Mirabai Starr is an award-winning author, internationally acclaimed speaker, interspiritual teacher, and certified bereavement counselor who gives talks, retreats, and workshops on the teachings of the mystics, the wisdom of the feminine, and contemplative practice, rooted in the transformational power of grief and loss. As a teenager, Mirabai lived at the Lama Foundation, an intentional spiritual community that has honored all the world’s faith traditions since its inception in 1967, and the birthplace of Ram Dass’ iconic book Be Here Now—an ecumenical orientation that became formative in the universal quality that permeates her work. She served as an adjunct professor of Philosophy and World Religions at the University of New Mexico-Taos for 20 years, with an emphasis on making connections between the perennial teachings found at the heart of all the world’s spiritual paths in an effort to promote peace and justice. Mirabai’s youngest daughter, Jenny, was killed in a car crash in 2001 at the age of fourteen; on that same day, her first book, a translation of the mystical masterpiece Dark Night of the Soul by sixteenth century Spanish saint John of the Cross, was released. This experience, and the connection between profound loss and longing for the Divine, became the ground of her spiritual life. She has authored over a dozen books including Wild Mercy: Living the Fierce and Tender Wisdom of the Women Mystics, Caravan of No Despair: A Memoir of Loss and Transformation, and acclaimed translations of Teresa of Avila, Julian of Norwich, and Hildegard of Bingen. Mirabai lives in the mountains of New Mexico with her husband, Jeff Little (Ganga Das); between them, they have four grown daughters and eight grandchildren.
Why their voice matters: Mirabai transforms the most unbearable human experience—the loss of a child—into a gateway for understanding how grief and longing for the Divine are intimately connected, offering a path of healing not through transcendence but through fierce presence to what is. Her unique synthesis of rigorous academic study of world religions, lived experience of devastating loss, and deep immersion in mystical traditions across faiths creates a teaching that is simultaneously intellectually grounded and heart-shatteringly real. By excavating the wisdom of women mystics from diverse traditions and making their fierce, tender teachings accessible to contemporary seekers, Mirabai reclaims mercy not as meekness but as wild courage—the willingness to keep the heart open even in hell, to show up for the immensity of pain, and to recognize that everything is interconnected at a cellular, physical level. Her work serves as both invitation and permission for seekers of all genders to forge direct relationships with the sacred through their own bodies, desires, and grief, proving that the only way through suffering is to alchemize it by showing up for others in their descents, and that the feminine face of the Holy honors our longings as pathways to the sacred rather than obstacles to overcome.