Maestra Patricia Juarez, Chicueyi Coatl is a Nahua-Mexicayotl ceremonial dancer, teacher, and Indigenous knowledge practitioner who has dedicated her life to preserving and transmitting the ancestral wisdom of her Nahua lineage. She is the founder of Calpulli Huey Papalotl, a Danza Mexica ceremonial dance and learning circle, and Calmecac Tlalocan, a Nahua Native higher Education Institute. Through these spaces, she has built enduring pathways for communities to reconnect with Indigenous cosmology, ancestral philosophy, and the healing sciences of Nahua and Mesoamerican traditions. As a visiting scholar at UC Berkeley's Ethnic Studies department, she co-taught the course Spirituality as Resistance and has been invited to present on Mesoamerican Traditions at universities, colleges, and cultural centers across California and beyond. As an independent scholar on Native Studies Patricia teaches courses on this area of knowledge all year round.
Patricia Chicueyi Coatl is also an avid researcher on AI and its ethical implications. She presents at various Higher Ed conferences. In recent years she presented at the 2022 Educause conference on Inclusive Leadership and facilitated the 2023 Annual UC Women in Tech Committee feature session. At the 2025 CommunityLive and at the 2025 Educause Conference she presented on the topic of Leading Across Cultures.
She has been spotlighted in the recently published book “The Curanderx Toolkit: Reclaiming Ancestral Latinx Plant Medicine and Rituals for Healing” by author and Bay Area herbalist Atava Garcia-Swiecicki. Patricia Chicueyi Coatl is also a frequent analyst and commentator on Latinx and Indigenous issues. Three of her essays have been published and one is currently in peer review.
Iya Wanda Ravernell-Stewart (Oya Dei) is the Executive Director of Omnira Institute, where she has spent decades rooting the Black community in African traditional spirituality, ancestral ceremony, and cultural reclamation as a practice of liberation. Fully ordained as a priest of Oya in the Lucumi tradition (1985), she carries Yoruba lineage with devotion, rigor, and deep accountability to the living and the ancestors. She is the creator of Sinku — a ritual of building a House of Light through the liturgy of the Bata sacred drum tradition and Ring Shout — and leads Awon Ohun Omnira (Voices of Freedom), a sacred ensemble that brings ancestral song and ceremony to churches, schools, cultural centers, and the streets in collective mourning for victims of state-sanctioned violence. Her work weaves African ritual into the living fabric of Bay Area Black community life — from Juneteenth commemorations honoring the Atlantic Slave Trade era's captives, to intergenerational lecture-demonstrations applying African traditional knowledge to Black American history, to bringing African ritual practice to urban and rural Black farmers at Digging Deep Farms, EarthSEED, and Feed Black Futures. A former journalist of 20 years at the Sacramento Bee, San Francisco Chronicle, and Alameda Newspaper Group, Iya Wanda brings both ancestral depth and a storyteller's clarity to her work of cultural healing and communal restoration.
Brenda Salgado is a first-generation Nicaraguan-American healer, educator, and ceremonialist rooted in Toltec energy healing, curanderismo, and the ancestral traditions of Purepecha and Xochimilco peoples, born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area with deep gratitude to the ancestors and family who shaped her path toward cultural, spiritual, and social justice work. She is the Principal of Nepantla Healing and Consulting, Program Director of the Racial Healing Initiative, a member of the Healers Council of the Decolonizing Wealth Project, a founding member of the Wisdom Women Visionary Gathering, and adjunct faculty at the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS), where she teaches at the intersection of Indigenous healing, spirituality, and social transformation. Trained with Purepecha and Xochimilco elders and in the Toltec Healer's Path School of Mastery, and author of Real World Mindfulness for Beginners, Brenda has spent decades creating space for individuals, communities, and movements to reclaim the ancestral wisdom, medicine, and identity that systems of oppression have sought to sever — believing that people hold tremendous untapped knowledge and medicine within them, and that the work of liberation is, at its heart, the work of unleashing it. She has led ceremony and healing across movements — from Standing Rock to Oakland mural dedications, from grief rituals for incarcerated people lost to COVID to blessings for grassroots organizers, social justice retreats, and intergenerational gatherings — and has presented at Bioneers, delivered the commencement address at Naropa University, and been in deep conversation with elders and teachers across lineages. Her work is rooted in the conviction that cultural sovereignty, ancestral ceremony, and the reclamation of Indigenous wisdom are the living heart of justice work.
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Yu-Shuan Tarango-Sho 蘇毓璇 is the founding director of Sacred Roots and a 1.5 generation Taiwanese American of Hakka and Fujianese descent, residing on unceded Chochenyo Ohlone land in Fruitvale, Oakland for over 20 years. She carries the medicine of her ancestors — those who crossed multiple borders to escape war, poverty, and persecution — as the bedrock of her work in healing justice, liberatory pedagogy, and collective care. Rooted in Christian, Taoist, and Buddhist spiritual lineages, she is a mystic, space curator, and connector whose passion for "collective thrivership" has shaped over two decades of work at the intersection of spirituality, cultural healing, and social transformation. Yu-Shuan's practice weaves intuitive energy healing rooted in Daoist cosmology and Traditional Chinese Medicine frameworks with spiritual accompaniment and wellness coaching — offering individual and group sessions that tend to the whole person across body, mind, and spirit. As a liberatory facilitator and spiritual space curator, she has developed and led healing-based workshops, retreats, and training programs for grassroots organizations, schools, universities, religious institutions, and nonprofits across the Bay Area and beyond. She served as a faith-based organizer and social justice minister for 15 years and as consulting faculty at the Church Divinity School of the Pacific for six years. She founded Sacred Roots in 2016 out of a vision for intergenerational, intercultural spaces where ancestral wisdom fuels collective liberation — and has guided the organization through nearly a decade of community healing work rooted in gift economy principles and radical care. Yu-Shuan is a proud mother of two mixed-race teenagers and life partner to a 4th generation Chicanx.
Oona Valle is a Honduran-American folk herbalist, doula, and intuitive sound healer living and practicing in the intergenerational, interracial, interfaith community of Canticle Farm on Lisjan Ohlone lands. Their practice with plant medicine was first sown by the Carribbean and Mesoamerican medicine carriers of the community garden spaces that raised them in the Lenape lands known as NYC. As a land steward, Oona leans on the wisdom of the plants that volunteer themselves in overabundance for insights on our collective imbalance and needs. They co-founded and co-facilitate Transforming Invasives // Welcoming Newcomers, a practice group that alchemizes “weeds” into medicine and crafts, creating room for intentional and native plants. They’ve been practicing Reiki since 2018, when they were attuned at the community healing space MINKA Brooklyn. Their energy practice is influenced by their work tending honeybees, who teach her about the sacrifice inherent to protecting our communities, and the sweetness that results from being attuned to the eros of entire landscapes. Tending to hives has deepened her appreciation for the interconnectedness of our health, across communities and species. Honey, propolis, hive vibration, and bee venom therapy are part of her medicine bundle. They also carry the influence of their Christian upbringing, which instilled in them a deep faith in the transformative power of water through baptism, in the body as a channel for the healing energies of the divine, and in the illuminating insights of the inspired word. Their adult life has been a process of queering that lineage, interweaving it with their lineage of traditional Mesoamerican medicine ways, the insights that emerge from humble and attentive land-stewardship, and the healing sounds that flow through them.
Dr. Uzoamaka (Uzo) Nwankpa is a fourth-generation descendant of healers from Enugu, Nigeria, West Africa. She is a community health registered nurse, performing artist, dance facilitator, choreographer, educator, researcher and an advocate for healing through the use of the arts. She is dedicated to the preservation and restoration of the Igbo culture and African cultures in the diaspora. As first generation immigrant to Turtle Island, and global visitor, Uzo is committed to decolonizing self patterns while being a bridge between the world of Africans on the continent of Africa and the diaspora. As an advocate for communities that use the arts to heal, Uzo is dedicated to creating and exploring diverse ways to combine ancient practices with innovation. She provides communal healing sessions for domestic violence shelters, caregivers, nurses, healers, and BIPOC healers, in-person and virtually. She believes in the power of music and dance to promote wellbeing, dedicating her life to developing innovative solutions that benefit underserved communities. Uzo earned her Doctor of Nursing Practice degree with a focus on wellbeing. She founded Wellness Promoters LLC, creating culturally inclusive wellness experiences. She is also CEO of The Uzo Method Project, addressing healthcare disparities faced by marginalized communities. Uzo holds a Bachelor of Science in Nursing and a Master of Science in Nursing with a Public Health focus. She completed a Post-Master's Fellowship in Maternal and Child Health Research, where she developed the RICHER Model.
Angela is a visionary organizer and Kingian nonviolence trainer working towards a world where we have increased capacities to sit with our own and each other’s complexities. Angela stewards community spaces where participants can share grief, practice conflict skills, and be co-opted into emergence inspired by the erotic, the intuitive, the divine, the more-than-human. They are deeply and fully in love with this world we get to live in and on a life-long journey to learn how to love everything that comes with it with compassion and accountability. Their work is guided and influenced by the land and their ancestors as well as the work and teachings of Grace Lee and Jimmy Boggs, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Dr. Vanessa Machado de Oliveira, and Nêgo Bispo. Angela is a second-generation Brazilian-born Korean and moved with their family to Tovaangar (LA) when they were thirteen. They now live in multiple homes and hearts across California.
Donna Coletrane Battle is a native of Yanceyville, NC who provides soul care, leadership coaching and spiritual direction to leaders and activists across the nation. In 2020, she began a partnership with Duke Divinity school as consulting faculty with a focus on Black Church Studies. Donna’s scholarship is at the intersection of race, gender, and spirituality and works as a catalyst for her passion in justice, healing, and psychospiritual evolution. She has previously served as the Chaplain at Meredith College in Raleigh, NC, the Executive Pastor of the Way Christian Center in Berkeley California, as well as, a Life Coach and Associate Dean of the Chapel at Shaw University. For the past 20 years, Donna has been engaging and facilitating groups in the areas of building healthy relationships, identity, cultivating ethics, values, racial and gender equity, conflict resolution and justice. She has led trainings and retreats for groups across disciplines through the United States. Donna holds a BA in Public Relations from NC A&T State University, a M.Div. from Duke University and a Ph.D. in Marriage and Family Therapy at Eastern University. She is married to Dedrick Nathaniel Battle and together they have three tremendously terrific children Caio, Coletrane, and Calum. Meditating, spending time with her family, reading, movies, counseling, preaching and teaching are among Donna’s greatest joys in life.
Colleen "Coke" Tani is a queer cisgender woman of Okinawan (Ryukyuan) and Japanese descent, formed on the lands of the Gabrielino Tongva and Muwekma Ohlone peoples. She works at the intersection of sacred feminine spirituality, decolonial creativity, and social justice — holding space for the body as a sacred text and creativity as a pathway to collective liberation. Coke is a certified leader of InterPlay©, a counter-colonizing practice that reclaims what white supremacist patriarchy seeks to remove: the human birthrights of movement, sound, story, stillness, and connection. She is also certified to facilitate Poetry as a Tool for Wellness, a practitioner of The Art of Ensoulment, and a member of Spiritual Directors International. Her greatest teachers have been socially and spiritually rooted artists, faith-grounded activists and organizers, Black, Indigenous, Asian, Pacific Islander, and Trans/Nonbinary beloveds, and family on both sides of the veil. She holds an MSW, MFA, and MDiv — and brings all of it into her offerings as a body memoirist, spiritual companion, and soul care practitioner whose work is rooted in the living presence of the Sacred Feminine and the wisdom of the ancestors.
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Jeanelle (they/them) is a Trans Non-Binary Filipino/x born and living in the US diaspora, raised by immigrant parents. Since 2008, they have been grounded in the people's movement for democracy and a just peace in the Philippines. For over a decade, they've led delegations to the Philippines to deepen faith-rooted solidarity work and political analysis. They have experience in anti-imperialist international solidarity work and activism through legislative advocacy, education, organizing, and mobilizing people of faith to take action in the streets and to immerse with the masses. They speak at protests and on panels on the connections between global and local peoples' campaigns against U.S. militarization, Zionism, and colonialism. Jeanelle has a passion for making theological and political education accessible to all and in accompanying them in meaning-making, while exploring the relationship between individual and collective liberation. They received their M. Div. (2010) at Pacific School of Religion, Berkeley after working as a graphic designer. Their spiritual direction training was done with Still Harbor. They're serving as Lead Pastor at Pine United Methodist Church in San Francisco, Co-Chair of the Cal-Nev Philippine Solidarity Task Force (UMC), and a member of the Working Board of enfleshed. Check out their podcast, GomBurZa for the Masses.
Available for Individual or Group Sessions. In-Person or Virtual.
Laura Rivas is a Xicana Danzante (Aztec ceremonial dancer), Sahumadora (sacred fire keeper), educator, community organizer, and anti-oppression coach. She is the daughter of Mexican immigrant parents who were undocumented for most of her childhood, and were dealing with their own unresolved trauma. As the parent to two precious seeds (children) ages 8 and 12, she is committed to breaking generational curses and paving the way toward healing from from the violence of colonization and displacement of brown bodies. Laura has 20 years experience working with youth and families directly impacted by systematic and institutional racism in the context of schools, community, workplace and the prison-industrial complex. She currently serves as a Community School Manager at Garfield Elementary School in the San Antonio neighborhood, one of the most culturally and linguistically diverse communities in Oakland. Laura earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in History from Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles and a Master of Arts degree in Cultural Anthropology and Social Transformation from California Institute for Integral Studies in San Francisco. After earning her master’s degree, Laura became immersed in the immigrant rights movement in the Bay Area and nationally through her work leading a human rights abuse documentation project with the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee RIghts. She trained dozens of grassroots organizations throughout the country on abuse documentation and organizing. Trained in Freirían pedagogy of popular education, Laura believes in the innate capacity of people directly impacted by oppression to come up with the solutions to their own problems in the context of supportive community. Laura enjoys dancing to cumbias, hikes in the redwoods and cuddling with her two kids and their kittens.
Available for Group or Individual Sessions. Virtual or In-Person Sessions. Bilingual: Spanish & English.
I am a queer herbalist, healing practitioner/curandera, and community organizer. Through sacred rituals and herbal remedies rooted in my indigenous Mexican heritage, I hold and facilitate a trauma-informed healing space for individuals and groups. These practices, passed down by my family, spiritual teachers, and dreams, have taught me valuable lessons, with the Earth being my greatest teacher. With over 17 years of experience supporting survivors of violence through peer advocacy counseling, support groups, and spiritual and wellness ceremonies, I founded Tierra Rituals focused on empowering individuals and communities with ancestral practices. Guided by a healing justice, harm reduction, and anti-oppression framework, my personal experiences and commitment to holistic health and wellness drive my passion. As a Sahuamadora (sacred fire keeper) initiated within the Ticiyotl and curanderismo path in Yucatan, Mexico, I have embraced a calling to share ancestral healing practices and herbal remedies with the wider community. I provide personalized limpias, a traditional Mexican indigenous cleansing ceremony, to help folks clear energetic stagnation, break unwanted cords, and align one’s mind, body, and spirit. During the ceremony, I work with sacred copal smoke, herbs, eggs, chile, feather smudging, gems, and drumming to strengthen one's auric body and connect them to their inner light and fire. Additionally, I offer follow-up sessions and integrate platicas (heart-to-heart conversations) to identify one’s needs and guide one's healing journey. After the limpia, I assist folks in developing rituals aligned with their ancestry and spiritual practices to continue the work at home, always ensuring respect and consent.
Available for Individual or Group Sessions. In-Person or Virtual. Bilingual: Spanish & English.
Mizan has worked for over 20 years as a community organizer and youth development professional. Her commitment to social justice has fueled her work as a crisis intervention specialist, health educator, curriculum writer, multi-modal workshop facilitator, community researcher, staff wellness coach, and School-Based Health Center Supervisor. Mizan is the Co-Creator of Spearitwurx, an organization that inspires Intergenerational Wellness and Racial Healing through cultural arts, community events, strategic consulting and transformative educational experiences. She is also a certified Healing Centered Engagement Trainer with Flourish Agenda and has a master’s degree in public health. Mizan is a published author and has been a featured lecturer, keynote speaker, and workshop presenter at Universities and Conferences throughout the nation. She is an installation artist and has exhibited work throughout the Bay area, including the Black Woman is God exhibit and the Black Panther 50 Year Commemoration. She is the lead artist and curator of the Experience Sankofa Project. As an artist and Certified Therapeutic Yoga instructor with a background in public health, Mizan incorporates creative expression and dynamic mindfulness into her facilitation and programmatic design for the collective good.
Available for Group Sessions. In-Person or Virtual.
Sally Chang a second generation Taiwanese-American, queer, martial artist, educator, acupuncturist, and founder of Evergreen Taiji Academy. Integrating 30 years of experience in Martial Arts, Daoist Internal Cultivation, and Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), and distilling them into practices of individual and collective healing. Therapeutic Qigong actively restores healthy connection of body, mind, and spirit. When injury, illness, grief, and trauma are experienced, it affects the body, the psyche, and how we relate to others. Sally Chang's therapeutic approach identifies and unblocks stuck patterns, and trains generative practices for long-term empowered and sustainable health. Sally Chang is a 26th generation lineage holder of Wudang Longmen Pai, Dragon Gate School of Daoism from Wudang Mountain, and student of Daoist Priest, Shifu Chen Yun Xiang. She trained in Shaolin Gongfu, Bagua, and Taiji with Ted Mancuso of the Academy of Martial Arts. Daoism and Classical Chinese Medicine with Daoist priest and scholar, Dr. Jeffery Yuen, 88th gen. disciple of Yu Qing Huang Lao Pai; and is a recent student of Grandmaster Sam Chin of Zhong Xin Dao. She is a student of Resmaa Menakam and Somatic Abolitionism, and is focused on the intersection of social activism and intergenerational healing. Sally Chang brings depth and wisdom into embodied practice, and is known for her warm, focused presence.
Available for Individual or Group Sessions. In-Person or Virtual.
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Tati Chaterji proudly coordinates Restorative Justice at Fremont High School in East Oakland, California. Outside of the classroom, she serves as a trainer, educator, and peacebuilder at the crossroads of systemic oppression, youth empowerment, and alternatives to the criminalization of harm and wrongdoing. Tati is a survivor of community violence and brain injury, bringing her fiery heart to the fight for justice, liberation, and dignity for all. She understands that healing is important but does not go far enough. Rather than asking poor people who are also wounded by historical and racial harms to be “resilient,” she focuses on eliminating the root causes of suffering: poverty, political structures that diminish peoples’ power, and the absence of economic democracy. Tati is a participatory theater artist working at the fault-lines of social power, structural violence, intergenerational trauma, cultural belonging and memory. She is also a trainer and facilitator in restorative justice, non-legal mediation, transformative justice, and community accountability to address harm, always with sensitivity to the power dynamics at play. Tati loves to ride her bike, learn martial arts, and write poetry. Most days, you can find her caring for her two small children who remind her of the joy that lives inside.
Available for in-person and virtual trainings and facilitation.
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The daughter of Chinese immigrants, ⼩ 容 (Xiǎo Róng) was born and raised on unceded Ohlone territory. Her healing journey began through the doorway of Western psychotherapy. As someone with a rich and powerful emotional life, it was a relief to have support in choosing the narratives that shape her world, rather than simply swallowing the ones that were handed to her at birth. Since then, her view of healing has broadened to include collective liberation. Freedom at its core is about connection— the capacity to live with ⼼ 胸 寬 ⼤ (xīn xiōng kuān dà), with a vast heart that includes loving our human and nonhuman family, known and unknown. Her work is guided by Chinese ancestral wisdom including Buddhism and Taoism; Indigenous teachings including the work of Dr. Eduardo Duran, Dr. Malidoma Somé, and Dr. Vanessa Machado de Oliveira Andreotti; and ⼤ 地 母 親 (the Great Earth Mother), including the mountains Tuyshtak, 武 當 ⼭ (Wǔdāng Shān), Arunachala, and the Sangre de Cristos. She has worked with adolescents, families, and couples for 15 years as a psychologist and specializes in API, immigrant, and activist communities. She loves supporting social/climate justice organizations and was a core team member at East Point Peace Academy.
Available for In-Person or Virtual sessions. Individual or Group sessions.