The Kahsahlahwee Spa is proud to introduce Kit Shepperd as our newest Therapist.

Kit is an ordained minister with the Fellowship of the Divine Healer, a Reiki Master, Metaphysician, Hypnotherapist, Neuro Linguistic Programming Practitioner, Master Herbalist, Licensed Massage Therapist and Alternative Health Therapist.

According to Kit:

My connection to healing began with my birth. My grandparents and parents used home remedies and herbal preparations to take care of themselves, my siblings and myself.

My first experiences of healing were with newborn calves that had lost their mothers for one reason or another and by the time I attempted to help them, they were almost lifeless because they did not receive the mother’s first milk or her nurturing.

To keep the calf alive, I poured a can of condensed milk down into the calf’s stomach and then proceeded to rub its body until it responded, after which most of the calves usually chased me around as if I was their mamma.

In the 1960s, I started reading Science of Mind material that was based on the spiritual work of Ernest Holmes. I was drawn to the knowledge concerning the mind ruling and influencing the inner working of the body. I was very much influenced by a book called “Psychocybernetics” by Maxwell Maltz and a book called “Psychopictography”. A few years later I ran across a book titled Cry Baby Cry that correlated the mental emotional states and their impact on the body.

In the early 1970s I had a very extensive out of body experience in which I was able to see people’s motives and their true unexpressed desires and intention. This was overwhelming to me because it came at a time when I had no previous knowledge of seeing into another dimension and it frightened me a great deal. Because that experience carried with it a great emotional upheaval, I began searching to explain what had happened to me, I read books of a psychological nature such as Reality Therapy by Glasser, the works of Eric Berne, and many others. Today, after learning a great deal more about metaphysics, I would attribute that experience to the first opening of my third eye and crown chakras. Through out the 1980s I continued reading Science of Mind information and took four courses in the study of Science of Mind.

Later I received attunement in the Usui Shiki Ryoho Form of Reiki which is a hands on healing process of channeling the Reiki Ray or healing energy that is the Universal Life Force. This life energy comes from its source, through the attuned Reiki channel and out into the body of the intended recipient bringing with it comfort, ease, and greater health. Reiki is used in person or at a distance. After practicing Reiki and receiving attunement in first and second degrees of Reiki, I was attuned as a Reiki Master Teacher in 1993.

In 1993, I attended the Institute of Neuro-Linguistic Programming in Houston, Texas and became an N.L.P. Practitioner and as part of that training. went to Albuquerque, New Mexico to take a course in Hypnotherapy.

Neuro-Linguistic Programming is a large group of techniques that are used in reprogramming the belief system by deprogramming any false, detrimental beliefs and replacing them with positive, life enhancing beliefs. Hypnotherapy is the art of guiding a person into a trance state that allows the person to become aware of the inner workings of the subconscious mind and to discover any mental-emotional causes and conditions of ill health or detrimental thoughts and actions that cause dis-ease, so that the mind can be enlisted to assist the body to heal.

I learned Crystal Healing from a woman who had been married to a Sioux Indian man and had lived on a Sioux Reservation where she received her training from a Sioux Indian Medicine Woman.

After becoming an Ordained Minister with the Congregation Church of Practical Theology out of Springfield, Louisiana, I Opened a practice in Bryan-College Station, Texas where I practiced Reiki, N.L.P., Hypnotherapy, and Crystal Healing.


I took a correspondence course from the Tree of Life School called Natural Healing of the Systems of the Body that was taught by an herbalist, Steven Horne. I also learned Muscle Testing (Kinesiology) from Steven’s courses and from an herbalist in Bryan, Texas. Muscle Testing is a process of accessing the intelligence of the cells of the body by assessing the strength or weakness of a particular muscle or muscle group which denotes the condition of a particular body part.

In the midst of practicing these modalities, Shamanism began to present itself to me and the universe sent me many teachers of native ways. Shamanism is an eclectic healing modality which utilizes many different forms of healing. The Shaman will use any type of healing practice that he or she deems necessary to bring about health in a person. Shamanic healing includes mental, spiritual, or physical means such as mental-emotional and spiritual counseling, enlisting spiritual assistance through prayer, and the use of herbs, foods etc.

After receiving a soul retrieval from a Shaman who was also a Unity Minister, and being advised to follow a Shamanic path, I was trained in the art of Shamanic Journeying from a Course In Shamanism presented on tape by a man named Ed Gross. I was trained to do soul retrieval by a Shaman in College Station, Texas. My early Shamanistic practicing was guided and directed by a Mayan woman by the name of Kitsia High Eagle Feather.
I have done many Soul Retrievals and have utilized N.L.P. skills to help the retrieved parts to overcome the difficulties that caused them to depart from the person, so they can more easily be reintegrated into their human.

My husband became ill and during his illness we met a woman who was a colon hydro- therapist. While my husband was receiving treatment from this woman, she encouraged me to learn to do Colon Hydrotherapy. I began training in Colon Irrigation with the desire to use the colonics to help my family members.

Then, in 1996, the love of my life, my dear, dear husband Sam, transitioned from the earthly domain.

Devastated by the loss, I returned to Eureka Springs, Arkansas, a place that I had called home for many years. I opened a practice there where I sold herbs and performed Colon Hydrotherapy Treatments and before long I was back in school training to be a massage therapist under the tutelage of Becky Jackson of the Northwest Arkansas School of massage. I graduated from massage school in June of 1997 and became a Licensed Massage Therapist.

I received training in Reflexology while in Massage School and as part of my Naturopathic training. Reflexology is the art of using pressure and movement on referral points that exist in the outer ear (auricular), on the hands and feet. The pressure sends a message via a wireless anatomical network from the referral points to the organ or body part that is linked energetically with the referral point, acting much like a breaker switch in an electrical breaker box. The pressure and movement awakens the body’s inner communication system thus creating the energetic power of the body to heal itself. In massage classes I learned to balance the chakras, energy vortexes of the body, and have since then learned other techniques to balance them. These techniques balance and harmonize the body’s energies creating precision working order and proper cooperative functioning between the various systems of the body.

In 1996 I studied by correspondence to become a Naturopath in 1996 through the Trinity College of Natural Health. A Naturopath is one who is trained in and uses only natural means to bring about health, and practicing the use of naturally occurring substances, natural organic foods, and safe body work modalities, treating the whole being, body, mind, and spirit.

In 1999 I completed a course in herbalism and was Certified as a Master Herbalist by Dr. Humbart Santillo. A Master Herbalist is one who has learned the therapeutic properties and actions of herbs, this includes collecting, storing, preserving, using, and identifying any contraindicating circumstances to using herbs so that they will place the body in a right action to heal itself.

In 2002 I transferred my ordination and became ordained through the Fellowship of the Divine Healer Ministries that is based in Arkansas.

I learned to clear the emotional impact of painful experiences through a process called CLEAR from the Institute of Eclectic Center for the Healing Arts. The training I received to do this technique utilized homeopathics and flower remedies to release pent up emotions. Later, through shamanic journeying, I learned to get the same results without using any substances, but by being directed by my inner guidance. The CLEAR assists physical healing by releasing any emotional or mental basis for disease through muscle-testing to access self-sabotaging, fears, addictions, or negative attitudes that are being held in mind, and clearing it away so that health, harmony, and happiness can occur.

I was trained in a form of Kinesiology called Contact Reflex Analysis (CRA) designed and taught by a Chiropractor, C.A. Versendahl, through Parker Chiropractic College in Dallas, Texas. CRA is much more in depth than ordinary muscle testing.

I became an Internationally Certified Aromatherapist through study with Pacific Institute of Aromatherapy as taught by Kurt Schnaubelt, Ph.D.

The use of Crystals, Gem Stones, and River Rock pervades all of my work. Stones carry energies that create the necessary tendencies in the body to cause it to become healthy. Using hot or warm and cold stones on the body surface helps the body to relax and release tension and spasms, which cause discomfort and pain. Rocks have become special tools to me in my repertory of healing devices.

Throughout all the years I have been studying and practicing healing, the thread of Native American Spirituality has woven itself through my life and work.

Even though I am of Cherokee descent, most of the spiritual training I have received has been from the Ojibwa and Sioux Spiritual Paths. The land where I live houses a Sweat Lodge where I perform Sacred Ceremony. I have been made a Pipe Carrier and have done five Vision Quests, one of which I was given my native name Wolf Shield Woman.
This year (2008) I danced my first Sundance. Besides birthing my three sons and being their mother, Sundancing has been the greatest thing I have ever been allowed to do.

Today, I work at the Roadrunner Inn. at a Spa called Kahsahlahwee, named after the great-great grandfather of one of the Spa owners. I am very honored to be a participant in a newly formed, community venture called NEW EARTH CENTER FOR THE HEALING ARTS where Creator of All That Is teaches and performs my work through me.

Return Home >>