Coyote Healing Camp 2026

When: September 2-5, 2026

Wednesday: 9:30 AM - 5 PM

Thursday: 9 AM - 4 PM, with evening Sound Bath

Friday: 9 AM - 4 PM, with evening Sacred Fire

Saturday: 8 AM - 3 PM

Where: The Nest in Woodstock, NY

Cost: Sliding Scale $175 - $1050

Learn more and register HERE.

This four-day workshop is an immersive healing camp at The Nest in Woodstock, NY, co-led by Lewis Mehl‑Madrona, Barbara Mainguy, Peter Blum, and Stefanie Frank, dedicated to personal transformation and the healing of trauma through story, ceremony, and relationship with land and community.

Setting and Intention

The gathering takes place within the forest sanctuary of The Nest on Mount Guardian, a retreat space explicitly devoted to holistic transformation through storytelling, ritual, and earth‑honoring practices. The overarching intention of the four days is to create a safe ceremonial container in which participants can lay down old trauma‑shaped stories and step into renewed ways of living, supported by community, the elements, and Indigenous‑inspired teachings about balance and harmony.

Role of the Guides

Lewis, Barbara, and Peter bring their long‑standing work with Indigenous‑informed healing, narrative, and ceremony—using story, movement, guided imagery, hypnosis, and talking circles to help people find their “inner healer” and reshape the stories that organize their lives. Stefanie, as founder of the ESKFF Nest, weaves in music, sound healing, earth‑based ritual, and nature connection, grounding the work in the land and in the Nest’s community‑centered vision of metamorphosis.

Rhythm of the Four Days

Across the four days, mornings and afternoons are devoted to circles of storytelling, sacred drama, and experiential exercises that invite participants to explore how trauma has shaped their identities and relationships. Through shared meals, gentle movement, time on the land, and small‑group practices, participants will build relational safety and collective energy, preparing for the deeper ceremonial work of all‑night fire and the inipikaga. We will also be gifted by a Thursday evening sound bath by Peter Blum.

Wednesday and Thursday:

During the first two days of camp, we focus on arriving, connecting, and listening deeply to ourselves and to one another. Through a series of guided exercises and group processes, we begin to understand the unique healing needs each guest brings. Drawing on the expertise of our guides, we’ll work with storytelling, imagery, hypnosis, movement, drumming, mask-making, and sacred play to create a flexible, responsive environment where the direction of the work emerges from the group itself. These days are about building trust, opening imagination, and laying the foundation for meaningful transformation.

Friday Evening: All‑Night Sacred Fire

On Friday, a sacred fire is lit and tended throughout the night as a living center of prayer, reflection, and community presence. Participants will join us in moving between silence and shared song, drumming, storytelling, and quiet time by the flames, using the fire as a place to offer grief, fear, and trauma‑laden narratives, and to call in new possibilities, guidance, and courage. Participants are encouraged to stay by the fire as long as feels right, resting whenever your body calls you to sleep.

Saturday: Inipikaga (Inipi / Sweat Lodge)

On Saturday, those who choose to participate enter an inipikaga, a sweat‑lodge ceremony rooted in Lakota tradition, in which heated stones, steam, and prayer are used for purification and rebirth. Inipi, meaning “they breathe,” is understood as a rite of purification and spiritual renewal; the lodge is experienced as the womb of the universe, a place to release burdens and emerge with a sense of being made new.

Aim: Transformation and Healing Trauma

Throughout the camp, ceremony, narrative work, and the group's relational field are woven together to restore balance, beauty, and harmony in participants’ lives, which, in turn, supports shifts in emotional and physical suffering. By the end of the four days, the combination of story, fire, inipikaga, song, and community at The Nest offers participants a felt experience of “living again”—a deep movement from trauma‑held identities toward more connected, empowered, and life‑affirming ways of being.

Accommodations and Registration

We encourage you to attend this four day event in full. Individual day tickets are also available. Complementary outdoor camping is available, as well as single and shared rooms at reasonable rates. 

Learn more and register HERE.