I am an interfaith chaplain, artist, and spiritual care provider devoted to accompanying others through profound transformation with compassion, reverence, and grounded presence. My work centers on creating spaces for deep listening and sacred attention, where people can meet the most real parts of their lives without agenda, fixing, or performance. Informed by a lifelong engagement with creativity and contemplative practice, I invite others into deeper states of being, belonging, and becoming.

I hold a master’s degree in spirituality from Hartford International University for Religion & Peace, with a focus on feminist theology and interfaith peacebuilding. I currently serve as a Resident Chaplain, completing a year-long hospital chaplaincy residency with a clinical focus on palliative care and behavioral health. I am pursuing board certification through the Association of Professional Chaplains (APC).

My chaplaincy practice is grounded in sacred witnessing—the quiet art of tending the unseen chapels of grief, illness, burnout, creativity, spiritual questioning, life transitions, and identity reclamation. I understand suffering as layered and complex, and I approach healing not as something imposed or performed but as a process of remembrance that unfolds through presence, awareness, and trust in one’s inner authority.

Drawing on world religions, Zen Buddhism, and contemplative traditions, I neither direct nor interpret another person’s experience. Instead, I accompany with steadiness and care, honoring mystery, autonomy, and the intelligence of the psyche and the soul. My orientation is toward hope—not the kind that bypasses, but a grounded confidence that transformation is possible when awareness is present.

I earned my BFA in Painting from Lyme Academy College of Fine Art, where I trained in representational drawing, painting, sculpture, and color theory. My creative practice is not separate from my chaplaincy work but stems from the same source: a devotion to presence, flow, and the intelligence of the present moment.

You can view my artwork at rochellebayless.com.