Annie’s passion for experiential spirituality and the profound heart of humanity has led her, over the past three decades, into diverse faith paths, spiritual traditions, and cultural communities. Through study and through relationships with friends, neighbours, and colleagues, she has been touched by the privilege and challenge of being welcomed into others’ worlds. Annie brings this ongoing, self-reflective enquiry into deep listening and authentic connection to the Ministry training programme.
online training
THE WILLOW PATHWAY
2026-2028
Welcome to the Willow Pathway
A two-year journey into sacred presence and accompaniment.
The Willow Pathway is a two-year journey of spiritual formation and sacred becoming, a deeply relational programme that prepares you for ministry while also transforming how you live your own life. Whether you are drawn to active, public-facing ministry or seeking a profound deepening of your spiritual presence and inner life, this training meets you where you are.
Held fully online, the Willow Pathway offers the same depth of formation and community in a format that is accessible, spacious, and rooted in presence. Through live weekly teaching, small group reflection, shared practice, and careful facilitation, the online space becomes a steady container for inner work, spiritual growth, and meaningful connection.
At its core, the Willow Pathway is a journey through the arc of human life and the unfolding of your own calling. A heartfelt invitation to explore your inner landscape while learning to accompany others with care, integrity, and sacred attention, wherever you are in the world.
Who This Pathway Suits
This pathway may be especially meaningful if you are drawn to:
- Fully online, live learning in a deeply connected community
- Spiritual deepening and formation held alongside daily life
- Weekly rhythm of reflection, practice, and shared inquiry
- A journey where inner work becomes a foundation for service
- Exploring ministry through accompaniment, relationship, and presence
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“Feeling totally safe and respected without judgment has been really supportive, freeing me to make mistakes and be myself. Also, supervision has been really growthful as I have felt so deeply seen and had my worth really reflected back to me in a way I never have before. It’s done wonders for my confidence and trust in my path and my connection to the Divine.”
– Hara, Aspen Class of 2025
“I have become more self-aware and able to recognise what might trigger me and to have boundaries and strategies to cope with that in a non-confrontational way. Self-reflection has also enabled me to (re)discover what is important to me and in which direction I see my ministry taking me.”
– Claire, Aspen Class of 2025
Practical Details
- Length: Two years, held through five immersive gateways
- Format: Weekly live online sessions, alternating between whole-group webinars and small group gatherings
- Location: Fully online, with students joining from across the UK and beyond
- Accessibility: Designed to support deep formation without the need for travel
- Further information: Full schedule, fee options, and payment details are provided in the information packet
“I am the better as a human being for having walked this road, for having delved deeper and for having awakened a little more. In the awakening is a greater strength within and also more tears for the tenderness of our world and a resolve to authentically serve.”
– Audrey, Aspen Class of 2025
A Two Year Journey of Formation, Connection, and Sacred Service
The Willow Pathway unfolds across two spacious years, held through five immersive gateways that trace a movement from deep inner grounding to ethical ministry and sacred service in the world. Each gateway invites you to be both witness and participant, to yourself, to others, and to the relational field of community that holds the learning.
A full overview of the gateway dates, themes, and curriculum details is available in the information packet.
Year One: Roots and Formation
Year One is structured around five gateways that explore the foundations of spiritual formation and ministerial becoming. Beginning with belonging and presence, the journey moves through encounter, dignity, responsibility, and deep listening as a way of service.
Gateway 1: Sacred Welcome
You arrive in community and cultivate the ground of belonging. Through ritual, embodied practice, and shared agreements, you begin to build trust, safety, and the relational foundation for the journey ahead.
Gateway 2: Sacred Encounter
You explore what it means to meet difference with humility and care. Through empathic listening, reflection, and conscious feedback, discomfort becomes a teacher, deepening your capacity for ethical relationship.
Gateway 3: Sacred Worth
This gateway centres the recognition of intrinsic dignity, in yourself and in others. You begin to explore ceremony as an expression of affirmation, inclusion, and love, grounding ministerial practice in reverence and care.
Gateway 4: Sacred Responsibility
Attention turns towards power, ethics, and accountability in spiritual life. You engage with interfaith understanding, systems of bias, and the responsibilities of holding sacred space with humility and integrity.
Gateway 5: Sacred Listening
The year returns to listening, now deepened by all that has come before. You are introduced to spiritual accompaniment as a way of being, integrating your learning through reflective practice, supervision, and communal witnessing.
Together, these gateways lay the groundwork for Year Two, as ministry begins to take clearer form through service, accompaniment, and ordination readiness.
Year Two: Community and Ministry
In Year Two, the focus turns outward, as the inner formation of the first year begins to take clearer shape as ministry and sacred service. You deepen your capacity for accompaniment, ethical presence, and holding space with care in the complexity of real life.
This year supports you in integrating what you have learned, refining your gifts, and preparing to cross the threshold into vow-taking and ordination. Ministry is approached not as a role to perform, but as a way of being in relationship with others, rooted in deep listening, responsibility, and spiritual maturity.
“What a journey it’s been, rich, humbling, and deeply transformative. I can hardly believe how quickly this first year has passed. From day one, I committed to being fully in the arena, heart open, spirit listening, showing up with presence and courage. What stands out most is the depth of connection: with self, with others, and with the sacred in all things. The practice of truly listening, without fixing, judging, or rushing, has changed me. OneSpirit has offered a mirror, a balm, and a fire, all at once. I feel stretched, softened, and inspired to keep walking this path with reverence and love..”
– Juliet, Birch Class of 2026
Vow Taking and Ordination
A Sacred Threshold
At the close of the two-year Willow Pathway, students are invited into a vow-taking and ordination ceremony, marking a meaningful and earned threshold into interfaith ministry. Ordination affirms your emergence as a minister formed in presence, ethical care, spiritual depth, and sacred service. It is a recognition of the inner work you have undertaken, the relationships you have cultivated, and the capacity you have developed to accompany others with integrity.
Vow-taking is deeply personal. It is an opportunity to speak aloud the commitment that will guide your ministry, witnessed and held in community. For many, this moment is a profound culmination of the journey, gathering together all that has been explored, deepened, and become.
Ordination does not mark an end, but a beginning: the start of a lifelong path of service, accompaniment, and continued formation.
“Learning that I have what I need and to lean into my experiences and who I am rather than compare myself to others. Also learning to listen to myself consciously and consider how I may come across to others. I also think the emerging friendships are important to me.”
– Clare, Birch Class of 2026
Our Faculty Team
The Willow Pathway is supported by a dedicated and experienced faculty team who hold a spacious and steady container for formation. Together, they create an online learning environment where spiritual deepening and the call to sacred service are honoured side by side.
Drawing on years of practice in accompaniment, ceremony, and relational teaching, the core tutors support students to slow down, listen inwardly, and grow in embodied presence, integrity, and ethical care. Their role is not simply to teach skills, but to hold the conditions in which your own gifts, calling, and expression of ministry can emerge over time.
Alongside the core faculty, associate tutors bring specialist knowledge and rich perspectives in key areas of the curriculum. Together, the team helps cultivate a connected community rooted in reflection, trust, and the sacred work of becoming.
Annie Heppenstall
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Alongside her tutor role at OneSpirit, Annie is currently engaged in a ‘grassroots’ voluntary ministry in a local urban project, where she is the ‘garden chaplain’ of a therapeutic gardening project for vulnerable members of the local community. Annie is drawn to this ministry through her lifelong affinity with the natural world and finds meaning in empowering others to share in cherishing and regenerating green spaces, particularly in improving the quality of life for all in urban environments.
Annie is an experienced spiritual accompanier/coach and qualified chaplain, with NHS training in mental health spiritual care in an interfaith context. She draws on a degree and MA from Cambridge University in Theology and Religious Studies and her professional formation as a teacher, undergirding her commitment to diversity and social justice issues of inner cities. Annie joined OneSpirit as a tutor in 2016 and is ordained. She enjoys working with classes in day workshops, residential and online contexts and is interested in how we form deep, mutually enriching connections through these different approaches.
With a side-line in mural painting and a prolific writer, Annie has published numerous books and articles offering reflections and ceremony resources, particularly about key interests in the Feminine Divine, deep ecology and the mystical heart of sacred texts.
Monica Douglas
Monica 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.
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Monica’s 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.
Sarah MacDonald
Sarah trained in Health Education and spent seventeen years working in holistic cancer care, designing and delivering courses and retreats focused on supporting health, resilience, and compassionate care, including for those nearing the end of life. Her wider professional experience includes work with rough sleepers, offenders, and those navigating addiction and mental health challenges.
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Sarah joined OneSpirit as a student in 2012 and was ordained in 2014. She went on to volunteer as a mentor between 2015 and 2017, and began working as a tutor in 2019, bringing a deep commitment to relational learning and spiritual formation.
Her spiritual practice is rooted in Qigong, which she has followed for over forty years. This embodied tradition is foundational to her life and spirituality, and she continues to attend regular classes and retreats, as well as teaching. Raised Catholic and having practised within Buddhism for a number of years, Sarah’s path is shaped by prayer, meditation, and a strong orientation towards sacred activism.
Her work includes engagement with the climate emergency, peace and justice initiatives, and ongoing inner and outer commitments to decolonisation and anti-racism. She leads climate pilgrimages, regeneration and resilience retreats, non-violence trainings for activists, and workshops supporting deeper connection with the natural world.
Sarah is married with three adult children. She loves backpacking, cooking, attempting to garden, and spending quiet time with a good book. Her happiest place is in the mountains at evening, with a small tent, a fire, and the company of a close friend.