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Honoring The Medicine
The Essential Guide to Native American Healing
by Kenneth Cohen
A friend gave me this book. He told me that it answered his major life questions regarding medicine and healing. This friend of mine is a healer trained in a traditional practice. Until he read this book he felt as though he could never be as good a healer as someone practicing the Native American way. Upon reading this book he discovered what the author wrote about Native American medicine. THe author writes that medicine is “the presence and power embodied in or demonstrated by a person, a place, an event, an object, or a natural phenomenon....Good medicine always gives you a sense of sacredness or sacred power. Good medicine is healing.” My friend realized that the people who came to him always remarked about feeling his healing presence and were experiencing healing. After reading those lines, he resolved to continue his journey to trust his own ability to provide healing.
Cohen’s book is an expression of his belief that people of various healing and spiritual traditions need to engage in a respectful dialogue if they are to understand each other and create a strong foundation for health and peace. He includes both personal and planetary healing in this foundation. Cohen also distinguishes between the more Western medical training to “cure” people to the indigenous healers who emphasize healing in the sense of “making whole” by establishing, enhancing, or restoring well-being and harmony in which curing is possible but not the only beneficial outcome. “Though I will occasionally cite scientific research and theory to point out important parallels between Western and Native approaches to health, I believe that Native American healing goes far beyond the boundaries or capabilities of science.”
Central to Cohen’s understanding of Native American Spirituality is the twelve-pointed medicine wheel called Cycles of Truth. He originally learned of this from Twylah Nitsch, a member of the Seneca Nation's Wolf Clan. Cohen includes a visual of his interpretation of this central teaching which he received from Grandma Twylah and many other elders, as well as from his own life experience.
The depth of this book is evidenced by Cohen’s gift of storytelling and passing on the rich stories that have been shared with him through the wide variety of Native American healers he has personally met and experience first hand. An example of this is the Cherokee healer Keetoowah who was diagnosed with prostate cancer. He called to his grandfather who was then an old man. “Grandfather said, ‘You know what to do, Grandson, smudge yourself, take a bath, put on your best clothing, then take a walk and pray that the medicine shows itself." Keetoowah responded “But, Grandfather, I live in the city.” Grandfather’s response reflects the heart of Native American healing, “It doesn’t matter. The medicine is everywhere.” And yes, Keetoowah found his medicine and in time his cancer was gone.
In addition to creative contributions such as a blessing from a Cree Elder written in the Cree language, the secret meaning of Aloha from his Hawaiian connections, Cohen has an extensive appendix, and list of Native American Resources that includes Healing and Consciousness, Complementary and Alternative Medicine, Spiritual Healing, and Parapsychology with resources by Jeanne Achterberg, Deepak Chopra and other well recognized healers of our times.
Another gift this book provides is preserving the wise words of the Native American elders who Cohen met through the years. Some of them are no longer on this planet and his ability to pass on their teachings in a personal style that compliments the ancient wisdom makes this a must read book!
~ Allie Knowlton
Honoring The Medicine
The Essential Guide to Native American Healing
Kenneth Cohen
Ballantine Books, New York, 2003
ISBN 0-345-43313-3
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