My interest in group transformational work has its roots in deep ecology and the ecological perspectives in the work of Joanna Macy and John Seed including the Council of All Beings and Thinking Like a Mountain. I was fortunate to able to be a student in medical anthropology and public health during my medical training at the University of California (San Francisco). This led me to study the nature of the Communal Body in several Pueblo communities in Northern New Mexico and enter a Family Medicine residency in Albuquerque, New Mexico. During my seven years in Zuni, my interests focused on the transformational events of birth and dying. I was invited to be an observer in the ceremonies of the Native American Church. Upon leaving Zuni, I entered a maternity care fellowship and returned to New Mexico to develop a Maternal and Child Health service at the University of New Mexico.

As director of the UNM Milagro Perinatal Substance Use program, I began to appreciate the role of trauma at the roots of addiction and how the cycles of despair affect many of our New Mexico communities. This led me to become board certified in Addiction Medicine and to develop UNM School of Medicine supported sabbatical in the use of Psychedelic Assisted Therapies for Trauma and Addiction. I graduated from the California Institute of Integral Studies Program in Psychedelic Assisted Therapies (PAT) and Research in 2021. I received research training in Psychedelic-Assisted Therapies including certification in MDMA-Assisted Therapy with MAPS and training in Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy with PRATI and Polaris.

My focus expanded from research to becoming a therapist. My therapy training has included two years of Hakomi Mindfulness-Centered Somatic Psychotherapy, and level one internal Family Systems. As a student and practitioner in Holotropic Breathwork, I appreciated the power of group ceremony. The somatic and breathwork training allowed me to see how these practices are portals to expanded states of consciousness. And to appreciate that these states are inherent in each of us, and we are not dependent on plants or compounds to access them. I have been a facilitator for legal Psylocibin-assisted therapy in Europe and Jamaica. My psychedelic therapies research at the University of New Mexico includes the use of MDMA for postpartum women with PTSD and Opioid Use Disorder, psilocybin-assisted therapies for postpartum and major depression and the development of group psychedelic therapy models to improve access and equity.

I live in a solar adobe in New Mexico tucked into the cottonwoods of the bosque which are homes to Great Horned Owls. I have lived New Mexico for 25 years, and I helped raise three boys. My passions include time in nature, gardening, and music/dance.