Faculty Directory

Core Faculty

Pollyanna Bush, ChI’s Music Director, specializes in the spiritual and healing dimensions of music. A performer since the age of five, her formal music studies were at College of Marin, Mills College in Oakland, and San Francisco State University in classical, choral, jazz, popular music, and music theory. She has studied with renowned composer and Windam Hill recording artist, Alaudin Matthiey, and East Indian classical musician and master, Pandit Pran Nath. Under his guidance, she moved more deeply into the spiritual and healing dimensions of music. Ms. Bush has worked in dance, as an accompanist, dancer/ choreographer, and teacher. She trained in modern dance for 15 years, including work in New York City with the Martha Graham Dance Company. She has been choral director for "Sing for Your Life" at Grace Cathedral and the Interfaith Chapel in the Presidio, San Francisco.

Rev. Jim Larkin, M.Div., is Co-Provost of the Chaplaincy Institute and Co-Director of Tree of Life Teachings International with his wife Megan Wagner. In the past he co-taught ChI’s Spiritual Psychology classes with Megan. Though he currently finds his spiritual home in the Kabbalah, Jim was ordained into the Presbyterian Church. While serving for 4 years as the Associate Pastor at the American Church in London, Jim was introduced to “Men’s Work” with such teachers as Robert Bly, Michael Meade and Malidoma Some. After much soul searching and deep study in the Kabbalah, Jim resigned his Presbyterian ordination and eventually was ordained as an Interfaith Minster by ChI in 2005. Jim finds great joy in creating and leading worshipful ceremony and ritual to help people connect to the Divine with the goal of personal growth and spiritual development. 

Rev. John R. Mabry, Ph.D. is Director of ChI's Spiritual Direction program and is ChI core faculty in the areas of spiritual direction, world religions, and interfaith theology. He earned a Masters Degree in Spirituality from the Institute of Culture and Creation Spirituality (now called the Sophia Center at Holy Names College), and a Ph.D. in Philosophy and Religion from the California Institute of Integral Studies. He is pastor of Grace North Church in Berkeley, CA, an interfaith liturgical community, and serves as bishop for the Old Catholic Order of Holy Wisdom. He has served as editor of CREATION SPIRITUALITY magazine, and of PRESENCE: AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SPIRITUAL DIRECTION. His published books include The Way of Thomas (O Books, 2007); The Monster God: Coming to Terms with the Dark Side of Divinity (O Books, 2008); Faith Styles: Ways People Believe (Morehouse Publishing, 2006); Noticing the Divine: An Introduction to Interfaith Spiritual Guidance (Morehouse Publishing, 2006); God is a Great Underground River: Articles, Essays and Homilies on Interfaith Spirituality (Apocryphile Press, 2006); Heretics, Mystics & Misfits (Apocryphile Press, 2005); and God As Nature Sees God: A Christian’s Reading of the Tao Te Ching (Element/Penguin USA, 1994). Current research includes early Jewish Christian literature, especially the Gospel of Thomas. 

 

Rev. Jürgen Schwing, M.A., BCC, is the Director of Spiritual Care at Kaiser Permanente's Diablo Service Area, which serves two hospitals and a hospice. The Walnut Creek Medical Center offers an ACPE-accredited Clinical Pastoral Education program, as a satellite of Stanford Hospital and Clinic's CPE program. Rev. Schwing is an ordaned UCC minister and a board certified chaplain with The Association of Professional Chaplains whose work is rooted in the interfaith mystical journey and depth psychology. He has an M.A. in Religion and the Personality Sciences and received his clinical training as a spiritual counselor at Stanford Medical Center and the California Pacific Medical Center. Kaiser Permenente has featured his work in interfaith spiritual care in clinical video conferences throughout its system nationwide. He has taught at the Graduate Theological Union and has given presentations internationally, including in Germany and at the World Congress on Psychology and Spirituality in India, as well as at conferences of the Association of Prefessional Chaplains and the Institute for Transpersonal Psychology. 

 

 

Rev. Jeremy Taylor, D.Min., ChI Dreamwork faculty, Professor of Dreamwork and Archetypal Studies, Unitarian Universalist Minister, co-founder and past president of the International Association for the Study of Dreams (1995) has been an educator and pioneer in the area of dreams for over 35 years. He is the author of four books that integrate dream symbolism, mythology, and archetypal energy: Dream Work (1983); Where People Fly and Water Runs Uphill: Using Dreams to Tap the Wisdom of the Unconscious (1992); The Living Labyrinth: Exploring Archetypal Images in Myths, Dreams and the Symbolism of Waking Life (1998); and The Wisdom of Your Dreams: Using Dreams to Tap Into Your Unconscious and Transform Your Life (2009). He has been a featured guest on NBC and PBS and has taught at The Institute for Transpersonal Psychology, JFK University, Wisdom University, and throughout the world—most recently in South Korea and Peru.

 

Rev. Megan Wagner, Ph.D., is Co-Provost of the Chaplaincy Institute and Director of Spiritual Psychology at ChI. She is a therapist, spiritual director, artist, Kabbalah teacher, interfaith minister, drummer, ritual leader and author. She is the author of The Sapphire Staff: Walking the Western Mystical Way, a guide to the 7 stages of psycho-spiritual awakening from Kabbalah and the Tree of Life. Rev. Wagner is founding director of Tree of Life Teachings International, where she runs Tree of Life Training, a Kabbalah School, and leads sacred journeys to Crete, Europe, Mexico and Africa. Her healing work integrates Psychology, Mysticism, Shamanism, Astrology, Alchemy and the sacred arts of drumming, chanting, storytelling and ritual. She trained in Family Systems and Jungian Psychology and has 25 years of counseling experience, including 12 years of supervision in psychodynamic counseling and personal analysis in analytic depth psychology. An interfaith minister, Rev. Wagner earned a Master of Arts in Marriage and Family Therapy from Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, California, and Masters in Metaphysics and Ph.D. in Transpersonal Counseling from the University of Sedona, Sedona, Arizona. 

Adjunct Faculty

 Rev. Amy Brucker is Founder of The Dream Tribe and Grow Your Lifework, where she helps people turn their talents into rich and meaningful lifework. Her unique process integrates 3 types of dreams - sleeping dreams, waking visions and shamanic dreaming - as well as deep soul work and spiritually conscious marketing. After receiving her MA in Spirituality from Naropa University, Amy attended the Chaplaincy Institute's interfaith seminary program. Following ordination, Amy was asked to become co-Director of ChI where she served for three years. She currently teachs dreamwork and spiritual marketing the spiritual direction program.

Li Chan, Ph.D. is the Buddhist chaplain at San Francisco Juvenile Hall, where he teaches a weekly class, “Anger Control Using Meditation.” He also teaches “Stress Control Using Meditation” classes at the San Francisco County Jail and the Sheriff’s Department substance abuse program. Once a year, he travels to Thailand for a month-long retreat to practice meditation for 8 – 12 hours a day. For his “day job,” Professor Chan holds a faculty position in the Graduate School of Education, University of California, Berkeley, teaching courses on school district financial management. Previously he was the Chief Financial Officer of St. Mary’s College in Moraga, California, and Chief Technology Officer at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco.

Jane DeCuir, a performance artist, musician and visual artist, has taught traditional crafts, singing, drumming and movement in various schools since 1993. She is a Metis (mixed blood ancestry) of Native American (Cherokee, Lakota), European and African heritage. She has studied Native American drumming and singing with Richard Dobson, movement and dance with Olivia Corson and Luisah Teish, improv theater with Ruth Zaporah, and voice with Judy Davis. She has also performed in the cross-cultural groups Adesha, Tampat, and Drumfire.

Rabbinical Pastor Shoshana Phoenixx, ChI Adjunct Faculty, is a longtime hospital and hospice chaplain and an active member and leader in the Jewish community. Currently she is the Director of Older Adult and Volunteer Programs for Jewish Community Center of the East Bay. A graduate of Chochmat HaLev's Immersion in Jewish Spiritual Leadership program, she is the author of The Phoenixx Hagaddah. Shoshana uses poetry, storytelling, art, crafts, music and American Sign Language in her work to teach community and college-based courses, including courses on grief, mourning and healing from a Jewish perspective, spiritual care for hospitalized patients and terminally ill patients of all faiths, and spiritual assessment strategies for healthcare professionals.

Shaikha Shakina Reinhertz, author of  Women Called to the Path of Rumi, has been a student of Sufism for thirty years and is initiated as a teacher in the Mevlevi Order of America and the Sufi Order International. She has taught at universities and spiritual communities, sharing the mystical path of the dervish through stories, zikr, and Sufi practices.  Her professional experience includes over twenty years of experience in education and social service work, with an emphasis on women's issues. She has been a guest presenter on Sufism at  Colgate University, City College of San Francisco, Rochester University, and Wisdom University. The heart of her practice is Sacred Dance; her teachers have included T.Y. Pang, Chitresh Das, Ann Halprin, and Mevlevi Postneshin Jelaluddin Loras. Currently she teaches the Whirling practice at Grace North Church and is part of the adjunct faculty of the Chaplaincy Institute. In 2008 she taught "Founding Islam: Her Story" at Starr King School for the Ministry, a division of the Graduate Theological Union.

Rev. Rebecca Senoglu was ordained by The Chaplaincy Institute in May 2002, and has also completed a certificate program in Children’s Spirituality at First Steps in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Rebecca works as the Cancer Support Program Coordinator at Enloe Cancer Center in Chico, California, where she has developed programs like the “Telling Our Stories” writing workshops, the VIVA! support program for kids living with loved ones who have cancer, and the Enloe Cranes Project community healing arts and outreach project. She is also a volunteer chaplain for the Spiritual Care Team at Enloe Hospice, Treasurer of the Chico Area Interfaith Council, and in 2007-2008 was the Project Manager for the Hmong Community Wellness Project. She performs meaningful weddings and memorials for those who do not have a pastor, and she is employed by Chico funeral homes and by As You Like It Wedding Ceremonies as an officiant.