From 19–25 October 2025, Spiritual Care Week turns forty with the theme ‘40 Years of Spiritual Support’. What began in the United States as a way to recognise chaplaincy and pastoral care has become a global invitation to reflect on how spiritual care helps people name what matters, hold grief, and find courage in hard times.
I’m writing this for those who see themselves as Pagan, animist, or spiritual-but-not-religious, and for anyone who doesn’t feel at home in church language yet still longs for depth, meaning, and care that speaks to them.
What are we celebrating at 40?
Spiritual Care Week began in 1985 as a way to recognise the professional practice of chaplaincy and pastoral care, and has continued annually ever since. The anniversary reminds us that spiritual care is a real discipline with training, supervision, and standards. It honours the people who show up to listen, witness, and accompany others through illness, ageing, death, and the big questions of life.
Global roots, local branches
In Australia, spiritual care has been shaped by a network of professional bodies, training pathways, and system-level work.
Spiritual Care Australia (SCA) is the national professional association for spiritual care practitioners across health, aged care, community, and other settings. Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) is the vehicle for professional formation, offered through accredited centres as an experiential, reflective, supervised practice conducted by state associations. In Victoria, the Association for Supervised and Clinical Pastoral Education in Victoria Inc (ASACPEV) ensures quality training and supervision. The Australia and New Zealand Association for Clinical Pastoral Education Ltd (ANZACPE) develops common standards and supervisory accreditation for CPE across Australasia. National frameworks and models across the sector aim to embed safe, person-centred, consistent spiritual care backed by capabilities frameworks, supervision norms, and evaluation resources.
I love that this year’s theme looks back because history matters, and that it also asks how spiritual support lands for people now, in all our diversity.
A Pagan lens on spiritual care
I’ve written before that spiritual care is about presence, meaning, ritual, and story, not diagnosis or conversion. For many of us who are Pagan, animist, or simply allergic to traditional, institutional religion, ‘spirit’ isn’t abstract. It’s the breath, the land, the weather, the ancestors, the gods (many, one, or none), and the living web of relationship.
Mainstream spiritual care in Australia has strong Christian roots. In my CPE training, I often encountered prayers, scripture, and the familiar ‘swap out God for whatever you believe in’ line. That can be offered kindly, and still miss the mark. When spiritual care assumes one set of metaphors — sin/salvation, shepherd/flock, Father/child — it can exclude those of us whose cosmologies are grounded in relationship, reciprocity, seasonality, and place.
Pluralism isn’t a problem to solve; it’s the truth of our lives. Genuine spiritual care listens across languages without pretending one language fits all. In my practice, that looks like acknowledging the elements — earth, air, fire, water — and crafting consent-based rituals with them; noticing seasonality and place, where a cup of tea and a eucalyptus leaf may serve better than an unfamiliar text; working with lineage and continuing bonds through stories and small altars; and treating mystery as a companion, not a riddle to crack.
During my first CPE unit, every student led a morning reflection. The Christians almost always brought a prayer or a biblical reflection. I asked the group to stand in a circle and led them through the tree grounding that I learned many years ago in The Spiral Dance, which appears in other writings by Starhawk. None of the students had done anything like it before, and what is a common Pagan practice was novel and exciting.
Another time, I created a small altar with red and yellow flowers and read a poem by Nezahualcoyotl, a scholar, philosopher, warrior, architect, poet and ruler of the city-state of Texcoco in pre-Columbian era Mexico. Many in the group were surprised and delighted because many Christians are not familiar with spiritual writing outside of Christianity.
My toolbox is also useful with patients. One young woman initially told me she was an atheist, but later revealed she is Aboriginal and is making her way back to community. When she confided that she had trouble aligning what she knows with how she feels, I offered a technique known to many Pagans: the alignment of three souls. I explained that she could envision three cauldrons inside of her, in her mind, heart, and gut, that were tipped in different directions, and imagine turning them inside her until they were right-side up. She gratefully accepted this practice.
Reality check — and a gentle challenge to lead
Spiritual care in Australia is still largely shaped by Christian history and institutions. There are no accredited Pagan seminaries or theological degrees in Australia, and non-Christian practitioners can encounter misunderstanding or even hostility. The door can look closed.
But it isn’t locked, and we don’t have to wait for someone else to open it.
Many Christian colleagues simply don’t have another spiritual language to draw from; expecting them to carry all the translation isn’t fair or practical. I’ve never faced resistance from patients, only from other carers, which tells me something important: the resistance is about institutional comfort and professional territoriality. That’s a different conversation, and it’s one I keep showing up for.
Part of pluralist care is leading the change we want to see: bringing workable language, grounded practices, and clear, team-friendly processes so our care lands for the people we serve.
Lead the change (how I show up)
I show up by naming the frame without defensiveness: ‘I draw on nature-based metaphors, seasonality, and simple ritual. Here’s how that looks.’ I offer translatable scripts so that instead of prayer, I can invite two minutes of shared silence and breath; instead of a blessing, I offer words of gratitude and continuity. I bring micro-rituals that travel—a bowl of water for grief, a grounding stone, or three lines of legacy writing are simple, respectful, and repeatable. I educate lightly through one slide, a song, a poem, or a five-minute huddle. I build a referral web and keep a short, vetted list of local interfaith and Pagan contacts for specialist support. And I model consent carefully. I’ve seen patients say yes, uncomfortably, to offers of Christian prayers even when they’ve expressed they’re not practising Christians. Institutional context shapes what feels possible to refuse. This is why I’m careful about how I frame things, not just what I offer, but how I make it easy to say no.
Pluralist practice centres the person, not the practitioner. The aim isn’t to replace one default with another; it’s to widen the room so more people can breathe.
Why the system work matters
I’m passionate about care, and I love the quiet moments. I’m also grateful for the unglamorous systems work that makes those moments safer and more consistent: national models, capabilities frameworks, proper supervision, and professional development. These efforts help ensure spiritual care is not a random hit-or-miss kindness but an accountable practice that can be requested, delivered, and evaluated across services. Pluralist, earth-honouring care belongs inside that accountable frame.
The standards landscape is changing. Frameworks have been revised to genuinely accommodate non-Christian practitioners, not just token inclusion. There are more of us now. That said, the training infrastructure still has Christian roots, and that shapes how we all work. Pluralist, earth-honouring care belongs inside that accountable frame.
How to engage
If you find yourself in hospital, say plainly what kind of support you’re after. If religious language doesn’t fit, you don’t have to justify that. Your spiritual language is valid.
If you’re a practitioner or ally: if you’re already working in spiritual care in traditional religious spaces, connect with Spiritual Care Australia for professional networks and capability updates. If you’re exploring this path from outside traditional pastoral credentials, CPE training may be the best entry point. Read and share the state model resources with your teams, considering where your service is already aligned and what’s next.
A closing blessing for a pluralist week
At 40, Spiritual Care Week isn’t just a birthday. It’s a reminder that spiritual support is not one voice. It’s many voices, many paths, meeting people where they are. For those of us outside traditional religious institutions, the door can seem closed. It isn’t locked, and we can help open it by bringing clear, accountable, earth-honouring care into the room, and then hold it open for others.