My Story

My passion in life is to discuss and reflect upon life’s Ultimate Issues.  Theologians are best equipped to guide one in the existential questions - the big life issues - that need to be addressed and answered. In this world do not expect anything from God or the Universe but instead learn to ask what does God or the Universe want me to do – not what do I want from God or the Universe.   I have the rare ability to combine reason and spirituality.  

My methodology is called Sacred Spirit – together we awaken your Sacred Spirit.  With my guidance and wisdom I am committed to discovering your unique authentic Sacred Spirit.  This is my spiritual passion promise to you.  Offering spiritual direction to people from many different spiritual paths—helping to reveal the sacred in people’s life.  It is my privilege to support people in their own precious journey.  

I am wary of the word religion—so much baggage—so I offer spiritual direction to people of many different faiths or no faith at all. The greatest contribution that I can bring to people’s lives is to give people a recipe for a more meaningful life and a much better world.  Everyone needs an accounting of the soul.  Everyone needs moral introspection: What kind of person am I, and what kind of person can I become?  Why would we not need guidance to know how to lead a meaningful life?  We fool ourselves and do not improve our works if we think we can do it consistently and well without direction.

It is not so much that we are living lives of sin and debauchery, but we are having a hard time thinking and talking about moral issues, relationship issues, right and wrong, death and loss, and the meaning of life. Learning how to honor self and honor one’s relationships is fundamentally important. The way we treat our parents and our children is key to how we treat others; family is where we learn loyalty and sacrifice.  How these issues are taught, counseled or ignored can shape individuals positively or negatively.  I can help give the resources to cultivate intuitions and spirit by giving the tools to live a happier, more satisfying life.

Currently, I have been specializing in issues of finding meaning and passion, healing from loss, despair, sadness, and fear, as well as issues of death, grief and the afterlife.  My experience and education allow me to bring professionalism to this work. For the past twenty years, I have been studying theology and spiritual counseling.  I have served as an interfaith counselor, chaplain, and spiritual health specialist throughout the Bay Area including: Mills Peninsula Hospital, the Dorothy E. Schneider Cancer Center, Mills Behavioral Health, Mills Chemical Dependency and Sequoia Hospital.  I also provide effective palliative care where I conduct a “life review” or “ethical will” with clients which allows them to share with others, in their own words, their life’s values, memories, and hopes for the future.  I also have served as Bereavement Coordinator/Counselor for Sutter Care at Home - Hospice, where I work with families during the final phases of life and after the patient passes. I assist the team in the resolution of care issues throughout the continuum of care, such as anticipatory grief and bereavement, crisis intervention, reconciliation, and psycho-social implications of illness, hospice care, death and dying issues and dynamics of grief and loss. I provide presentations on making loss matter.  I also do “soul work” with staff and clients. We all need an instruction manual for suffering and pain, guidance, if you will, to make the journey less terrifying. I believe there is no greater illness than despair, thus, my intention is to utilize this collective wisdom to better serve those in need of healing of the soul.  With a hope-based spiritual model, I help make meaning out of life, realizing the fullness of our humanity, and engaging in the work with integrity and compassion. 

Education

• Bachelor of Arts, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA

• Master of Arts, Theology, Catholicism, University of San Francisco, CA

• Master of Arts, Jewish Studies, Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, CA

• Rabbinical School, Academy of Jewish Religion, CA