About Devlyn
I am a board-certified chaplain, spiritual care educator, and ceremony guide with more than twenty years of experience accompanying individuals, families, and communities through grief, illness, caregiving, death, and life’s significant transitions.
My work began in community ministry and grew through years of healthcare chaplaincy, where I learned that some of the most important moments in life cannot be fixed or explained. These threshold moments can only be met with presence, compassion, and heart. Since then, I have supported thousands of people navigating loss, medical uncertainty, end-of-life decisions, spiritual questions, and the challenges of this thing called life.
I founded Aurelia Grove to create a place where grief, remembrance, spiritual care, and community support can be held with both depth and practicality. Whether I am helping a family create a meaningful memorial, supporting someone through serious illness, accompanying a caregiver, or offering spiritual direction across a season of life, my approach is grounded in careful listening, humility, and respect for your spirit’s deep knowing and your unique story.
In addition to my private practice, I serve at Sojourn Chaplaincy, a nonprofit organization teaching spiritual care within San Francisco’s public healthcare system. I teach and speak locally and nationally on topics including grief, spiritual care, clinician resilience, and gender-affirming spiritual care.
I hold a Master of Divinity degree, am a Board-Certified Chaplain through the Association of Professional Chaplains, and have additional training in clinical herbalism, trauma-informed care, and end-of-life support.
At the heart of my work is a simple belief: no one should have to navigate life’s most difficult passages alone.
My Approach
At the heart of my work is a simple belief
People heal, grow, and find their way forward when they are deeply heard.
Whether I am sitting beside a hospital bed, supporting a family after a death, walking with someone through a season of grief, helping a person navigate serious illness, or supporting a healthcare worker wrestling with burnout or moral distress, my role is not to provide answers
My role is to listen deeply, ask thoughtful questions, and help create space for clarity, connection, and wisdom to emerge.
I work with people from many religious, spiritual, and secular backgrounds. Some come with a strong faith tradition. Others are uncertain what they believe. Many simply know they are carrying something difficult and do not want to carry it alone.
All are welcome.
Training and Experience
Highlights:
- Board-Certified Chaplain (BCCI)
- Master of Divinity, Pacific School of Religion
- More than three decades of chaplaincy, spiritual care, and community leadership
- More than fifteen years serving patients, families, and healthcare teams in public health and trauma care
- More than a decade of palliative care experience
- Educator, mentor, and trainer for chaplains and helping professionals
- Facilitator of Schwartz Center Rounds and interdisciplinary reflection
- Service on hospital ethics committees and support for healthcare teams following difficult clinical events
- Trauma informed care and conflict mediation
- Experienced ritual leader with more than thirty years of experience creating and facilitating ceremonies, memorials, rites of passage, and community rituals
- Practicing herbalist since 2010, with experience in traditional and community-based approaches to healing, wellbeing, and connection with the natural world
-Ordained Interfaith Minister and lifelong spiritual seeker with roots in buddhism, earth based religion, celtic spirituality
Beyond the Grove…
My work also includes writing, teaching, research, ritual leadership, spiritual care, and exploring the ways human beings navigate life's thresholds and processes of transformation.
These broader interests have led me to explore questions about grief, spirituality, ceremony, serious illness, professional formation, community resilience, and the role of meaning-making during times of change.
You can learn more about these projects through Herbal Chaplain, my writing and research platform dedicated to Threshold Work and the study of how people and communities navigate life's most significant crossings.
