spiritual accompaniment

‘Vanessa gives you permission to feel whatever you are feeling. She listens in a non-judgemental way and no emotion is too much or unwelcome. I had the sense that she was fighting for me. Helping me become aware of my self-sabotage patterns. She held space for me to explore, feel, laugh and cry.

Our meetings acted as fertiliser for my development as a person, helping me get back to being in my body when I felt disconnected. She knows what to do when words fail - silence, art, creating, walking. She gave me freedom to explore, and recover, what is most meaningful for me’.

Eva Emrys, psychologist and artist

‘The idea of spiritual direction slightly terrifies me, and I think Vanessa might be the only person I’d trust to provide it. Vanessa is warm and kind but also fiercely discerning, and astutely challenging. She listens with a wholeheartedness one feels from those who’ve known sorrow as part of joy.

She speaks with compelling doubt and a quality of infectious humour that allows you to feel your own unique coalescence begin to take shape. That magical attentiveness is enlivening. Her soul is interested in your soul, and she delights in the mystery of that inquiry in a way that leaves you feeling more at home in the world’.

Jonathan Rowson, writer and co-founder of Perspectiva

‘Vanessa has been an extraordinarily insightful, prophetic and astute presence in my life over many years.  Her spiritual accompaniment has always called me up higher and down deeper in to Love, and and in to Truth, and in to Freedom, and I could not recommend her highly enough’.

Elizabeth Oldfield, author and host of The Sacred podcast 

‘I am quite newly ordained in the Church of England and spiritual accompaniment forms an important part of my faith journey. I first met Vanessa at a Clergy Well Being day, where we had the opportunity to explore art and creativity with her.

It was through this that I realised how I needed to have a space where I could get to know aspects of God, the creator, through creativity, the natural world, and through the fun of painting - allowing a part of me to be reawakened as I discover more of who God is through art. 

Meeting Vanessa felt like such a gift and I live close enough to visit her studio and walk and be restored in the grounds there’.

Emily Roe, anglican vicar

general endorsements

‘Over the years, I’ve come to trust Vanessa’s judgement, her attention to the subtle and the unspoken, her unflinching kindness and the way her presence calls a group to be true to itself. 

She has skills that are hard to name, harder to fit into the categories of the world as we have known it, and badly needed in the times around and ahead of us.  She has a gift for the timely word and the quiet action whose consequences ripple outward to touch the lives of people who may never meet her.’

Dougald Hine, author and co-founder of The Dark Mountain project

In all her work, Vanessa's attention to bodies and feelings in the physical immediacy is matched by her attention to the long range - the deep past, the thinkers and writers who have gone before, and the future that has not yet come into being.

She is a trusted guide to both the tangible nuance of the here and now and to the long arcs we find ourselves living among. Listening to what Vanessa can see always throws new light on things for me. She illuminates, in all senses of the word.

Liz Slade, Chief Officer, UK Unitarian General Assembly

So many people and so many endeavours have thrived with the gentle wisdom, thought and friendship of Vanessa Chamberlin.

I've known and worked alongside Vanessa for years and have been enriched by her perceptive curiosity, her intuition for the right question, her kindness, and her deep roots in what is good, beautiful and true. 

She's an artist, a theologian, and a visionary with a instinctive sense of what the strange present calls for.

David Benjamin Blower, musician, writer, podcaster and theologian

‘It’s hard to confine Vanessa to words. She’s an expert space holder and guide of atmosphere, bringing loving wisdom, lightning wit and intuition of just what is needed in the moment.

I recommend her in all settings, as celebrant, spiritual mentor, artist and general human being’.

Kate Daisy Grant, musician and somatic therapist

hosting spaces

‘When I think of Vanessa as a host and convenor I think of generosity and possibility. I think of Vanessa as someone who has a vision of how things might be, how we might feel, how we can connect when people come together.

She does not perform the role of gatherer as the central figure, but as the glue or perhaps the thread that weaves between us, holding us in place to focus on a theme or a question for just long enough to tilt the world and allow us to see from another perspective.

I’m so grateful to Vanessa for illuminating unseen paths of enquiry through her work. She is a seeker and she has the capacity to hold space for complex questions and uncomfortable truths with an open heart’.

Leonora Oppenheim - artist, designer and educator

‘When I attended Vanessa Chamberlin's Art-Theology event, I was astonished to experience a multidimensional immersion. Here in one place was a meeting of community, connection, heart and mind and soul. People drawn together in celebration and exploration of what matters most.

A deeply moving and inspiring and educational creative space, where ideas and philosophy and artistic expression were discussed and elucidated in accessible and informative fashion.

For me, this event created a feeling of connection and hope to push back against the growing sense of gloom so many people seem to feel in our country at present. A beacon of light in dark times’.

Martin Lloyd-Elliott - psychologist and psychotherapist

‘I attended a series of events organised by Vanessa in London.  I found them both highly accessible - in that they were not explicitly religious - and deeply nourishing, because they enabled me to connect thinking about creativity to deeper themes of philosophy and faith.

The effect on me was extremely powerful - I felt a strong sense of belonging and connection to the people I met and the talking, thinking and sharing we did. I still reflect on the ideas we discussed during those evenings.

I remember thinking at the time that the events were like an ideal version of church and this raised all kinds of interesting questions - for me at least - about what church should be and what community looks like.

I can honestly say that I have not experienced anything similar, before or since. And I remain extremely grateful that I was able to join in this temporary community of like-minds’.

Joe Bentley - musician & teacher at inner city London primarysomatic story workshops