Above photo of Dmitri and Kendra taken by Tiffany Barfield at the Cascade Raptor Center in Eugene, Oregon.

As an acupuncturist and herbalist, I uphold a sacred container in which people are able to express and explore all of the layers of their lives: their bodies’ wise teachings, their heartaches, their celebrations, their soul’s longings, and the things they never tell other people. 

The voice of our bodies reminds us that we can not close to heal. Like serpentine rivers, ancient forests, and endless galaxies, we are governed by a natural intelligence, a wild force that is always headed towards healing when given the opportunity. 

It is only by expanding that we metabolize our unwanted experiences and traumas. We do not work these things through our systems by freezing, numbing, or locking the past into our somatic memory. It is by opening ourselves further, by coaxing, loving, and nurturing these closed down places that we find the best of a life we have not yet lived. 

Kendra Ward, LAc., MAOM, (she/her) is a traditional East Asian medicine practitioner and herbalist. Her primary teachers are the land and kin where she lives, her life-long meditation and spiritual practices, and the complex, honest, radiant human beings she has been fortunate to hold sacred space for in her healing practice. 

Kendra’s first steps onto a path of health and spirituality began in 1998 when she completed the School for International Trainings’ Tibetan Studies Program in Tibet, Nepal, and India. She then went on to receive her bachelor’s degree from Wheaton College in Norton, Massachusetts, and master’s degree in acupuncture from the New England School of Acupuncture in Boston. From 2003 to 2020, she co-owned the Whole Family Wellness Center in Portland, Oregon, providing over 25,000 patient visits. Currently her practice is located in Shelburne, Vermont.

Kendra has advanced training in: 

✧ Plant Ally Medicine (including aroma acupoint therapy, therapeutic essential oils and flower essences)

✧ East Asian Massage (including cupping, guasha, and tuina)

✧ Contemporary Shamanism (including energy clearing, energy mastery, shamanic journeying, shadow transformation)

✧ Land Alchemy Practices

Kendra is currently licensed in Vermont and is a diplomate of Oriental Medicine through the NCCAOM (National Certification Commission for Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine). Her personal, therapeutic values are safety, curiosity, deep listening, and orienting towards each human's highest expression of beauty. She is a deep feeling, bird nerd, plant lover, and she feels most at peace alone (with her dog, of course) in a snowy forest.