Soul Accompaniment
Soul accompaniment, or spiritual direction,
is a contemplative practice of attentive listening.
A way of attending to soul —
to what carries depth, weight, and importance in a life.
A space of accompaniment,
where you are met within the depth of your own experience
and meaning is allowed to unfold in its own way.
A walking alongside.
A companioning.
A deep listening.
Hi, I’m John.
It’s lovely to encounter you here.
Meeting each person is something I experience as a privilege—and something I genuinely look forward to. I’m drawn to the different ways people feel in and inhabit the world: the subtle differences, the quiet idiosyncrasies—the things that make each person’s experience their own.
This website is a place to offer a few glimpses of who I am. Not as a fixed image or a story to match or conform to, but as a way of meeting you partway.
You bring your own stories, your own images, your own ways of feeling and being in the world.
And that matters.
I am large, I contain multitudes.
What we might do together
My work is what I call soul accompaniment — a practice also known as spiritual direction or spiritual accompaniment. I offer one-to-one sessions online, welcoming people from across Australia and around the world.
It is distinct from therapy and counselling, with a particular focus on the spiritual and existential dimensions of experience.
One image that has long stayed with me comes from the early Celtic tradition: the anam cara, or “soul friend.” John O’Donohue describes this as a relationship in which “mask and pretensions” can gradually give way to a deeper recognition of one’s inner life.
My own formation included several years within a tradition of monastic hospitality, where monasteries offered pilgrims a place to rest, pray, eat, and recover their bearings before returning to the ordinary rhythms of life.
I hope our work together can offer something of that same quality: a space of stillness set apart from the pace of everyday life. Over time, our meetings may become a simple rhythm — a place where attentive listening gradually nourishes life beyond the session itself.
Together, we listen for what in your life is seeking to be heard.
People relate to soul, spirit, or the sacred in many different ways.
You are welcome to come exactly as you are.
Meaning is not confined to extraordinary experiences. It is often discovered within the ordinary fabric of life, in the quiet recognition of what matters.
You will not discover the limits of the soul, even if you wander every conceivable path, so deep is its story.
What a Private Session Is Like
Together we listen
Conversation, reflection, shared quiet and stillness, reading, ritual, creative expression, and embodied dreamwork may all become part of the session.
A session takes the form that speaks most to you.
What is alive for you in your life?
What carries meaning?
Dreams, memories, sensations, images, questions, and experiences may all become places of attention.
We take our time
What is surfacing now?
What is asking for attention?
We stay with what comes — allowing understanding to emerge, not necessarily to solve, but to deepen.
We keep company with what appears — both within and between us.
A space that welcomes difference
People come from many traditions, identities, and ways of making meaning.
You are welcome here.
This space is open to people across differences of culture, race, gender, sexuality, belief, and life experience.
It is an affirming space for LGBTQ+ people.
You are not required to fit a particular path, identity, or worldview in order to be here.
Belief may or may not be part of your experience.
It is welcome, but never required.
We begin with what is present.
What is moving.
What is asking to be met.
My own formation draws from a range of traditions, but our work begins with your experience rather than any particular framework.
I seek to practise in a trauma-informed way.
This does not mean that I treat trauma or replace therapy. Rather, it means that I aim to cultivate a space grounded in safety, agency, respect, and sensitivity to each person’s history and circumstances.
Where I come from
The path that has led me here has crossed philosophy, monastic life, theology, disability support, and the study of dreams. They may appear quite different, yet each has taught me something about the art of paying attention.
Philosophy
My undergraduate studies in philosophy cultivated a lasting interest in ways of knowing often set aside or marginalised within dominant Western frameworks.
Monastic life
Five years within an Eastern Orthodox monastery formed me through silence, hospitality, contemplative practice, and the slow rhythms of communal life.
Theology
Later theological study deepened my engagement with religious experience, identity formation, decolonising perspectives, religious conflict, and the plurality of spiritual life.
Accompaniment
Several years working one-to-one with people with disabilities grounded for me the importance of listening carefully to different ways of knowing, experiencing, and making meaning.
Dreams & imagination
Alongside these paths, I have maintained a long engagement with Jungian and post-Jungian thought and am currently training in Embodied Imagination®, a practice that works directly with dreams and images through embodied attention.
Across these paths, a single thread remains: a way of giving attention to what is present — what appears, what moves, what asks to be met — and to how a life unfolds in its particularity and uniqueness.
I live and work in lutruwita / Tasmania, on palawa Country.
The rhythms of this place — the land, and the life I have shared in communities — continue to shape how I accompany others.
An Invitation
If something in this work has resonated with you, you’re warmly invited to begin a conversation.
You are welcome to share a little about yourself, or simply what brings you here. I’ll read your message with care and aim to reply within two or three days.
Acknowledgement of Country
This work takes place on lutruwita / Tasmania, on lands held and cared for by Aboriginal peoples for thousands of years. I acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of this land and pay my respects to Elders past and present.
Long before my presence here, this land has been known, walked, and cared for in ways that continue to endure.
It holds ways of knowing, relationship, and healing that precede my own and continue beyond the limits of Western frameworks.
I offer this work as a guest on this land.