle anyway. You can bake the thing your grandmother was known for. You can honor what survived and grieve what didn’t. You can research and reclaim. You can hold space for both the silence and the sacred flame.

Not to appropriate someone else’s practice. But to find your way back to your own.

My grandmother gave me ginger cookies and good hugs. She went back to Slovakia in her seventies and reconnected with what she’d distanced herself from. That’s a powerful teaching: it’s never too late. And now I’m adding the thunder candle back in: her parents’ practice, my reclaimed inheritance. I’m lighting it for protection, yes. But also for remembering. For the slow transformation from winter to spring. For the wolves and the wild things and the growing light.

May you find what your people lost or set aside. May you honor what they kept. May you light your own candle against the February cold, knowing that spring is coming, slowly, goddess by goddess, bear by bear, cookie by cookie.

You are whole. You are here.