When: Friday, March 7 - Sunday March 9, 2025

Friday: 11 AM - 5 PM

Saturday:  9 AM- 5 PM

Sunday: 8 AM - 3 PM

Where: N.E.S.T. in Woodstock, NY

Cost: Sliding Scale $375 - $600

Register: HERE

We invite you to gather with us in community once again to receive some Crazy Wisdom, an ancient non-sectarian teaching style within Tibetan Buddhism. Explore and learn from holy fools & sacred clown energies. Led by Dr. Lewis Mehl-Madrona, Barbara Mainguy, and Peter Blum, we will discover that an integral part of this process is to work with our stories. We will engage in activities such as Talking Circles, Hypnotherapy and other sure to be surprisingly fun and exciting practices. We will close the weekend out with a sweat lodge on Sunday.

It’s been said that “Nobody fools a fool!” Fools have been important since time immemorial. During the Middle Ages, only the court jester could mock the King. Fools can speak truth to power with impunity. They can disseminate their Crazy Wisdom without fear of retribution. In these three days of playful foolishness, we will examine why now, perhaps more than ever, we are in a time of need of fools.

In Lakota culture, Heyokah takes the backward approach to things, turning things upside down because they don't look right, invoking the power of reversal. Coyote - a mythical trickster figure - often teaches by mirroring our least attractive traits. If people are adorning themselves with jewels, Coyote might pick up turds and march around as a fashion show. Coyote does the opposite of what is correct.

In this event, we aim to help you discover a more complete view of your inner landscape, including fools and tricksters, and develop the ability to turn a liability into an inner resource. You can wear it proudly, being the weird one. As therapists or healers, we ask “what you do when all the acceptable approaches don't work?” This is when we need our inner fools and tricksters.

We may make masks, puppets, dolls, participate in guided imagery and group hypnosis, explore how to develop community support through talking circles, ceremony and ritual, dialogical exercises, storytelling, and all the other activities Coyote gatherings have offered in the past. The end result -- you and your inner fool will go home together comfortable with each other and understanding each others' purpose and goals.

Lewis Mehl-Madrona, Barbara Mainguy, and Peter Blum have been fooling themselves and others for centuries (okay… a couple of decades together, and much longer separately).

This event is sliding scale to allow people with different budgets to attend.  It is our intention, whenever possible, not to turn anyone away for financial reasons. If you are in need of a further reduced rate, please reach out and we will work with you.

We encourage you to attend this three day event in full. On- site lodging is available for an additional fee. Available lodging spaces are presented in the registration form.

Register for this event here!

Lewis Mehl-Madrona, MD, is the author of Coyote Medicine, Coyote Healing, and

Coyote Wisdom, focusing on what Native culture has to offer the modern world. He has also written Narrative Medicine; Healing the Mind through the Power of Story: the Promise of Narrative Psychiatry; and his most recent book, with Barbara Mainguy, Remapping Your Mind: The Neuroscience of Self-Transformation through Story. He graduated from Stanford University School of Medicine and completed his residencies in family medicine and in psychiatry at the University of Vermont College of Medicine.

Barbara Mainguy studied psychology and philosophy at the University of Toronto and

received her master’s degree in Creative Arts Psychotherapy at Concordia University in Montreal. She has co-written Remapping Your Mind: the Neuroscience of Self-Transformation through Story with Lewis Mehl-Madrona. Currently she works with Lewis in Orono, Maine, and is the Director of Education for the Coyote Institute in Orono. She is affiliated with the School of

Social Work at the University of Maine.

Peter Blum, C.Ht., M.S.C., lives in Woodstock, where he has practiced Ericksonian

hypnotherapy, NLP, and sound healing for three decades. He is a Certified Instructor for the

National Guild of Hypnotists, and is Director of the Hypnotic Education Division of Coyote

Institute. Peter has been honored with numerous awards in the field of hypnosis and in 2021,

was inducted into the Hypnosis Hall of Fame.He has studied with Beautiful Painted Arrow

(Joseph Rael) and Dr. Lewis Mehl-Madrona, and is also well known for his work in the field of

sound healing.