In a womanist tradition, Paula draws on a diverse multigenerational network of allies, collaborators, and resources reflecting womanist community, wellness, spirituality, hospitality, creativity, education, culture, and storytelling initiatives. Our mission is to curate a nurturing, empathetic, and emancipatory space that allows individuals to explore deeply and heal effectively from their past and inherited traumas. Through a comprehensive understanding of history, spirituality, and mysticism, our goal is to impart the tools and knowledge necessary for individuals to cultivate resilience and activate their innate, unique gifts and talents so that they can do the work their souls must have to serve themselves, their families and communities.
A profound mission drives Rev. Dr. Paula Owens Parker’s vision. Her passion for womanist mysticism, spirituality, and healing generational trauma in the African American community has led her to speak nationally and internationally at conferences, retreat centers, churches, and classrooms. Her mission is clear: to illuminate, validate, and inspire healing and wholeness for individuals, families and communities.
She provides professional experience in program development, curriculum design, public speaking, retreat leadership, and spiritual direction. Her specialties include studying the contextual network of relationships between family, community, culture, history, spirituality, resilience, trauma, grief, and loss.
A Presbyterian minister (PCUSA), she is the senior program developer of Roots Matter LLC and the former program associate for the Katie Geneva Cannon Center of Womanist Leadership at Un-ion Presbyterian Seminary, Richmond, VA. Dr. Parker is a member of Spiritual Directors of Color Network, Spiritual Directors International and Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc.
A proud HBCU alum, Dr. Parker received her BA from Fisk University. She received her MDiv from Union Presbyterian Seminary and DMin from San Francisco Theological Seminary. She is a certified Emotional Emancipation Circle (EEC) facilitator sponsored by Community Healing Network.
Dr. Parker is the author of Roots Matter: Healing History, Honoring Heritage, Renewing Hope (2016) and has contributed articles to Christian Century, Interpretation: A Journal of Bible and Theology and chapters in Kaleidoscope: Broadening the Palette in the Art of Spiritual Direction (2019), Walking through the Valley: Womanist Explorations in the Spirit of Katie Geneva Cannon (2022), Another Starry Black Night: A Womanist Advent Devotional (2023), These Days, Daily Devotions for Living by Faith (Jan 2025), Perils and Promises: Essays on Black and White Women’s Relationships (Spring 2026).
Dr. Parker’s ancestral roots are in Princess Anne County (Virginia Beach), Norfolk County (Chesapeake), Virginia, the home of the Powhatan, the Piscataway, and the Nanticoke and Currituck County, North Carolina, the home of the Yeopim. Her DNA reveals relatives in South Carolina, Nigeria, Cameroon, Congo, Ghana, England, Scotland, and Ireland.
She currently lives in North Chesterfield VA, the former capital of the Powhatan Federation and is the mother of two sons and has nine grandchildren.
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Website Design: Visual Appeal, LLC
