Welcome, I’m Prajna.
Anam Ċara Curandera
I support women ready to undo cultural learning to claim and belong to themselves. Befriending shunned and denied parts—we explore our cyclical, archetypal, and erotic soul nature as an ongoing initiation of embodied joy, love, and deep connections.
Anam Ċara
After learning with my Anam Ċara Eunice Zimmerman, I trained and practiced as a trauma-informed, body-centered Hakomi therapist, and Curandera. For four decades I’ve dedicated myself to the mystical way of women’s mysteries and medicine, understanding archetypes and dreams, and the insidious work of divesting from the jaws of patriarchy.
“Within every woman there is a wild and natural creature, a powerful force, filled with good instincts, passionate creativity, and ageless knowing.”
Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes
International Scholar, Poet, and Curandera
The curative and spiritual framework for my retreats and mentoring practice is inspired and informed by Mysticism, Jungian Psychology, Indigenous healthcare traditions, my Irish roots, and the feminine soul of our Earth Mother.
I completed undergraduate studies in Psychology and Dance therapy at SUNY Binghamton, graduate studies at Boston University Theological Consortium with a focus on Jungian and Women’s Studies. I am certified as a Yoga Teacher, Massage Therapist, Waldorf Remedial Educator, Developmental Movement Therapist, Trauma and Hakomi Therapist. Before Motherhood, I was a teacher in residence at Kripalu Yoga Center, a cloistered renunciate, and a healthcare business owner in Silicon Valley—which I sold when I became a mother.
I’m of Irish descent, the fifth child of eight raised in a wild Catholic family, in New York on unceded Haudenosaunee and Wenrohronon land. I live in California on unceded Amah Mutson Tribal band land with my three daughters and service dog, Woody.
My Early Myth …
All my life, I’ve lived with longings. I was drawn to the mysteries of the Latin Mass, the Sanctus bells, golden adornments, and Mother Mary. The pain of spiritual exile due to my gender was unbearable. Reciting the rosary became an obsession. Old oak trees and rivers became my safe havens for prayer and questions I ached to have answers for.
Why the violence in my home? Why the exclusion of women? Why children with disabilities? Why the Ku Klux Klan?
At fourteen, as I was blossoming into a young woman, a representative of the church violated my body and shattered my integrity—leaving a hole in my being—I felt numb as light left me. It was as if I had split into two personas, one entirely bad—intoxicated and recklessly adrift. The other—a colorful peacock, puffing up to please others, relentlessly acquiescing. I was trapped in one or the other without a guide to bridge this ghastly chasm.
By nineteen, I was convinced I was damaged goods, spoiled by excessive alcohol, drugs, and unbecoming behaviors—lost in a nightmare of self-harm and self-abandonment. Luckily, my college roommate intervened and introduced me to Eunice Zimmerman—a master soul guide, crone, and Jungian mystic.
Eunice touched this chasm inside as if stroking me with a feather, gently warming a frozen bud. She accepted me as I was, awakened my dreams and guided my soul life toward a vital practice of self-love, tender solitude, and belonging.
“Everyone has a soul calling—you will not embody your soul in the houses of the patriarchal fathers.”
– EUNICE ZIMMERMAN
Read More …
My work with Eunice was a slow, agonizing process of carefully unpacking memories, unfreezing trauma, shedding shame, studying dreams, and practicing somatic awareness to inhabit my female body.
Meeting Eunice initiated my life’s work: healing and guiding others in the ancient arts of mysticism, dream listening, and reconnecting with our natural feminine cycles.
We dismantled the myth of gendered unworthiness, which led me to a spiritual vocation at Boston University Theological Consortium. There, I studied Jungian and Women’s Psychology while directing liturgical dramas. I trained to counsel women in prisons (of all sorts) and to create spaces where painful stories could be witnessed for healing to emerge.
During my graduate studies in the 80s, I experienced a series of epiphanies through active involvement in grassroots feminist groups. Burning bras with The Boston Women’s Collective—marching with Mary Daly for Women’s Ordination, and attending Dr. Carol Gilligan’s lectures at Harvard on groundbreaking research that rattled conventional theories. I was immersed in a movement rooted in care, interconnectedness, and resistance to power-over principles. I found inner intimacy through the mystical teachings of Hildegard of Bingen, Julian of Norwich, Teresa of Ávila, and Simone Weil.
“The psyches and souls of women have their cycles and seasons of doing and solitude, running and staying, being involved and being removed, questing and resting, creating and incubating, being of the world and returning to the soul-place.”
– Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés, International Scholar, Poet, and Curandera
After Eunice’s sudden death, my heart opened to a grief I had never felt—the loss of all I had ever loved—all at once. Yet the soul love she sparked remained alive. I found direction and meaning in the Zen mystical teachings of Adyashanti, the Jungian depth of Marion Woodman, and the myths and stories of the wild woman archetypes of Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés. Their distinct work weaves a potent thread through my passion for deep psyche and soul exploration.
Over four decades, I’ve guided hundreds of women—like myself—to remedy trauma, numbness, depression, overwhelm, or the fear of opening to their creative life force. Women of all ages—injured, betrayed, misunderstood, or isolated, lacking wild sovereignty, or an Anam Ċara—a soul friend—who could guide them toward self-love, inner knowing, and veneration of their female soul.
In dedication to Eunice and those who have guided my journey, I am Anam Ċara—a soul friend who gives witness to your story, to help thaw your inner bud and reteach its loveliness, until it emerges again from within, with deep roots, as a self-blessing, as a coming home to your true self.
“Prajna is a true friend in the vastness.
May all beings benefit from her dharma.”
– ADYASHANTI,
Zen Teacher, Author, and Cofounder of Open Gate Sangha
EDGE of GRACE
“Once you start reading, you're on a ride you can't possibly hop off.
Terrific, scary, bewildering, and powerful. Prajna know how to write the hardest stuff and live a sometimes heartbreaking life. Generous, intuitive, and kind with so much to offer.”
– ABIGAIL THOMAS –
Author of eleven Books, including:
Safekeeping; A Three Dog Life; What Comes Next and How to Like It; and Still Life After Eighty
As a Mother …
Motherhood is a real job of irreplaceable value. It is discovering strengths you didn’t know you had, meeting fears you didn’t know existed, and shouldering unexpected responsibilities few would choose. As a mother, I learned more than all my prior roles combined. I’ve harvested a million ways to be a ‘good enough mother,’ shaped by what I absorbed from my mother and countless generations of women doing the best they know how.
After an ecstatic home birth with my first child, my twins were born at one pound each without informed consent or a valid reason. In response to a gap in services, I created a developmental movement school, made a documentary, and became an award-winning grant writer.
Our heroines’ journey has inspired countless readers to find meaning in hardship and reconnect with the feminine wisdom in our bodies—our wombs and Mother Nature.
As a Curandera …
My initiation to Mother Ayahuasca began with the journey of body-womb recovery from my twins’ traumatic birth intervention. Mamasita restored my natural aliveness and awakened an ancient connection to my body as a Tree, rooted in the soul of Mother Earth.
For two decades, I had the privilege of learning with the feminine Shipibo health care system and with renowned Mestizo Tobacquero Ernesto Garcia. Throughout my apprenticeship of extensive plant and tree dietas, I discovered that no two plants or trees are alike. Each carries a unique teaching, remedy, and song of curative care for us to reconnect to the source within and live a vibrant balanced life.
With deep respect, I am blessed to carry this wisdom alongside my Irish heritage with the blessings of Anam Ċara.
“Prajna holds an incredibly
safe and sacred space for transformation at the deepest levels of heart, psyche,
and soul.”
Rachael thomas
Psychotherapist, Medicine Woman Apprentice
As a Mystic Myth Maker …
I mentor women to break free from the cultural restraints of patriarchal power-over dynamics that capitalize on women’s bodies, minimize their value, and harm all beings.
With discerning wisdom, tender solitude, and a good dose of humor, we embrace the hard, the messy, and the beautiful in the ever-evolving mystery and cyclical nature of being a woman.
Together, we reframe the archetypal myth you choose to embody—to own and celebrate the erotic power inherent in your body—to come home to yourself as soft, sensuous, and fierce—without apology, shame, or blame.
“Prajna chooses fierce love … Like a master alchemist who knows that ‘the gold is in the dung,’ she transmutes her fate into her soul’s destiny. She invites us to awaken our feminine souls amidst the messy heartbreak of our human lives—to be witnessed, mend, and belong to ourselves.”
Sil Read
Scholar of Jungian Analyst Marion Woodman and Best-selling Author of »Mothering and Daughtering«
As a Crone …
*A Crone is a venerated older wise woman, who carries the memory of ancient stories shaped by her lived experiences. She weaves golden threads through dreams and between worlds to glimpse what is coming, what has been, and what underlies modern soul hunger.
The Cailleach is deeply embedded in Irish culture as a significant figure in mythology, folklore, and spirituality. She represents an ancient connection to the land, the seasons, and the cycles of life, death, and rebirth. She embodies the part of the life cycle where things come to an end, preparing the way for renewal.
The crone harvests the deep dark. She retreats to integrate the accumulated wisdom of all prior cycles and seasons as medicine for the generations to come. She uncovers the ancient reason you are here and awakens a soulful friendship with your destiny.
Through the initiations and rites of passage I’ve traversed,
I guide women to uncover meaning from heartbreak and restore the integrity of their feminine soul body, with self-love at its core.
“Prajna’s work has helped me be at home with myself. I was held back by many old painful beliefs that have gently fallen away. I can meet challenges with grace and love. I have gained a new community that feels like family! Prajna holds supportive space to dive deep, empty out, and fill up with love.”
– LOUISE FURMENGER –
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