Plant Medicine Summit
Sacred Plant Medicine of Indigenous North America
In indigenous North America, the sacred and the practical are often combined. I will discuss some sacred plants, including sage, tobacco, sweet grads, cedar, bear root, and lavender, telling their origin stories, their sacred uses, and their practical medicinal uses. We will conclude with ways to honor these plants.
In This Session:
- Tobacco is the most sacred herb for it is the bones of First Mother
- Ill health can occur when we disrespect sacred herbs
- Cedar and sage are both spiritual and practical cleaning medicines
Dr. Lewis Mehl-Madrona
Dr. Lewis Mehl-Madrona is of Native American heritage. He studied medicine at Stanford University, and completed post-graduate training programs in family medicine and psychiatry at The University of Vermont. In his book, Coyote Medicine, he describes how he began to interact with elders while still in medical school, to better understand self-healing.
Lewis works for Wabanaki Public Health and Wellness, which serves the Five Tribes of Maine, as their medical director. He is also the director of the Coyote Institute, a nonprofit organization dedicated to bringing the wisdom of Indigenous cultures into contemporary health care. He is also a clinical associate professor of family medicine at the University of New England and a clinical assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Vermont.
He's written several other books, including Coyote Healing, Coyote Wisdom, Narrative Medicine, Healing the Mind Through the Power of Story: the Promise of Narrative Psychiatry, and his latest, co-authored with Barbara Mainguy, Remapping Your Mind: The Neuroscience of Self-Transformation Through Story.
