Dec 5-7, 2008
Thanks to his Cherokee grandparents, Lewis Mehl-Madrona has been acquainted with Native American healing practices since he was a boy. Traditional cultures the world over have a tremendous healing lore and have much to teach modern medicine, because their methods work. Human concern and caring are the essence of primary care.
“In this workshop, we will explore the process of healing and how people create internal transformation. Perhaps a few changes will occur in all of us. My work has become progressively less guided by theory, as I’ve come to understand that many experts don’t know what they’re talking about. Healing is produced by people and their communities. My stories, ceremonies, and rituals are Native American, and my way of seeing the world comes from their culture and spirituality. My goal is to help people restore a sense of beauty and harmony to their lives.”
What is healing? What is therapy? What is medicine? What are the stories we tell ourselves, and others, about that world? How do these stories maintain the condition that causes us to suffer? What was different during the time before the problem or illness began? What new stories could contain elements of healing? To answer these questions, we have to stop thinking. Our logic operates within the way of thinking that supports the problem, so we have to learn new techniques.
Storytelling, visualization, imagery, energy healing, ceremony, and ritual will lead us to new images, new stories, and new outcomes. We’ll practice the art of no-thought, being in the present, and letting our stories emerge. The workshop is for all people; those who are well and those who are ill, and people interested in their own, and others, health and healing.
Lewis Mehl-Madrona, whose ancestors were Cherokee, Lakota, Scottish, and French, grew up among people who believed God heals people and Lewis saw miracles. Now he’s grown into an internationally renowned physician and a leader in integrative medicine, combining the Western medicine he learned at Stanford Medical School with the traditional medicines he’s known all his life. He earned a Ph.D. in Psychology, wrote Coyote Medicine: Lessons for Healing from Native America and three other books, and specializes in family medicine, emergency room work, and psychiatry. He has taught at six medical schools, educating doctors in how best to blend conventional medicine with the healing traditions of Native America and other indigenous cultures.
“Coyote Medicine is… medicine of the future that must be taught in medical schools, practiced in clinics, and brought to all those who seek true health.”
— Andrew Weil, M.D.