Spiritual Direction
Spiritual direction is a process of accompanying people on their spiritual journey, listening for what gives them meaning, and helping them grow closer to God/the Divine/the sacred. You may wish to meet once, or several times, during your stay at Crieff Hills, as a way to deepen your retreat experience. Sessions are typically one hour long. All of the spiritual directors listed below have been trained through rigorous spiritual direction certification programs.
The fee is $60 per session, and is payable directly to your spiritual director. Contact any of the following spiritual directors to arrange a suitable date and time to meet. If you are not an overnight guest, a day pass is required (indoor facilities are not provided).
Please note that none of these spiritual directors are employees of Crieff Hills Retreat Centre
nor are they accountable to our organization. While we recommend them, this program is at your own risk.
Marijke Strong – contact: strongmarijke@gmail.com or www.marijkestrong.com
Spiritual background:
- Certified spiritual director, Dominican Center Grand Rapids
- MDiv in Theology, with emphasis on spiritual formation
- Certified Master Level + Professional Level coach, specializing in Enneagram coaching, relationship coaching, Internal Family Systems, life coaching and leadership coaching
- Ordained pastor, with experience offering pastoral care and community building in church settings as well national denominational leadership
- BA in theatre and English (interest in sacred movement, embodiment, creativity, beauty, story, myth, and archetypes)
- Experience as faith-based camp director (emphasis on spirituality in the outdoors)
- Experience as support worker to special populations (emphasis on respect, reciprocity, and the Whole Self)
Special interests:
- Centering prayer, breath prayer, art and poetry in prayer, nature as Divine presence
- Grief work and spiritual trauma
- Deconstructing religious experience, rediscovering spirituality
- Restorative Circles (conflict transformation and reconciliation practices)
- Creative writing, sacred movement/embodiment (somatic practice), art, poetry
- Celtic spirituality, and its invitations into nature and interbeing
- Themes of belovedness, wholeness, True Self / False Self, integration, self-awareness, the natural world, community, creativity, curiosity, justice and peacemaking
- Interest in the Sacred Feminine
Marijke receives spiritual direction to explore wholeheartedness, to remember belovedness, to welcome Life, to find sacredness in the everyday, to become present to the Self, to become aware of Divine presence in all things, to explore how she might engage lovingly and reciprocally with the world.
Most of her spiritual direction sessions are offered online and occasionally as in-person sessions in Hamilton. She is not often available for in-person sessions on-site at Crieff. If you are booking a retreat at Crieff and would like spiritual direction related to your retreat, she is happy to offer pre-retreat and post-retreat Zoom video session packages. These have worked well for many clients! A pre-retreat session might focus on your spiritual needs, your hopes for the retreat, and your goals for spiritual practices. A post-retreat session might focus on how the retreat went, what insights you gained, and how you would like to integrate your experience into everyday life.
Kristin Rekker - contact: kristen@threestrandsministries.org or at threestrandsministries.org.
As a spiritual companion, Kristen creates space for non-judgmental, compassionate support for others who are questioning, doubting, wondering, or wandering, or are feeling a hunger for more depth in their faith journey.
Through conversation, prayer and contemplative Christian spiritual practices, she hopes to help you seek greater self-awareness, self-compassion, and a fostering of spiritual growth in order to live a meaningful and attentive life with your heart tuned towards finding the living God, and Love, in the moments of daily life. Kristen's hope is that you may become more attuned to your God-given, Spirit-connected inner wisdom to navigate the challenging parts of life.
With undergraduate degrees in both Psychology and Biological Sciences, as well as certificates in both Spiritual Formation and Spiritual Direction from Emmaus Formation Center, she delights in being a life-long learner.
Kristen believes in the everyday as sacred space and our lives as the tapestry of the Holy Spirit for our spiritual formation. She loves the outdoors and nature, photography, a good book, camping and canoe trips as well as all creatures great and small. She is a word-crafter, as well as an aspiring knitter and an inconsistent runner. Kristen has an interest in emotional health and how it intersects with our spiritual health. She lives with her husband, and three teens and has been a part of the same Presbyterian congregation for over 20 years having served in worship ministry and prayer ministry for many of those years.
Kristen receives spiritual direction in order to find care for her own soul and seeks the fingerprints of the Divine in her story and in that of others. She is continually on a journey to understand how to be more fully formed into the image of Christ.
Peter Giokas (MTS, MDiv.) - contact: petergiokas@gmail.com
Peter spent most of his career working in the non profit sector. During that time he was ordained with the Canadian Baptists of Ontario and Quebec and pastored a church in Hamilton. As a spiritual director, he finds delight in seeing people recognize and respond to the Spirit as He draws them into deeper faith, greater freedom and experience of God’s love. Peter has three grown sons and one grandson, and loves being married to Sandy. He is a student of old and new monasticism, the Christian mystics and is a member of the Order of the Mustard Seed.
Aukje Dykstra - Contact: aukje.dykstra@gmail.com'
Aukje believes God is present and active in every moment of life, and sees immense spiritual benefits to reflecting on one’s actions, thoughts and feelings regularly. As an Emmaus Formation Centre trained spiritual director, she delights to listen to your journey and together with you, explore what you bring with holy curiosity. Aukje’s desire is that people grow more intimate in their relationship with God, live in greater spiritual freedom and become the people God created them to be. An acute awareness of the bountiful grace she herself has received and continues to receive, enables her to offer a safe, non-judgemental space to share and wonder about God’s work in your life. She would be honoured to be a spiritual companion on your journey.
Julia Tarcisius Contact: juliagodlight@gmail.com
Julia lives in Milton, Ontario with her fun-loving family. Her formal education includes an undergraduate degree in psychology from Queen's University, and Certificates in Spiritual Formation, and Spiritual Direction from Emmaus Formation Centre. She also has two decades of ministry experience. Being in nature is one of the pathways where she connects best with God.
Her combined life experiences have cultivated her desire to come alongside people, wherever they may be in their faith journey. She desires to offer them a hospitable space to be seen and heard, as they listen to God together. We aren’t meant to walk this life alone, and she would consider it an honour to be a part of your journey. To learn more, go to her website: www.godlight.ca