All pictures (of moi) by the talented Kevin Zansler.

Laura May PJ, MDiv

I’m an interfaith chaplain, astrologer, ritual holder, artist, dancer and longtime bodyworker.

I’ve been navigating 8th house initiations most of my life, but the intensity of those kicked up in my early 20s with a series of near death experiences: moving through Hurricane Katrina & life in post-K New Orleans, a serious bike accident at age 20, and a devastating train wreck while traveling alone in India. By age 22, when most of my peers were focused on grad school, work, or parties, I was obsessed with learning to die well.

This involved training in the smaller deaths of life…

which, in my case meant alchemizing large loads of trauma, deep fear, and freeze…

~ with the support of loving presence much larger than myself

+ crazy skillful shamanic + somatic rituals

& nerdy yet effective mind training

~ and kind-hearted, wild rebel companions

I have practiced in a Vajrayana Buddhist lineage for close to 20 years and tens of thousands of hours, and have years of practice in Butoh, ritual theater, somatics and expressive arts therapies. I have worked as a hospice chaplain, astrologer, ritual facilitator and bodyworker.

I help people who are:

~ Struggling with major life transitions, loss, and change

~ Feeling stuck with deep spirals that have resisted years of traditional therapy and need more existential firepower

~ Wanting support to integrate and stabilize their spiritual practices with embodied, creative and sexual lives

While I work with people from multiple and no religious/spiritual background, I have greater expertise and hence resource working with folks with some threads to Indic traditions, Buddhism, Christianity & Christian mysticism, animism and the arts.

Education + Creds

Naropa University, Master of Divinity: Buddhist theology, chaplaincy + ritual studies

Tamalpa Life/Art Practitioner: nature + body-based expressive arts and ritual training

Feeding Your Demons Facilitator~ A Shamanic practice drawing from Tibetan Chöd tradition

Core Synchronism Practioner~ 6+ year course of study in gross and subtle body anatomy and healing

Tulane University, BA: Political Economy. Before I kept almost dying I was going into environmental law.