Honoring the Medicine: Native American & Indigenous Healing Traditions

11/12/2025

The sky is talking everywhere! What does it tell me? We are the Sky People. We are your beautiful Mother Earth. Do not give up! Do not lose hope! Protect our beauty! Be a warrior, an activist, a lover for the Earth and the Night Sky!

It started with the most unusual sunset clouds in the mountains where I live in Colorado. Then, two days later, Northern Lights (extremely rare), with spectacular displays throughout the far North. I will add a caption or comment to each photo so you know where they were taken and by whom.

11/11/2025

Thinking of the Opening of Winter ceremonies soon to take place in one of the medicine societies I belong to in the Pacific Northwest. I wrote this poem more than 30 years ago while watching an elder share his song, dance, and vision.

Spirit Dance

For the sake of the future and unborn generations
To provide a spirit trail for them to follow
The old man dances.
In a candle lit cedar planked room
Wooden benches along the walls
Filled with the community of prayer helpers.
The old man dances.
He is beyond age.
He breathes calmly as his feet stomp
to the strong drum beat.
His eyes are penetrating, already looking
through this reality to the next.
The old man dances.
Though dressed in poor work clothes,
I see him in what he has earned--
Red and black flowing cape with shell-button totems:
They are dancing with him.
The old man dances
To honor the Creator's gift.
He knows that a gift not honored
a gift not given
Is quickly lost.

10/25/2025

Thinking about one of the keynote talks I delivered thirty years ago at the World Congress on Energy Healing in Basel, Switzerland. The theme seems even more relevant, in fact far more relevant today than back then. You may not agree, and some may get offended that I speak my mind.

My opening talk was to announce that I had founded a university without walls, The School of Agnosia, a school of unknowing (agnosis). Although there are many degree-granting institutions of higher learning, I believe that mine was the first to offer DE-CREDENTIALIZING services. Thus if you have earned a MA, Ph.D., MD, etc, your head will be shrunk, you will learn how to return to your innate simplicity, and you will be certified as no longer having a degree.

The talk was an hour long, translated into multiple languages for the approximately 2,500 attendees. To my surprise and disappointment a gentleman approached the stage at the end and said, quite seriously, that he was interested in applying but I had failed to give the address or registration information.

Royalty-free photo from Pixabay

10/15/2025

"Nature As Healer: Indigenous Ways of Connecting" Sunday 26th Oct, 8-9:30 am PT, 11 am -12:30 pm ET. 90 minutes online live streamed class.

I will share Native American/First Nations ways of connecting with Nature’s healing power to enhance personal well-being and to “charge your batteries” to be of greater service to others. From an indigenous perspective an energy healer does not transmit his/her own energy, but rather facilitates a blessing from the realm of spirit.

You will learn how to unify with healing energy from the elements of earth, water (rivers and ocean), fire (the sun) and air (wind). Discover how expressions of gratitude, through words and offerings, open channels of communication with plants, animals, or any aspect of nature. The class will not be recorded or available for replay.

To register and for further info, please send an email to info@sacredearthcircle.com (I do not use FB Messenger). Include your your name, phone number, country, and the subject “Nature As Healer”. (Photo by James Wheeler, from Pexels.com)

10/03/2025

A few days ago one of my heroes passed: Jane Goodall. I had the good fortune to hear her speak in person twice and was not surprised that her brilliance, wisdom, compassion and deep spiritual insight matched what I had sensed from her writings. A mystic and lover of nature.

“Lost in awe at the beauty around me, I must have slipped into a state of heightened awareness. It is hard – impossible really – to put into words the moment of truth that suddenly came upon me then. Even the mystics are unable to describe their brief flashes of spiritual ecstasy.

It seemed to me, as I struggled afterward to recall the experience, the self was utterly absent: I and the chimpanzees, the earth and trees and air, seemed to merge, to become one with the spirit power of life itself. The air was filled with feathered symphony, the evensong of birds.

I heard new frequencies in their music and also in singing insects’ voices – notes so high and sweet I was amazed. Never had I been so intensely aware of the shape, the color of the individual leaves, the varied patterns of the veins that made each one unique. Scents were clear as well, easily identifiable: fermenting, overripe fruit; waterlogged earth; cold, wet bark; the damp odor of chimpanzee hair, and yes, my own too. And the aromatic scent of young, crushed leaves was almost overpowering.

That afternoon, it had been as though an unseen hand had drawn back a curtain and, for the briefest moment, I had seen through such a window. In a flash of “outsight” I had known timelessness and quiet ecstasy, sensed a truth of which mainstream science is merely a small fraction. And I knew that the revelation would be with me for the rest of my life, imperfectly remembered yet always within. A source of strength on which I could draw when life seemed harsh or cruel or desperate.”
~ Jane Goodall

Photo from the Jane Goodall Institute of Canada.

10/01/2025

In a place like this, dreams and waking reality are not so different, as long as you are seeing with both your ordinary eyes and spirit eyes!

09/27/2025

Another of the many reasons I don't like AI.

"It's only a matter of time, not much, before drones are fighting drones, attacking critical infrastructure and targeting people all by themselves, fully autonomous and no human involved, except the few who control AI systems… We are now living through the most destructive arms race in human history because this time, it includes artificial intelligence."
--President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, speech at the United Nations General Assembly, 9-24-2025

09/24/2025

Exceptional, insightful article about the importance of incorporating indigenous history, perspectives, and people in the dialogue about teacher plants (psychedelics) that is burgeoning in psychiatry and psychology.

I have been a trouble maker for years speaking out at various conferences about the appropriation, uprooting, decontextualization, and cultural repercussions of popularizing indigenous sacred medicines. I am becoming part of what seems to be a smaller and smaller minority, as so many educators and clinicians-- both indigenous and non-indigenous-- confuse the teacher plants with pharmaceuticals.

(RNS) — The doors for the spiritual use of psychedelics were opened by struggles over pe**te for Native Americans.

09/14/2025

I am honored to have presented at the Healer's Path Summit yesterday, but even more to be able to listen to the wisdom shared by esteemed colleagues. It continues today; for those who missed day one, there will be a brief window in which you will be able to view recordings.

A reflection at the end of day one. Although Don Oscar and others spoke about the "calling" and the choice a person can make to follow a healer's path, as well as possible consequences of choosing not to, I am wondering how many of the speakers felt, like me, that it was never a matter of choice.

I just did what I had to do, followed the path that Creator placed before me, to the best of my ability. I think that if the calling is genuine, then it is more a question of courage and guts, of not giving up, whatever the sacrifice and hardship.

Choosing one road means not following another ("two roads diverged in the wood and I..." Robert Frost). And the indigenous healer's path, "the Red Road", is often not an easy or smooth one.

That is not to say it is all hardship. During the live-streamed Q&A with myself and other speakers at the end of the day, someone asked about joy. Indeed! We all smiled and reflected on the role of humor and lightness on the spiritual journey. I remember reading about an Inuit shaman who spoke about "holy joy". This also resonates with me.

I took this photo at one of my favorite Colorado lakes, elevation 12,830 feet.

09/02/2025

THE HEALER'S PATH SUMMIT. I hope you will join me and ten other speakers for a FREE online gathering September 13-14, 2025. I was honored to be interviewed by Bob Vetter, a great, honorable, and wise man who has many decades of experience in healing, storytelling, and cultural anthropology.

This two-day summit brings together wisdom keepers, teachers, and healing practitioners for real conversations about what it truly means to become a healer.

You’ll hear how the call to healing first arrived, the mentors and moments that shaped each journey, the discovery of unique gifts, and the practices that sustain the work today. Each conversation offers a living story of becoming a healer and a healing presence in the world. Registration Link: https://bit.ly/healerspath_kencohen

08/20/2025

I think these neighbors like me too much! Took a short walk and passed a 6 month old moose, who looked at me very curiously and I would say affectionately, and started to walk in my direction. I began moving more quickly, because Mama Moswa was nearby and I didn't want to become the lesson about how to deal with two-leggeds.

Later that afternoon, while sitting on the porch, a huge moose stood among the aspens about twenty feet away and began munching. Look at the leaves still hanging from his mouth in the second photo. He had a calm, majestic energy.

The wild mullein nearby is almost 6 feet tall. It is on a slight hill so it appears taller than the moose, but the opposite is true. This bull moose was about seven feet at the shoulder

08/17/2025

Save the Last Dance... So sad that after 43 years, April 24-25, 2026 will likely be the last annual Gathering of Nations Powwow, the official poster calling it "The Last Dance". Tens of thousands of people, thousands of dancers, great singers, spectacular regalia, innumerable arts and crafts and cultural events, all at the New Mexico Fairgrounds. See the 2003 film Dreamkeeper, that weaves together stories, legends, and lessons from diverse Turtle Island nations during a journey to this powwow. I have great memories associated with the Gathering of Nations. Here are photos I took a while back.