What Matters
Chart your own path to What Matters
Come along for a season of community, spiritual learning, self-reflection, and joy.
2025-2026
WHAT IS WHAT MATTERS?
In 28 weeks of What Matters, you’ll meet weekly with a consistent cohort of 24-30 students. You'll read in community, learn from spiritual leaders and artists, and build clarity and intention around your values.
The program is divided into three units, each focused on a different text. The curriculum is designed to give you the support and resources to discover your own path to what matters.
“What Matters offers a bright light of community in a challenging world and has helped me stay anchored in what really matters to me: care, bravery, and hope. I will always cherish the friendships, stories, and insights I found in this class.”
“Figuring out ‘what matters’ through sacred reading and self-reflection in a tight-knit community was a life-giving practice. Participating in What Matters gave me deep hope and was something I looked forward to each week during a challenging time in my life.”
THE BASICS
28 classes hosted over Zoom
August 20th, 2025 through March 18th, 2026
Wednesday evenings, 8-10 pm ET
Additional 1-on-1 sessions with faculty
A book bundle of all three texts we’re studying*
*International participants will receive audiobooks or ebooks in lieu of physical copies.
TUITION
Full Experience Tuition: $4,200
Class Only Tuition: If you would like to attend What Matters with reduced tuition, we have six Class Only spots available for folks who wish to forfeit the book bundle, one-on-one chaplaincy with Mauricio, and personalized feedback from Micaela. These spots are priced at $3,200 and are offered on a first come, first served basis.
Scholarship Tuition: We are pleased to announce that we will award six partial Scholarship spots to What Matters Cohort participants, priced at $2,800. To apply for a scholarship, simply register for What Matters and select your interest in receiving an application.
Payment plans are available for all levels of tuition! Read more below in our Tuition section.
COURSE OUTLINE
We will begin What Matters with two weeks of orientation followed by three weeks of storytelling with Micaela Blei. Together, we’ll map our identities and find what matters to us in this moment.
We will then dedicate six sessions to each of our books, alternating time with faculty members Vanessa Zoltan and Mauricio Bruce. This is our opportunity to collectively explore themes that resonate from the texts, while examining the meaning that rises to the surface as we think about our own lives.
We’ll conclude What Matters with a lively four weeks of storytelling in community with Micaela Blei, to reflect on and communicate about our values and our lives.
In our final week, participants will graduate from the program and offer presentations to the group, reflecting on the impact of their time with What Matters.
Over the course of 28 weeks, participants of the Full Experience Tuition and Scholarship Tuition are encouraged to sign up for three individual chaplaincy sessions with Mauricio.
WHO IS WHAT MATTERS FOR?
This course is for you if:
You wish you had a guide in your spiritual journey
You’re looking for a sense of caring community
You want to grow in your activism
You are going through a transition
You are a bookworm who misses school
“When I signed up for What Matters, I was excited to explore books with sacred practices and like-minded people. This was so much more. I quickly grew to love the group of people, and even more, the experience of being together with them. The container and structure of What Matters is magical, allowing us all to experience depth, growth, love, healing and transformation. If you are looking for something you can’t quite name, but you have an inkling that it might be here.... trust me—you will find it in What Matters.”
The Classes
With each book we read, we'll examine a different theme or approach to the question "What Matters?" We'll use the novels as lenses through which to examine our own lives. You'll work with Vanessa and Mauricio to explore the texts, ultimately concluding your What Matters journey with four sessions dedicated to storytelling using the discoveries you've made.
TYPES OF CLASSES
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You’ll read the novels slowly together and choose sparklets to treat as sacred. Within the group, you’ll excavate the books for meaning in order to create a collection of spiritual resources for yourselves. Learn more about Vanessa here.
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After reading each novel, you’ll reflect on what it made you think and feel, exploring what that says about your perspectives, your beliefs, and the way you show up in the world. Do I want to stay that way? Do I want to change any of it? How do I want to understand the way the novels are impacting and teaching me? This is the space in the class where you’ll use the novels as mirrors for who you are and the way you view the world. Learn more about Mauricio here.
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After close reading the three texts with Vanessa, and exploring personal themes with Mauricio, you'll meet with award-winning storyteller and educator Micaela Blei, PhD, to make meaning through storytelling and memoir. Focusing on storytelling as a reflective and community process, NOT a performance, you'll brainstorm and craft stories from your life. You’ll integrate themes that arise through our reading into new interpretations of personal experience. You'll leave with new skills of communication and expression, and new ways of both telling and listening to the stories in your life. Learn more about Micaela here.
The Texts
Over 28 weeks together, we will dive deep into three modern classics using sacred reading, innovative personal reflective work, and storytelling. Whatever your degree of familiarity with the texts—whether you’re revisiting a favorite for new perspective or it’s been on your “to-be-read” list for a while—you can confidently contribute to discussion and gain new perspective through each session.
Book One
Parable of the Sower
by Octavia E. Butler
Parable of the Sower is about adaptation, belief, and the power of shaping one's own destiny. It explores what it means to survive—not just physically, but spiritually—when everything familiar is falling apart. In a time of crisis—whether personal or collective—the novel invites us to think about whether our survival depends not on resisting change, but on learning to navigate and shape it with intention, courage, and vision.
We begin with this classic of speculative fiction in order to start with the deep themes of empathy and grief. The fertile ground of a post-apocalyptic text allows us to think through what pieces of society are essential to humanity—and what bits we can hold more loosely.
Book Two
Station Eleven
by Emily St. John Mandel
Next, we will read a novel that moves between the early days of a devastating pandemic and a future where art and storytelling (music, theater, and even comic books) help sustain those who remain.
Station Eleven is about the persistence of art and beauty in the wake of disaster and their power to foster human connection. This book invites us to reflect on what truly matters when civilization falls away—memory, human connection, and the enduring power of creativity.
Book Three
Women Talking
by Miriam Toews
One of Vanessa’s all-time favorite novels, our final book together Women Talking is a powerful, thought-provoking text based on true events. We will read this for many reasons. But most importantly, this is a novel about self-creation in a moment of change. It asks, “given what has happened to us, who do we want to be?” The women gather to decide their future after experiencing profound violence, and their conversations explore faith, justice, and the meaning of choice, urging us to consider what it takes to reclaim power in the face of oppression.
Register before July 31st to utilize our payment plan system!
Register before July 31st to utilize our payment plan system!
The Faculty
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Vanessa Zoltan
READING & DISCUSSION SEMINAR
Vanessa is the CEO and co-founder of Not Sorry Productions. She is trained as an atheist chaplain and has her MDiv from Harvard Divinity School. She also got her Masters in Nonprofit Management from the University of Pennsylvania and graduated with a BA in English from Washington University in St. Louis. She worked in the education sector for 10 years. She is the author of Praying with Jane Eyre; Reflections on Reading as a Sacred Practice (Penguin, 2021) and has been published in The Paris Review, Salon and other publications. Her work has been covered on CNN and in The Washington Post, The New York Times, Entertainment Weekly, The Boston Globe and many other sources. She teaches Chaplaincy for the Nonreligious at Harvard Divinity School, and you can learn more about her work at vanessazoltan.com.
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Micaela Blei
STORYTELLING & MEANING-MAKING
Micaela Blei, PhD, is a storyteller, story editor and educator who lives in Portland, Maine. As a two-time Moth GrandSLAM champion storyteller and the former (founding) Director of Education at The Moth, she has 14 years of experience working with individuals, organizations and communities to shape and share the important stories of their lives. Her acclaimed workshops are invitations to reflection, spaces for discovery, and most of all— fun. Her own stories have appeared on This American Life, The Moth Radio Hour, WGBH’s Stories from the Stage and live on sold-out storytelling stages nationwide. She is the author of the Audible Original memoir, "You Will Not Recognize Your Life.” She has a BA in Literature from Yale University and a PhD in Education from New York University. You can see her stories and learn more about Micaela at micaelablei.com.
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Mauricio Bruce
CHAPLAINCY
Born and raised in San José, Costa Rica, Mauricio is a transpersonal therapist and coach who believes in personal development and health through spiritual development. After a portentous dream and a long search Mauricio traveled to the Andes where he studied medicine and spirituality with the Q’ero people of Perú. He has directed Umbral de la Montaña, a self-development and spirituality school in San José, Costa Rica, for the last twelve years, and he is an international teacher at Asersentido International, a life coaching school based in Santiago, Chile. He teaches with them in Chile, Perú, and the United States. He graduated with a Masters in Divinity from Harvard Divinity School and a BA in English and Film Studies from Washington University in St. Louis. He also hosts Not Sorry’s podcast, The Real Question.
Tuition
The intimacy and depth of this program is reflected in the Full Experience cost; however, in an effort to make this program more accessible to our community, we offer payment plans that break the tuition into several parts as well as a reduced Class Only Tuition and Scholarship Tuition.
Read more about our payment options below.
TUITION & PAYMENT PLANS
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Full Experience registration enables you to pay for your tuition all at once or with a deposit and three subsequent payments (payment plan). Within 48 hours, you’ll receive confirmation that your spot has been reserved along with an invitation to make your payment. *International participants will receive audiobooks or ebooks in lieu of physical copies.
Click here to register for What Matters 2025-2026.
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Class Only Tuition registration enables you to pay for your tuition all at once or with a deposit and two subsequent payments (payment plan). Within 48 hours, you’ll receive confirmation that your spot has been reserved along with an invitation to make your payment. These spots are limited to six participants, first come first served.
Click here to register for What Matters 2025-2026.
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We’re thrilled to offer six scholarship spots that reduce the Full Experience cost of tuition to $2,800.
When you register for the class, you can request to be considered for one of these six spots. You’ll then be sent an application form to fill out from our Programs team. We will begin offering scholarships in early May.
Please note: Scholarships can be combined with a payment plan.
Click here to register for What Matters 2025-2026.
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Payment Plans are available for all three tuition tiers. They do not cost more money than paying for the class all at once. Just designate your request for a payment plan using this registration form.
Full Experience: $1,200 deposit and three $1,000 payments, auto drafted on August 1, October 1, and December 1.Class Only: $1,200 deposit and two $1,000 payments, auto drafted on August 1 and October 1.
Scholarship: $800 deposit and two $1,000 payments, auto drafted on August 1 and October 1.
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In order to take full advantage of the multi-installment payment plan, please register by July 31st.
In order to guarantee your book bundle arrives by July 1st, please register before June 1st.
“Because of what matters, I have been able to determine what is important to me in my life; just being present, feeling my emotions as they are as to experience the human existence, and to love deeply and connect whenever possible.”
FAQs
What if I can only make half the sessions?
Then unfortunately, this program isn’t for you. We recommend joining if you think you can make 90% or more of our sessions.
I’m not religious, is this program for me?
Yes! Anyone who is interested in living intentionally, developing community, growing in their activism, or deepening their values is welcome in What Matters!
I already paid, but now I cannot attend. Can I get a refund?
Unfortunately, no. Because it’s such a small cohort and a carefully crafted experience, we won’t be able to find new students part way through the program.
Can I do this program more than once?
Absolutely! We have several returning cohort members who have experienced What Matters twice. If you are a returning cohort member, you receive 5% off the Full Experience Tuition and Class Only Tuition.
Is there homework?
Yes, but all assignments are optional. That said, we believe the more you put into this program, the more you get out of it.
Can you ship the book bundle internationally?
If you’re participating outside of the United States and choose the Full Experience Tuition, we will provide either audiobook or ebooks for you. We cannot ship physical copies outside of the United States.
What if I require auditory learning support?
We’re happy to send you audiobooks instead of paperbacks. Just let us know when you register.