Meet Julie

I’m like an innkeeper along your spiritual journey. I provide a warm and welcoming space for you to rest for a bit and share the challenges, insights, grief and joys of your life. As we sit together on the inn's porch looking out over the horizon, I offer deep listening, noticing and attending to the questions, longings, and inner nudges that arise from within and beyond you. We might savor the quiet for a bit while your thoughts sift and settle. I might offer you a bit of food for the journey: a poem or a prayer, a guided meditation or a somatic practice. And as you get ready to head off on the next leg of your journey, I may suggest an experience or a reading that might be interesting for you to explore. Together, we pay attention to how and where the sacred is speaking to you. 

I received my training in spiritual companioning (also called spiritual direction) through a two year certification program through the Haden Institute. I have my own spiritual companion, who supports me in my spiritual journey, and I am part of a spiritual direction supervision group which supports me in my professional growth and skills. I am a member of Spiritual Directors International, which is a great resource if you want to learn more about spiritual companioning/direction, and the Unitarian Universalist Spiritual Directors Network. 

As an enneagram teacher, I bring to our work this transformative tool for exploring your inner landscape. The Enneagram is a map that helps us identify the unique patterns and motivations that have been with each of us since childhood. As we get to know these patterns and motivations, we are able to loosen their grip over us and uncover the wholeness that resides at the core of who we are. 

In my own spiritual journey, time and time again the Enneagram has led me to the inner work I needed to focus on and helped me cultivate a more peaceful, generous, connected and joyful life. I am a Certified Narrative Enneagram Teacher with The Narrative Enneagram  and look forward to offering Enneagram workshops, classes, groups, and individual learning opportunities in the coming year.

 I lead with Enneagram Type 4, in case you were curious!

As a board certified hospice chaplain, I bring experience companioning folks through grief and discerning meaning, purpose, and priorities when death brings life into sharper focus.

Grief can be like a wilderness journey, disrupting and transforming our lives as we navigate unfamiliar and often unwelcome terrain. I walk along beside you, providing a compassionate space for the stories, the feelings, and the tears that may want to tumble out, always  keeping an eye out for the unsuspecting ways that love, humor, and even flickers of joy may be waiting to attend to you. 

As a Unitarian Universalist minister, I provide a welcoming space for all of who you are – however you identify, whomever you love, and whatever spiritual traditions and practices nourish you toward greater wholeness. I bring a commitment to the inner and outer work of dismantling systems of oppression and to creating communities of healing, liberation, and radical hospitality. I am committed to a life-long process of learning and growth as an LGBTQIA+ ally and racial justice advocate. 

My life and work are grounded in a theology of Love and a contemplative spirituality that draws from many sources including my Universalist Christian spirituality, Buddhism, Celtic mysticism and Goddess spiritualities. My spiritual practices include mindfulness meditation & breath work, prayer, spiritual journaling, Enneagram exploration, yoga, Soul Collage, and connecting to my soul and the Divine through nature, music, dreams, and poetry. 

I've served folks and congregations for over 30 years in North America as a minister, religious educator, musician, UUWellspring facilitator, and currently as an affiliated community minister with First Unitarian Universalist Church of Richmond, VA.