SOUL REFUGE
A six-month immersive healing program for social justice advocates & service providers in the SF Bay Area. Each participant in the program will gain access to a care team comprised of a therapist, nutritionist, spiritual counselor, life coach and herbalist- all free of charge. Participants also receive a basic introduction to Earth-based and ancestral healing practices through monthly retreats. In addition to protecting against “burnout”, the program honors healing as a fundamental aspect of movements toward social transformation.
Our Team
Katina Castillo
wisdom keeper
Katina Castillo is a California-born mixed-Central American woman of Maya, Nahua and other Indigenous American ancestry. She is currently completing her Masters degree in Depth Psychology with specialization in Community, Liberation and Eco- psychologies. She regularly prays in sacred plant medicine ceremonies from North and South America and is also an apprentice Evolutionary Astrologer who considers astrology her main form of therapy. In addition, Katina practices "Western" herbalism and Mesoamerican curanderismo for preventive health, and has a lifelong commitment to physical fitness as a survival mechanism for when the revolution comes. Her teachers are elders and wisdom keepers of the Arapaho, Paiute, Diné, O'odham, Lakota, Chumash, Maya, Huichol, Zapotec, Mixtec, and Shipibo tribal traditions. Spirituality, the arts, cultural studies, community organizing, popular education, advocacy, holistic health and healing have defined her life and work. She currently resides in Berkeley, CA and travels often to continue her studies and personal healing work.
Lucia kimble
Cultural Strategist & Coach
Lucia Castañeda Kimble is a first generation Mexican Guatemalan Xicana leader that has been working in the non-profit sector for over 10 years with roles ranging from youth development, to community organizing, and most recently leadership development. Currently Lucia is an Associate Director of Programs at Rockwood Leadership Institute, an organization that trains social justice movement leaders all across the nation and beyond. She is passionate about creating transformative experiences for folks to bring their best selves to the work needed for our collective liberation. Lucia is a certified integral life coach. She is the proud eldest sister of 9 brothers and sisters. On the weekends, you can catch Lucia on the dance floor, traveling, or visiting with friends and family.
Elokin orton-cheung
Herbalist
My name is Elokin Orton-Cheung, I'm a community herbalist, activist, and big garden nerd. I fell in love with plants when I grew my first bean as a kid- it was magikal to watch a little seed turn into a full grown plant, covered in delicious string beans! I was a very shy kid (sometimes I still am!) and through gardening I found community- since then I have been growing plants of all kinds, and working with them as medicine. I am deeply grateful to all the teachers I've learned from: the plants and the people who have shared so much knowledge with me. Howie Brounstein at the Columbine's School of Botanical Studies became my first Western herbalism teacher after we met in 2003, and to this day I continue my studies with Karyn Sanders and Sarah Holmes at the Blue Otter School of Herbal Medicine. I am also a student of Traditional Chinese Medicine at the Academy of Chinese Culture and Health Sciences in Oakland. I've learned a lot through my own experiences listening to the plants, and through the wisdom shared by my friends and beloved community. I have a lifelong commitment to being a student as well as a teacher. There is always so much more to learn! I created Shooting Star Botanicals in 2012, after going through my own experiences with health challenges created by the ovarian cysts I've had. My work as an herbalist is founded in healing justice- a belief that we all have the right to affordable, accessible, high quality health care. I am a mixed-race, queer person of color, and I organize to build more accessible and safer spaces committed to healthcare that center racial, environmental and gender justice. I offer herbal consultations, Spiritual Massage energy work, and teach classes on plant medicine and sustainable gardening at schools, conferences, living rooms, community gardens, and grassroots organizations all over the country- I'm honored to teach anywhere I'm invited that feels in alignment with the values of justice and healing. My goal is to support people to develop their own connection with plants to improve emotional, spiritual, and physical health. I believe through connecting with the deeply healing nature of herbal medicine we can make the changes we want to see in ourselves, the communities we are connected to, and the world we are part of.
Rachel Bolden-Kramer
Nutritionist
Rachel Bolden-Kramer AKA @BabyMommaRachel is from San Francisco and the author of the book My Food Stamps Cookbook aimed at sharing “Radical Nutrition for an EBT Budget.” After becoming a first generation graduate of Harvard University, she was faced with the harsh reality of unemployment. Rachel started her journey to use her food stamps to overcome depression and PTSD, as well as fuel her hustle to regain financial stability. Applying her plant-based radical nutrition method she empowered herself to open a healing yoga studio in Brooklyn. Rachel witnessed her yoga community (primarily people of color) struggle with understanding affordable nutrition and it inspired her to dig deeper. She studied “Food As Medicine” nutrition at the Center for Mind Body Medicine and went on to teach radical nutrition classes in the New York City Housing Authority Projects and other community centers. It has taken 8 years and a journey from homeless single mom to triumphant homeowner, but she is STILL determined to show under-resourced communities how to eat to heal on a tiny budget. Rachel is proudly a vegan mother with a 4-year-old daughter who also eats as radically as her momma. Rachel is also a trained full-spectrum doula with a licensed “wholistic” preschool serving radical nutrition in El Sobrante, CA. My Food Stamps Cookbook was completely funded through Kickstarter in May 2017 and is now available! Follow her @BabyMommaRachel for daily radical nutrition advice on a budget.
Ella Ofori
Storytelling & Evaluation
I am a Black, African, non-binary, and queer person, an East Coast transplant, and from a working class background. I graduated from Temple University with a Masters in Public Health and from California Institute for Integral Studies in San Francisco, with a MA in Counseling Psychology, with a focus in Community Mental Health. I utilize relational, narrative, and structural family therapy methodologies in my Oakland psychotherapy practice that centers Black and Brown, Trans, Queer, Non-Binary, and immigrant community members. My practice is strongly informed by black psychology, liberation psychology, and restorative justice practices. I have training in transpersonal and medical hypnotherapy. I utilize my experience in community health education and program development and management to provide heart-centered program evaluation and storytelling.
erica woodland
Psychotherapist
Erica Woodland is a black queer/genderqueer facilitator, consultant and healing practitioner born and raised in Baltimore, MD. He is also a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with more than 15 years experience working at the intersections of movements for racial, gender, economic, trans and queer justice and liberation. Erica is the Founding Director of the National Queer and Trans Therapists of Color Network, a healing justice organization committed to transforming mental health for queer and trans people of color. From 2012 to 2016, he served as the Field Building Director for the Brown Boi Project, a national gender justice organization working to change the way communities of color understand and experience gender. His consulting practice is rooted in a deep belief in that we must restore trust and connection in our relationships, the bedrock of our movements, in order to do the work of liberation together. He has worked with a number of groups and organizations to develop structure, management practices, decision-making processes, culture, and strategic plans that promote sustainability, healing, alignment, and impact. Erica’s training and expertise around trauma and crisis also allows him to integrate healing justice into his work to interrupt patterns that undermine our political, organizing, direct service, and healing work.
shenaaz janmohamed
Psychotherapist
Shenaaz Janmohamed a licensed psychotherapist, cultural worker and healing practitioner of Muslim South Asian ascent based in Oakland CA. Her family of origin are people who faced migration due to colonialism and capitalism, calling Kachchh, Dar Es Salaam, Karachi and Dubai our home. Shenaaz's work is deeply shaped by social justice values, queer liberation, and spiritual practices. In 2017 she founded Queer Crescent Healing, a community healing arts project o support LGBTQIA+ Muslims. She is also a founding collective member of Totally Radical Muslims who self-published three zines between 2012-2015 listing up stories and art from queer, trans, incarcerated and leftist Muslims. For seven years, Shenaaz worked as a adolescent mental health worker, supporting youth of color in Oakland and Richmond high schools. Shenaaz holds trauma, hurt and harm as causes and conditions of systems of oppression, and works with folks to move through and heal from - ancestral, interpersonal, familial, community, organizational, systemic and collective - wounding.
Adilia Torres
Spiritual Counselor
My name is Adilia Torres, and I am a queer mental health practitioner in the Bay Area. This past year I have been busy cultivating, dreaming, and co-creating in community to bring La Botanica Azul - a container for traditional, culturally-relevant, and ancestral medicine - to life. When I moved to the Bay Area from Los Angeles, I was welcomed by a community of healers and spiritual relatives at a time when I needed it the most. It is this spiritual community that has inspired the vision for building La Botanica Azul into a brick-and-mortar storefront in the East Bay. Our mission is to showcase local, small-batch herbal medicine and products created by Indigenous, queer, and people of color while also ensuring that this medicine and products are available to diverse communities. As a mental health practitioner, I firmly believe in a holistic approach to mental health that is integrated with both physical and spiritual health. My work is focused on trauma-informed care and recovery services for children, youth, and families impacted by immigration, displacement, and other forms of oppressions.
Angélica Medina
Psychotherapist
I am a queer xicana, mexican descent, from Los Angeles, CA. I graduated from California Institute of Integral Studies with a Masters in Counseling Psychology with an emphasis in Drama Therapy. I utilize earth-based healing practices and focus on the expressive arts therapy such as: movement, dance, and theatre. I am also a co-founder and director of In lak’ech Dance Academy- a queer and trans dance academy that focuses on promoting artistic expression and healing within the LGBTQI+ community. I am a registered associate marriage and family therapist, supervised by Brooke Barnett, PsyD, at Lincoln in Oakland. I also have over 5 years of experience working as a Mental Health Consultant at Instituto Familiar de la Raza and Lincoln.