Chaplaincy
I will be completing a full ordination program as an Animal Chaplain as well as an additional two-year program for ordination as an Interfaith / Interspiritual Minister in June, 2025. In the meantime, Animal Chaplaincy services are available on a limited basis, as my schedule allows, with a sliding fee scale. Please reach out if you are interested in exploring these services.
Chaplaincy and spiritual companioning are terms that are often used somewhat interchangeably. However, chaplaincy services tend to be short-term, in response to a specific situation or need - for example, supportive care immediately after the loss of a companion animal.
Spiritual companioning is generally a long-term relationship in which you have someone journeying with you over a period of several months or years as you explore things that give life a sense of meaning and connection as well as struggles and growth edges.
Spiritual companioning is generally a long-term relationship in which you have someone journeying with you over a period of several months or years as you explore things that give life a sense of meaning and connection as well as struggles and growth edges.
Animal Chaplaincy
Ezra
Animal chaplains provide support for both animals and humans by using ritual, ceremony, and the tools of spiritual companionship. The work I offer is tailored to support you in ways that are personally meaningful and useful to you based on your beliefs, experiences, and wishes.
According to Compassion Consortium, 67% of homes in the United States are interspecies. Humans have practical and spiritual questions about what to do when animals are injured, sick, lost, or die. The stress and grief we experience during these moments are real. Yet, these feelings are often denied or minimized because the loss is "not human."
Beyond our homes, how do we address the heartbreak we feel losing a companion animal, seeing a deer lying on the roadside, and the extinction of species on a shared planet?
This work includes:
According to Compassion Consortium, 67% of homes in the United States are interspecies. Humans have practical and spiritual questions about what to do when animals are injured, sick, lost, or die. The stress and grief we experience during these moments are real. Yet, these feelings are often denied or minimized because the loss is "not human."
Beyond our homes, how do we address the heartbreak we feel losing a companion animal, seeing a deer lying on the roadside, and the extinction of species on a shared planet?
This work includes:
- Support for humans around navigating injuries, illnesses, and losses of companion animals
- Collaboratively creating animal memorials
- Accompanying folks during euthanasia appointments (as schedule allows)
- Offering support for veterinary professionals, animal care professionals, conservationists, advocates, animal rescue and rehab professionals, animal control officers, and those in similar professions who experience burnout, moral injury, and secondary trauma
- Compassionate trauma stewardship
- Encouraging stronger human-animal bonds
- Cultivating capacity for sacred responses to suffering
- Non-judgmentally exploring animal rights and animal ethics topics
- Honoring wild animals' lives and losses
- Exploring interspecies rituals and spiritual practices
Where there is suffering, chaplains bear witness and offer care.
Where there is joy and love, chaplains help celebrate.
Where there is joy and love, chaplains help celebrate.
Habitat & Ecological Chaplaincy
Pink Yarrow
This work offers spiritual care for those who want to connect more deeply with the earth and those who have concerns about the environment and other related topics.
"William Keepin observes that modern chaplains must train to serve both as hospice workers ministering to a dying culture as well as midwives helping to give birth to an emerging one."
~ Wendy Johnson
This work can support:
"William Keepin observes that modern chaplains must train to serve both as hospice workers ministering to a dying culture as well as midwives helping to give birth to an emerging one."
~ Wendy Johnson
This work can support:
- Exploring grief, fear, hope, and other feelings around ecological and habitat destruction, ecological restoration efforts, and related issues
- Deepening our relationship with "nature"
- Rituals to honor trees that have been or are scheduled to be cut down as well as blessings for new plantings
- Co-creative gardening and habitat restoration efforts
- Exploring ways to personally engage in compassionate service
- Collaborative despacho ceremonies
- Exploring connections between ecological decimation and social injustices
Artema Somatics LLC
815 Main Street East
Menomonie, WI 54751
815 Main Street East
Menomonie, WI 54751