The Kineo Collective

We all know about the science of ketamine, but we didn’t know there was a soul.

In 1962, a team of chemists synthesized a new compound they called ketamine. They were working in a laboratory, looking for a safer anesthetic, and they found one. The story seemed straightforward enough. A molecule built by human hands, for human purposes. Or that’s at least the story that’s known to us.

Then in 2020, researchers found a soil-dwelling fungus called Pochonia chlamydosporia that produced ketamine on its own, in the earth, long before any laboratory existed. I’m not talking about “something similar,” I’m talking the exact same molecule. Pochonia chlamydosporia had been making it for millions of years to defend itself against parasitic worms.

The scientists didn’t know about the fungus. The fungus didn’t know about the scientists. They arrived at the same answer across a distance so vast it barely fits inside ordinary thinking.

There’s something worth sitting with here, and it lives past what science can fully name. The first instinct, especially among those of us trained in evidence-based frameworks, is to explain this away as convergent evolution or some kind of biochemical probability. That could be true, but notice how quickly we reach for those explanations, how fast the mind moves to close the door on anything that feels too large or too strange to fit inside a known category.

Continued in the comments 👇🏼

March 1, 2026: 9am-12pm @ The Kineo Center

This day we will be entering the 3rd gate of grief: the grief we carry for the world itself.

Many of us are holding sorrow, confusion, anger, fear, or numbness in response to what we are witnessing:

violence and war, division and injustice, environmental loss, disorientation, suffering close to home and far away. These experiences affect us whether we speak
about them or not.

This circle is not a debate or a political forum.

It’s a space to slow down and acknowledge the human impact of what is unfolding around us, inside our bodies, our relationships, our hearts. Taking time to recognize that we are connected, that the
world’s pain touches us all, and that our grief is a natural and healthy response to caring.

As Francis Weller reminds us: “To feel grief for the world is a profound act of compassion and courage.”

This is an invitation to:
• Speak what has been heavy or confusing
• Be witnessed without needing to explain or justify
• Listen with care and presence
• Remember that we do not have to carry this alone

All are welcome. RSVP in the DM’s.
Suggested donation — $100

As a trauma therapist, I hear this more often than most people would believe.

When we’re met with doubt, blame, or shame from those who should protect us, we learn: I caused it, I deserved it, my reality doesn’t matter, speaking up makes things worse.

The abuse taught me certain people were unsafe. The dismissal taught me I was completely alone.

Holding trauma alone rewires your entire nervous system.

For children especially, experiencing something overwhelming without anyone to help them process it creates an existential crisis. Their developing brain is trying to make sense of something incomprehensible with no one safe to turn to.

This isolation becomes their nervous system’s blueprint. Unprocessed trauma becomes trapped energy in the body, creating issues the longer it stays buried.

The result is survival patterns that can last a lifetime… and it’s likely you have heard of fight-flight-freeze-fawn. Here’s how it can show up in real life…

Fight looks like hypervigilance, aggression, and constant defensiveness.

Flight shows up as avoidance, running from connection, staying perpetually busy.

Freeze manifests as dissociation, numbness, shutting down when stressed.

Fawn appears as people-pleasing and losing yourself to keep others comfortable.

These aren’t choices. They’re adaptations a lonely nervous system creates to survive.
Studies show that supportive responses to abuse disclosure are one of the strongest protective factors against long-term harm. Dismissive responses correlate with higher rates of PTSD, depression, and complex trauma.

The abuse is never the child’s fault. The response to disclosure is entirely the adults’ responsibility.

When we fail to believe, we don’t just fail to stop harm—we become part of it.

Not sure why my 2 1/2 minute video wouldn’t fully load so I had to trim it… 🤷🏻‍♂️ I guess I needed to write about it a little bit.

As I was about to make this post, I walked out the front door of my house, on my way to walk to work, and the sun came up over Phoenix…

So I stopped, I watched, I let it be the moment instead of rushing past it. I’m glad I did that. I’ve been doing that a lot lately.

As we move toward a new year, I’m not here to critique resolutions. I just wonder what might change if we didn’t wait once a year to set intentions, if we remembered that intention is something we practice daily, sometimes moment by moment.

So many of us wrestle with the question, “What’s my purpose?” or “Why am I here?”

Without oversimplifying it, I’m learning that purpose isn’t something I find someday in the future or in what I physically work hard to produce. It shows up when I’m fully here, present in my body, attuned to myself, open to others, and awake to the world around me.

It’s truly amazing how learning to fully embody a present moment can melt away the question of “What is my purpose?”

The past is gone. Even that last sentence you just read is now in the past.

The future isn’t here yet. It does not hold anything for you and you can never grab hold of it.

All we ever really have is now. The present moment has everything you are looking for.

And the more intentionally I live into this moment, the less alone I feel. The more connected I feel, to myself, to others, to nature.

As the year turns and the light slowly returns, my hope is simple…

That we practice noticing.
That we pause when something beautiful rises in front of us.
That we let presence, not pressure, guide us into the next season.
That we are not afraid to grieve and sit with difficult emotions.
That we realize that happiness, loneliness, or sadness were never meant to be held onto and will never last forever.

Everything was meant to be experienced in the moment and then released… just like the night gives way to morning, again and again.

Happy New Year!

As I was about to make this post, I walked out the front door of my house, on my way to walk to work, and the sun came up over Phoenix…

So I stopped, I watched, I let it be the moment instead of rushing past it. I’m glad I did that. I’ve been doing that a lot lately.

As we move toward a new year, I’m not here to critique resolutions. I just wonder what might change if we didn’t wait once a year to set intentions, if we remembered that intention is something we practice daily, sometimes moment by moment.

So many of us wrestle with the question, “What’s my purpose?” or “Why am I here?”

Without oversimplifying it, I’m learning that purpose isn’t something I find someday in the future or in what I physically work hard to produce. It shows up when I’m fully here, present in my body, attuned to myself, open to others, and awake to the world around me.

It’s truly amazing how learning to fully embody a present moment can melt away the question of “What is my purpose?”

The past is gone. Even that last sentence you just read is now in the past.

The future isn’t here yet. It does not hold anything for you and you can never grab hold of it.

All we ever really have is now. The present moment has everything you are looking for.

And the more intentionally I live into this moment, the less alone I feel. The more connected I feel, to myself, to others, to nature.

As the year turns and the light slowly returns, my hope is simple…

That we practice noticing.
That we pause when something beautiful rises in front of us.
That we let presence, not pressure, guide us into the next season.
That we are not afraid to grieve and sit with difficult emotions.
That we realize that happiness, loneliness, or sadness were never meant to be held onto and will never last forever.

Everything was meant to be experienced in the moment and then released… just like the night gives way to morning, again and again.

Happy New Year!

Humanity, Nature and The Wound of Separation

What feels broken is often what has been forgotten. New normals are created at light speed in the modern world. Old ways are quickly lost and new diagnosis pop up.

Much of what we call anxiety, depression, or burnout isn’t personal failure; it’s a relational injury.

Separation from land becomes separation from body.
Separation from body becomes separation from meaning.

Our nervous systems did not evolve in isolation.
They evolved in relationship and through connection… to people, to places, to rhythms, to the earth.

So, IMO, modern mental health diagnosis aren’t defects. They are adaptive responses to disconnection.
The body and mind doing its best to survive abnormal distance.

When we reframe symptoms this way, something softens. What we’re really feeling is a longing, not to be fixed, but to belong again.

Take a moment if you’d like, to pause and reflect (or journal):

Where do I feel most cut off… from my body, from others, from life itself?

No fixing.
No forcing insight.
Just naming.

If nothing comes up, write nothing. But take some time, hopefully outside in a quiet place, to slow things down and feel, listen, tune in.

Because awareness is the beginning of healing and connection.