Sacred Sendoffs

Sarah A. Bowen is an animal chaplain and advocate for all creatures. She offers workshops on interspecies mindfulness practices, works with humans around animal grief/loss, and advocates for exploited and endangered species within both religious and secular contexts. You can often find her huddled over wildlife struck by cars, giving them a sacred sendoff. Bowen is also a cofounder of Compassion Consortium, the first interfaith, interspiritual, and interspecies faith community, an academic dean at One Spirit Interfaith Seminary; a columnist on animal/human relationships for Spirituality & Health magazine; and the author of two award-winning books on modern spirituality, including Spiritual Rebel. Her work has also appeared in Tricycle: The Buddhist Review, Elephant Journal, mindbodygreen, and on a wide range of podcasts. She holds a BA in human ecology, MA in religious studies, and is joyfully engaged in postgraduate research in humane religious studies and anthrozoology.

Stina Nielsen has been seen on Broadway and in London's West End in The Judas Kiss with Liam Neeson. Her other Broadway credits include Waiting in the Wings with Lauren Bacall and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? with Kathleen Turner. Her regional theater credits include Tennessee Williams's The Notebook of Trigorin with Lynn Redgrave, Lillian Hellman's The Little Foxes, Crumbs from the Table of Joy by Lynn Nottage, and Ivan Turgenev's A Month in the Country. Her TV credits include Law & Order SVU, Another World, The City, and All My Children. Stina has recorded over 175 audiobooks, has been nominated for several Audie Awards, and was named one of the "Best Voices of 2011" by AudioFile magazine.