September Newsletter

Upcoming Workshops and Events

Stories That Heal Us: Celebrating Ten Years of Healing through Story

When: September 21 at 9:00 AM- September 25, 2026 at 8 PM

*Overnight guests may arrive on Sept 20 and leave on Sept 26.

Where: The Gîte du Vent d'Autan in Aveyron, France

Cost: 800€ - includes workshop, overnight accommodations, and meals. A deposit of 400€ is required to hold your spot.

Reservations and questions: centre.vent.dautan@gmail.com or +33 6 81 13 77 11

Join us for a five-day celebration of story, creativity, and healing, conducted in French, featuring Lewis Mehl-Madrona and Barbara Mainguy.

This retreat, conducted in a tranquil French setting surrounded by nature, fosters both introspection and playful engagement, guided by rituals, ceremony, and intuitive practices rooted in community-based healing. The event framework recognizes the interplay between mind, body, spirit, and social connection, and explores how storytelling can continually renew compassion, creativity, and well-being in participants’ lives.

The workshop draws on the leaders’ extensive backgrounds in psychotherapy, narrative medicine, and indigenous healing traditions, promising an integrative, experience-rich environment for everyone seeking renewal through story and community.

Each day will weave art, ceremony, and play into lived experience:

Mask making: create new masks or revisit an old one as an entryway into the parts of self waiting to speak.

Sacred fire and purification lodge: Honor the elements and renew the body’s and spirit’s balance through traditional ceremony.

“Your Brain and Stories” game: a playful exploration of how the stories we carry shape perception, emotion, and healing in our brains.

Healing free-for-all: a spontaneous practice space for hands-on, intuitive, and creative healing exchanges.

Sacred drama and guided imagery: Step into living storywork where myth, movement, and imagination become medicine.

Storytelling circles: evenings of laughter, depth, and community: sharing the tales that continue to heal us all.

This program invites both returning participants and newcomers to deepen their connection to self and others. Anyone interested in stories and well being are welcome to attend.

To make a reservation or ask a question about this event, please email us HERE.

Don’t delay- only 20 spaces are available. A waiting list will be established after the first 20 participants are confirmed.

Stories from the Body through the Transformative Language Arts Network

Dates: Wednesdays from September 23 - November 11, 2026

Times: 4:30PM EST - 6PM EST and recorded for those who can not attend real time

Location: Online, through the Transformative Language Arts Network

Cost: $340 - $395, Scholarships available

Stories from the Body is an immersive eight-week course that guides participants in discovering, unlocking, and transforming the stories held within the body. Drawing on the work of Lewis Mehl-Madrona and Barbara Mainguy, this series integrates narrative therapy, somatic awareness, and indigenous wisdom to support healing. Each weekly session blends ceremony and community-building with practical exercises in breath, movement, and mindful listening, creating a safe and welcoming space for personal exploration.

What you will experience:

Participants learn to attune to the body’s messages, dialoguing with sensations, pain, and tension to uncover hidden narratives beneath conscious awareness.
Through a combination of journaling, guided imagery, art, and movement, individuals explore how family histories and cultural influences are embodied.
The course emphasizes embodied storywork, encouraging re-authoring of old patterns and envisioning new possibilities for growth and well-being.
Rituals and ceremonies support the communal aspect of healing, while creative modalities, such as drawing and dramatization, help participants express and integrate their stories.

By the course’s end, each person will have practiced techniques for finding and transforming body-based stories, and will leave with tools for ongoing self-discovery and storytelling.

This course is ideal for those interested in holistic healing, personal narrative, and mind-body integration, providing practical skills and communal support for lasting personal change.

Where and When Does this Online Course Meet?

This is a hybrid online class, conducted through Zoom meetings and the online classroom Wet Ink.

Zoom meetings will be held at 4:30 PM ET / 8:30 PM UT on consecutive Wednesdays beginning September 23 and ending November 11, 2026. Sessions will be recorded and made available only to registered students.

Online readings and an asynchronous discussion board will be hosted on the online teaching platform Wet Ink. The day before class begins, you will receive an email invitation from Wet Ink. There are no browser requirements, and Wet Ink is mobile-friendly. The Wet Ink platform allows you to log in and complete the coursework on your own time. At the end of the class, each student will receive an email that contains a link to download an archive of all their content and interactions.

You can find out more about this event and register HERE.

Week by Week Schedule

Week 1: Ceremony and Creating Safe Space

Introductions, course overview, shared intentions
Ceremony to open the group; importance of ritual to set context
Building radical acceptance and safety as a basis for storytelling
Introduction to the body as a source of story

Week 2: Listening to the Body’s Messages

Somatic awareness practices: breathwork, movement, and presence
Exercises for attending to physical sensations and symptoms as story clues
Journaling: bodily sensations as the start of narrative threads

Week 3: Eliciting the Story of the Pain

Techniques for dialoguing with the body
Guided imagery and movement to access body memory
Group and paired work: sharing stories linked to physical feeling

Week 4: Exploring Family and Cultural Stories in the Body

Exploring how ancestral, family, and cultural stories live in posture, movement and pain
Mapping inherited patterns and their bodily expression
Creative exercise: drawing or sculpting the body’s history

Week 5: Transformation Through Embodied Narrative

Re-authoring: changing perspectives on bodily symptoms through storytelling
Breathwork and gentle touch to support safe body-based narrative change
Practice: group story-weaving with alternate outcomes

Week 6: Movement, Art, and Story

Integration of movement, dance, and art to deepen story from the body
Puppetry, drawing, dramatization: other forms to access and express somatic narrative
Sharing artwork and movement-based stories in small groups

Week 7: Healing Ceremonies and Community Storytelling

Indigenous frameworks for healing circles and communal narrative work
Designing and participating in a group ceremony for story-sharing and release
The role of witnessing, drumming, and song in embodied storytelling

Week 8: Integration and Practice Clinic

Guided body story sessions in small groups; practice integrating all techniques
Peer and faculty feedback, review of experiences
Final ceremony: closing the circle, intentions for ongoing personal work

Each session will begin and end with a brief ceremony or mindfulness practice to create structure and honor the themes of ritual and community. This curriculum encourages active participation, creative expression, and respectful witnessing of others’ stories.

Who Should Take This Class?

No prior experience in bodywork or storytelling is necessary—curiosity, openness, and a willingness to participate are the primary requirements. This supportive, nonjudgmental environment welcomes participants of all backgrounds and levels of experience, offering accessible practices for anyone wishing to more fully understand and transform their body’s wisdom and story. Some reasons to take this course are:

Personal Growth

This course is designed for anyone seeking a deeper connection between body and narrative—well-suited to individuals interested in holistic healing, mental health, creative self-discovery, and personal growth. It will benefit people who sense that their bodies hold unspoken stories or unresolved emotions, as well as those experiencing chronic stress, tension, or unexplained physical symptoms.

Professional Development

Therapists, counselors, bodyworkers, and health professionals will find practical techniques to integrate into their own client work, expanding their understanding of trauma, memory, and healing beyond traditional talk therapy approaches.

Creative development

Artists, writers, and creative seekers will be supported in exploring new pathways for inspiration, while those with a desire for more community and ritual in their healing journeys will benefit from the course’s emphasis on group ceremony and collective storytelling.

You can Register HERE.

The TLA Network offers scholarships based on income as well as some partial scholarships for people living with serious illness and/or disability and people of color. You may apply for a TLA Network scholarship HERE.

Indigenous Hands-on Healing Workshop with Dr. Lewis Mehl-Madrona & Barbara Mainguy, LCSW

Dates: October 17- 18, 2026

Times: Saturday 9 AM - 5 PM and Sunday 8 AM - 3 PM

Location: Touchstone Co-Housing Common Room in Ann Arbor, MI

Cost: $495: includes lunch both days (Vegan & GF options available)

In this transformative workshop, journey into the roots of American osteopathy and discover the indigenous healing practices that shaped it. Our path takes us back to the healing wisdom of the Cherokee, Pawnee, and Shawnee peoples, whose hands-on techniques influenced Andrew Taylor Still, founder of osteopathy, who spoke Shawnee and embraced their healing ways.

Traditional Cherokee people called their techniques of hands-on healing “reading the body,” and in this workshop, we will demonstrate these indigenous techniques, comparing them to American osteopathy and traditional Chinese medicine. We will explore how these indigenous people used various strategies for touching the body, including deep pressure, rocking, shaking, running energy meridians, mobilization, and breath work as a means to restore spirit to all parts of the body.

We’ll guide you through supervised practice with the methods of Cherokee bodywork and offer examples of incorporating imagery and dialogue; the importance of ceremony, ritual, and intent; manipulative medicine as a means of dialogue with the body; Cherokee acupuncture and knowledge of energy meridians and energy medicine; understanding how this form of healing as mind-body-spirit integration takes place in community; and more.

Almost all indigenous cultures had direct, hands-on methods of healing, and the Cherokee were no exception. Learn the Cherokee art of healing touch, a form of bodywork that is rarely encountered today.

In this workshop, we will explore:

Supervised practice of Cherokee bodywork
Cherokee breathwork techniques, as a means of restoring spirit to all parts of the body
The incorporation of imagery and dialogue into bodywork
The importance of ceremony, ritual, and intent in bodywork
Osteopathic or “manipulative” medicine as a means of dialogue with the body
Cherokee use of acupressure, energy meridians, and energy medicine

Whether you're a seasoned bodyworker or a beginner simply drawn to healing, join us in rediscovering the indigenous art of healing touch.

Those who have access to a yoga mat or a massage table are encouraged to bring them to the event to work on.

Radical Conversations About Healing

With Lewis Mehl-Madrona, Barbara Mainguy, and Deena Metzger

Dates: October 23–24

Times: Friday, October 23: 6:30–10 pm PT; Saturday, October 24: 9:30 am–6:30 pm PT

Location: The Village Sanctuary; Topanga, CA

Cost: Sliding scale $350–$525

Reserve Your Spot: Email Sarah Here

When Lewis Mehl-Madrona attended Stanford Medical School, he understood that he needed to be educated and initiated as an Indigenous medicine man as well. When he and Barbara Mainguy met, the world of healing was expanded by her visionary perspective on mental health.

When Deena Metzger had cancer in 1977, she quickly learned that Western medicine was not the only answer to meeting disease. She began gathering people to explore the true nature of healing in these times. One way she found was to gather medical people and medicine people in Revisioning Medicine, which Mehl-Madrona and Mainguy also attended.

We invite you to a very rare and intimate gathering of these three friends on the land in Topanga, sharing their understanding of healing in these difficult times.

Gathering Schedule

Friday, October 23

5:00 pm PT — Informal potluck

6:30–10:00 pm PT — Gathering

Saturday, October 24

9:00–9:30 am PT — Coffee, tea, and morning snacks

9:30 am–6:30 pm PT — Gathering

Lunch: Brown bag lunch

Registration

There are very few spaces available, so please send your payment as soon as possible to reserve your space.

Payment may be made to Deena Metzger through:

PayPal: deenametzger@icloud.com

Please use the Friends and Family option.

Venmo: @Deena-Metzger

Check:

The Village Sanctuary

P.O. Box 292

Topanga, CA 90290

The full amount, less $100, will be returned for cancellations received until September 9.

To reserve your spot and for further information, please contact Sarah Velez at deenasassistant@proton.me.

Fall 2026 Hypnosis Certification Training with Peter Blum

Dates: September 19/20, 2026; Subsequent dates: October 3/4, October 17/18, November 14/15. (To be confirmed by class based on student availability)

Times: 9:00 am–6:00 pm (Saturday/Sunday)

Location: Kathy Anderson’s School for Young Artists, 31 Wittenberg Rd Bearsville, NY 12409 (5 minutes outside of Woodstock, NY)

For pricing and more information: Click Here

Become certified in hypnosis through a comprehensive 100-hour training program offered through Coyote Institute, with optional additional certification through the National Guild of Hypnotists (NGH) with 8 days of training over four weekends.

Professional Hypnosis training is increasingly in demand. Those in health professions are finding the benefits of cross-training in complementary modalities.

Hypnosis, especially as practiced by the late Dr. Milton Erickson, M.D., and by those who followed in his footsteps, is a gentle and effective tool for changing behavioral programming on a deep level. A master of anecdotes and teaching tales, Erickson assisted clients and professionals with his artistry. His uncanny ability to heal with words drew international attention and acclaim.

In this intensive training, balancing lecture (20%), demonstration (30%) and hands-on drills (50%), you will learn the fundamentals of an Ericksonian approach to trance, and how to utilize it as a valuable adjunct to your existing skills.

Participants will explore:

Recognizing physiological signs of a trance state
Presuppositions of Ericksonian hypnosis and NLP
Establishing and building rapport
Overt and covert, verbal and non-verbal inductions
Smoking cessation, weight loss, and stress management
Indirect suggestion
Neurolinguistic Programming
Representational systems
Reframing
Pacing and leading drills
Therapeutic metaphors and teaching tales
Imagery to boost the immune system
Determining which type of induction to use
Developing a treatment plan
Utilizing a client's unconscious resources
Working with "resistant" clients
Developing client-specific imagery for visualizations

Coyote Institute's Sixth Annual Two-Eyed Seeing Conference

When: January 22–24, 2027

Where: Virtually (on Zoom) and in person at The University of Maine in Orono, Maine.

Cost: $125–$495; lifetime access to recordings available as a $100 add-on

Our Sixth Annual Two-Eyed Seeing Conference will be held January 22–24, 2027, both virtually and in person at The University of Maine in Orono, Maine.

Our inspiration for this annual conference comes from Albert Marshall, a Mi’kmaq elder who popularized the term two-eyed seeing, or etuaptmumk, in his language. Two-Eyed Seeing establishes the equal validity of Indigenous ways of knowing with contemporary scientific ways of knowing. It is a generous concept that recognizes the value of understanding these various paradigms and acknowledging that they can co-exist and be applied in integrative ways. In this year's conference, we explore the application of the concept of Two-Eyed Seeing in healthcare through the work of our presenters.

We are excited to welcome an extraordinary group of speakers from around the globe who bring diverse expertise in Indigenous health and healing, Two-Eyed Seeing, mental health and psychology, intergenerational healing, Ayurveda, Osteopathy, traditional healing practices, community-led healthcare, land-based approaches to wellness, and much more. Together, their presentations will explore how Indigenous knowledge, contemporary science, and diverse healing traditions can inform one another and contribute to more holistic, culturally responsive approaches to health and wellbeing. Our conference will feature a diversity of voices, as we believe that inclusion, equality, and diversity are of utmost importance in our world.

Our conference will take place live—both virtually and in person—in Maine, USA. For those joining us in person, the event space in Maine will open at 7:30 AM daily. For those joining virtually, the Zoom meeting will start at 8:00 AM each day. We will be here until 5:30 PM each day.

All presentations will be recorded for later viewing by attendees. All attendees will receive free access to all recorded presentations for one month following the conference. Lifetime access to all recorded presentations is available for an additional fee.

Early Bird tickets to this highly anticipated conference are on sale now through November 1, 2026.

This three-day program also includes 22.5 hours of CME/CE for licensed professionals, DOs, and MDs.

Conference Pricing:

MD/DO

MD/DO Early Bird (includes CME): $450

MD/DO Regular (includes CME): $495

Other Licensed Practitioners

OLP Early Bird (includes CE): $250

OLP Regular (includes CE): $300

General Public, Students and Residents

GP Early Bird: $125

GP Regular: $150

Lifetime Access to Recordings (add-on only): $100

*Special pricing is available with Tribal ID; please email us here for details.

Get your tickets today!

Two-Eyed Seeing 2027 Conference

January 22-24, 2027 | Conference Schedule at a Glance

Day 1: Friday, January 22, 2027

Featuring: Lewis Mehl-Madrona, MD, PhD, Steve Knockwood, Carol Dana, LLD, Darren Ranco, PhD, Lisa Sockabasin, B.S., B.S.N., M.S., John Sylliboy, Barbara Mainguy, LCSW, M.A., Lauren Stevens, Elizabeth Churchill, Nancy Stevens, PhD, Johanna Lynch, PhD, and Mark Wenitong, MD.

Selected topics:

The foundations of Two-Eyed Seeing
Wabanaki healing and land return
Community-led health systems
Centering Two-Spirit voices
Multi-generational healing
Indigenous approaches to holistic wellbeing
Culturally safe healthcare in Australia

Day 2: Saturday, January 23, 2027

Featuring: Lewis Mehl-Madrona, MD, PhD, Sandra Bassett, Mick Cooper, PhD, Barbara Mainguy, LCSW, M.A., Nadia Colburn, PhD, Merm Duffy, Johanna Sam, PhD, Bhaswati Bhattacharya, MPH, MD, PhD, Ron Unger, LCSW, Marquis Bureau, and Lauren Stevens.

Selected topics:

Rural and remote recovery
Connections between humanistic psychology and Indigenous philosophies
Childhood trauma and healing; Indigenous youth resilience in digital spaces
Integrative approaches to autoimmunity
Alternative perspectives on madness and mental health
Human flourishing
Healing through traditional Indigenous sound and song

Day 3: Sunday, January 24, 2027

Featuring: Lewis Mehl-Madrona, MD, PhD, Lauren Stevens, Alexandra Heller, Dr. Burmaa Dashbal, PhD, Bhaswati Bhattacharya, MPH, MD, PhD, Josie Conte, DO, RD Chin, Sheldon Lewis, Rafael Zegarra-Parodi, DO, Walter Lindstone, B.A., B.S.W., M.S.W., Alex Stark, and Bob Vetter, MA.

Selected topics:

Traditional knowledge and sustainable value chains
The Five Elements across Ayurveda, Traditional Chinese Medicine, Feng Shui, and integrative practice
Mind-body-spirit healing
First Nations, Inuit, and Métis traditional healing
How homes and workplaces influence wellness
The future of Curanderismo
Approaches to decolonizing psychiatry

The conference concludes with a closing circle honoring the shared journey and carrying the teachings forward.

*This is a brief overview, not the full conference schedule. Click Here for the complete schedule and event details.

Etuaptmunk Journal Updates

We recently published a new issue of Etuaptmumk: The Journal of Two-Eyed Seeing! Read it now for free by clicking this link.

Winter 2027 Journal Call For Submissions

Winter 2027: Quietus

Do you work with, write about, or think about Quietus? If so, we are looking for Winter submissions to Etuaptmumk: The Journal of Two-Eyed Seeing.

Etuaptmumk: The Journal of Two-Eyed Seeing is a preprint* repository for articles related to Indigenous Studies, Cultural Anthropology, Cultural Psychiatry, Holistic Studies, the Humanities and Systems Science.

Our vision is to foster genuine cross-disciplinary and cross-cultural communication with respect for all perspectives. We welcome articles from ALL disciplines, prioritizing philosophy, the humanities and epistemology over traditional academic divisions. This includes forms of science that may not align with the dominant positivist, empiricist, and rationalist paradigms of contemporary academia.

Etuaptmumk — the Mi'kmaq word for Two-Eyed Seeing — reflects our commitment to beginning with an Indigenous worldview. We are inspired by Eskasoni First Nation Elders, Albert and Murdena Marshall, who introduced the concept of Two-Eyed Seeing at Cape Breton University in Sydney, Nova Scotia. It is with deep gratitude (woliwon; pilamaye) to Albert, who guided our understanding of Etuaptmumk, that we envision this new path for scholarship.

Submission Details

We welcome scientific papers, reviews, poems, visual art, fiction, non-fiction and first person accounts. We do not charge any submission fees and are open to interpretations of our theme.

To be considered, please email your submissions to: etuaptmumk.journal@gmail.com.

Submission deadline to be considered for this issue: December 11, 2026.

Please note: We accept submissions in any language. If we can’t translate it, we’ll ask you to provide an English translation. We’re open to publishing in any language when an English translation is available. The articles appearing in the journal have not been peer-reviewed.

*Before making a decision about publishing to preprint servers, it is important to check your target journal's manuscript submission guidelines or policy regarding preprints. For example, posting of preprints will not jeopardize a manuscript's consideration at Nature Research journals as they do not consider preprints prior publications, while journals in the JAMA network will factor preprint postings into their determination of publication.

Please consider a donation to Coyote Institute to support our work.

Coyote Institute is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization.