I grew up in a poor home with a spiritually rich childhood. Beginning in my early boyhood I felt called to serve and help people, and a strong conection to the spiritual. I followed my parent's religion as a way to fulfill that calling. Small town churches emotionally fed me and encouraged me throughout my childhood and teen years.

Before I embraced my Blackfoot heritage and Indian ways, my life was centered in ministerial and psychotherapeutic healing disciplines. After four years of Vietnam War era military service, I chose the path of education. I attended Central Methodist College, the University of Missouri, and Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary. I acquired undergraduate and graduate degrees.  I am an ordained elder in the Community of Christ church. I have served as a pastor, educator, youth minister and musician of the church. For six years I served as a graduate school seminary adjunct professor.

I served the Chicago area as a psychotherapist in private practice for over twenty-five years. I conducted personal growth workshops and spiritually focused workshops in the Midwest and nationally. I served as a group facilitator trainer at a mid-west Human Potential center.                         

Following my personal call to apprenticeship in medicine ways and years of dedicated work, I was blessed as a traditionally trained healer of Blackfoot Indian descent. In the early 1990's I was taken by my Blackfoot  teachers and initiated as a healer.

What I find Indian medicine offers is a life of Spirit and a ritual presence in which comfort and belonging can be found. But that can be just the beginning. True healing means a deep, life-altering transformation of the fundamental ways in which life is lived in the world.

I know that kind of healing takes place only in supportive and loving community; as you and I join with others in sacred ways, bringing ourselves healing and transformation, we also begin to heal and transform all of our relationships, all of our surroundings. In this manner we can transform together and bring healing back for our relationships, families, businesses, and the communities in which we live.

“This change may be on a physical level and/or a spiritual level. The physical level may include but is not limited to: habits, dietary, living style, work and/or home environment. The spiritual level may include but is not limited to: your belief system, the ability to forgive others and/or yourself, your mind set on how to see all things on a daily basis,

trust in non-physical beings and things, etc.

 

"No matter if you go to a medical doctor, a practitioner, or a native person. they will all want you to change something somehow. So if you are against change in any form then a "healing" will not take place...it simply can not happen." 

                                                                                   -Jim Eagle, Blackfoot/Cherokee

Healing is what Spirit offers through traditional ways to those willing to accept and hold with reverence the beauty of life. Healing is the work of an Individual, led by a Medicine Healer, supported by a community, and embrace by All That Is.

Types of Medicine Healing Modalities I Offer (by appointment only):

Hands-on Healing is most certainly a primary part of what a Healer does. Hands-on healing involves the energy or spirit of the Healer working with your energy or spirit working with the energy or spirits of life and All-That-Is. Within this style of healing sacred tools such as rattles, drums, sacred tools, and objects, such as feathers, stones, herbal smudges and teas, etc. are often employed. This type of healing is often the primary instance in which the Healer encounters, diagnosis’s and addresses your healing needs.

Soul-Retrieval is the process by which pieces of your lost soul are retrieved and returned. This is accomplished by journeying to the spirit world and requesting assistance from the spirits, ancestors, and guides that dwell in other realities or worlds. These beings assist in discovering what is lost within you and often help with winning the soul pieces back and bring them to you. Some of the classic symptoms of a person in need of soul retrieval would perhaps include those suffering from a mental confusion or illness; those severely abused as children, being unable to remember portions of childhood; or those who sense that something is missing in their lives. Within Bear Spirit Medicine Lodge, Soul Retrieval is done with a support team of several Healers.

Cleansing is a unique form of exorcism and is most often used ritually on spaces (homes, businesses, etc.) It involves a proscribed ritual that requires between an hour and a half and two hours of time. It addresses lost spirits, disturbing energies, and such that make a human space uncomfortable or unlivable. Cleansings are often requested when moving into a new space. Within Bear Spirit Medicine Lodge, a house or office cleansing is done with a support team of several Healers.

Blessings Rituals are a wonderful way to celebrate life and its relation-ships. I have conducted thousands of marriage and union rituals. Each is unique and developed for the couple.

The blessings and naming of children and babies is an expression of tribal welcome and celebration. These are done in the family and parental community.

Other blessing rituals can be developed to bless the relationships we have in life.

Pipe Ceremony and Sweatlodge Ceremony is available, always without charge, to individuals and communities who desire that kind of blessing and healing.