Audre Peer Application
Dear Woman Living with Cancer:
Center of the Heart (COH) is launching Audre: Spiritual Care for Women with Cancer. Audre will be an online spiritual care community of women with cancer, inspired by the life and work of Black lesbian feminist poet Audre Lorde. Audre wrote several books of poetry, a famous collection of essays called Sister Outsider, and The Cancer Journals and A Burst of Light. Audre is open to all women with cancer. Each group will consist of between 6 and 12 women, facilitated by an experienced chaplain/spiritual care professional who is committed to feminist principles, nonduality, interfaith, interreligious, and “interworldview” engagement, justice, and critical thinking. Groups will be held on Zoom beginning in January, 2021.
Audre is founded and led by Dr. Pamela Ayo Yetunde (“Ayo”), co-founder of COH, and a spiritual director, chaplain, pastoral counselor, researcher, teacher, and author. Ayo began her spiritual care journey as a bedside volunteer with Zen Hospice Project in San Francisco. Her time there was followed by a course in Buddhist chaplaincy at Sati Center for Buddhist Studies, followed by Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) at Alta Bates Summit Medical Center and a spiritual direction residency at Mercy Center. Ayo has also volunteered at San Francisco General’s Sojourn Chaplaincy program, Kaiser Permanente, and Holy Names University, and was a chaplain at Pathways Home Care and Hospice. Ayo is a Community Dharma Leader through Spirit Rock Meditation Center.
In the Women, Spirituality, and Cancer pilot study we learned that many women’s cancers are diagnosed by doctors who aren’t cancer specialists. Most of these doctors do not work with spiritual care professionals or chaplains, do not raise the subject of religion or spirituality, and do not refer their patients to spiritual care providers, leaving a gap in spiritual care during the cancer care journey. We also learned that many women turn to friends for spiritual support. In Audre, we hope to provide online communities of spiritual friends that are peers as well as experienced chaplains, to provide high quality, easily accessible spiritual community support.
If you are a woman living with cancer and you’d like to be in an Audre: Spiritual Care for Women with Cancer group of 6 to 12 women, please email Ayo at Ayo@centeroftheheart.org by December 15, 2020. A nominal fee of $30 will be charged for each group meeting.
Thank you,
Pamela Ayo Yetunde, Th.D.
Center of the Heart
Audre: Spiritual Care for Women with Cancer