Close search

Deepen Your Learning

learning electives

Electives

During January and May each year, you’ll have the opportunity to deepen into areas that call to you through our Elective programme. These offerings are designed for current OneSpirit students and ministers. Electives are a core element of the Ministry Training Programme, and you are expected to attend one.

Your default experience: Online Modules

As a Cherry Tree student, you’ll automatically have access to beautifully crafted online modules, delivered through intimate evening sessions via Zoom. These are included in your course fees and offer rich, interactive experiences that maintain the relational depth OneSpirit is known for.

Alternatively, you can choose to attend the in-person module, which takes place as a residential retreat over two nights.

May 2026: Residential Retreat

Being in Presence with the More-Than-Human World

  • Venue: Poulstone Court, Retreat & Meditation Centre, Herefordshire
  • Dates: 11 to 13 May 2026
  • Facilitator: Sarah MacDonald

At the threshold of spring’s full blossoming, we gather to reconnect with the living world as a sacred partner. This retreat invites us to move beyond ‘nature connection’ into a reciprocal, embodied ‘I–Thou’ relationship with the Earth and all non-human life.

Through guided practices of presence, including sit-spot meditations, somatic awareness, gentle movement, and creativity, we will explore:

  • what it might mean to be in relationship with plants, streams, creatures, and the Earth itself
  • how we might step into relationship with awareness, respect, and sensitivity
  • what may get in the way of wholehearted connection with the more-than-human world
  • how we might acknowledge and mourn the harm within this relationship, and begin to bring healing

This retreat is experiential, spacious, and emotionally supportive, with practices woven throughout to help regulate and tend the nervous system. It offers a threshold for both personal renewal and a deepening of our ministry as Earth-conscious beings.

Fee

  • £360 – OneSpirit Students (Birch & Cherry Tree)
  • £384 – ROSIM members
  • £480 – Non-ROSIM ministers

Please note, the fee covers accommodation and meals.

Meet Your Facilitator: Sarah

Sarah was fortunate to encounter T’ai Chi aged just 16 and she’s been practising ever since. T’ai Chi led to Qigong, a related Taoist practice which includes meditation, healing, creativity and spiritual development. She is now a respected teacher of the Hua Gong style. Wishing to find a stronger means of embodying the benefits of her practice in the world, she joined OneSpirit and was ordained in 2014.

She served as a mentor for the class of 2017. The healing practice led her to explore health in all its forms and she holds an MA in Health Education. She has worked extensively in the voluntary sector, supporting people with addictions, mental health issues, homelessness and a history of offending before joining the Bristol Cancer Help Centre in 2003. She is now responsible for developing psycho-spiritual education programmes for people with cancer, and for training and accrediting facilitators to run them.

She has an abiding interest in holistic health and healing, a strong call to sacred activism and an abiding love of the wild. She lives in Bristol with her husband and 3 teenagers.

Join Us Here

May 2026: Online Offering

Practising Presence in Times of Transition

    • Venue: Online, lovingly held in the evening via Zoom
    • Dates: 20 & 27 May 2026 (6.00pm to 9.00pm)
    • Facilitator: Monica Douglas + guest facilitator

    In times of transition and change, our familiar rhythms can shift or fall away, inviting us to return to presence as a steady and sustaining practice. This online module offers a gentle space to explore how practising presence can support and enliven body, mind, spirit, and environment in the midst of change.

    During our time together, you will be invited to:

    • explore presence as a daily and nourishing practice
    • notice and acknowledge transitions in your current life through ceremony and ritual
    • reflect on your current presence practices, including what feels congruent and what may be out of alignment with your present situation
    • consider the value of creating a personal holistic framework of body, mind, spirit, and environment to support presence
    • share and deepen your practice of presence alongside others
    • practise presence between sessions and reflect on your experience in community
    • commit to an ongoing presence practice, with support to help sustain it

    Each session weaves together ceremony, reflection, and peer connection. Together, we will co create a supportive space that helps deepen and sustain your ability to practise presence in everyday life.

    Fee

    • Free – OneSpirit Students (Birch & Cherry Tree)
    • £120 – ROSIM members
    • £150 – Non-ROSIM ministers

    Meet Your Facilitator: Monica

    Monica Douglas is a OneSpirit Minister, Spiritual Companion, experienced tutor and founder of The Wild Wisdom Oracle. She brings over 25 years of embodied spiritual practice, healing work and facilitation to her ministry.

    With a heart-rooted presence and a deep respect for the sacred in all traditions, Monica supports people to connect with their Divine Beloved, in whatever form that takes, and to live from that connection in everyday life. Her work is dedicated to helping others allow themselves to be loved and to become love in action in the world.

    As a OneSpirit tutor, Monica creates spacious, compassionate learning environments where participants can explore their callings, deepen their spiritual authority and be held in the beauty of shared inquiry. Her facilitation is grounded in presence, ritual and relational wisdom, drawing from her own interspiritual path and African Caribbean heritage.Monica’s wider ministry includes spiritual counselling, relationship coaching, grief and end-of-life work, and creating sacred spaces both online and in person where people can be witnessed, held and renewed.

    She brings a sense of reverence, humility and joy to her ministry, believing that spiritual companionship and deep listening are essential tools for healing and collective transformation.

    Apply Here