Kinship of Bones: A Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy & Puppetry Retreat

Kinship of Bones is a a four-day group retreat in Colorado facilitated by Bryn Murphy & Michelle Bosco, KAP Therapists, with Amy Sass as the Puppeteer & Artistic Guide. This retreat holds four days as a single continuous arc rather than separate events: the KAP journey, the gathering, and the witnessing. You arrive ready to move something real into a form you can hold, and then into words witnessed by others doing the same work. The name comes from La Loba, the old woman of the desert who gathers scattered bones and sings them back to life. That’s the shape of the work here: what the journey scatters, the puppet gathers into form, and the witness circle sings back into belonging.

Before the Retreat: Kinship of Bones is open to anyone curious about what ketamine-assisted psychotherapy and puppetry can do together. You don’t need prior KAP experience. You don't need prior art/puppetry experience. Before the retreat, each participant completes a medical and psychiatric intake and screening with a prescriber. If you don’t have a prescriber yet, we’ll help connect you with one so your intake is complete in time. You’ll also have a conversation with Bryn or Michelle about your comfort with group dosing, being witnessed, and hands-on art-making, so we know the group is the right fit for you. Medical screening is reconfirmed on Day One, and you’ll be asked to fast for at least four hours before the journey.

The Retreat Days: The retreat is designed to be accessible and affirming for people of all genders, identities, and expressions. You may pass, soften, or shorten your participation at any point, without needing to explain why. What’s shared in ritual and circle stays in the circle.

Day One: Arrival & Setting the Container. An evening of introductions, setting the stage and the container, building the altar, and object play and movement-based connection.
Day Two: The Journey. A threshold walk and a fully supported group dosing session held by two KAP therapists, then a deeper immersion into making your puppet and beginning to tell your story through art.
Day Three: Finishing the Bone-Body. Deeper puppet-work, ritual play, and an evening altar procession, dance, and song.
Day Four: Witness Circle. A half-day closing circle where each person’s puppet gives their story a voice, held by the group.

Your puppet becomes a container, what we call a boundary object. It isn’t a metaphor you have to explain. It’s something you can hold, shape, and let speak for you when your own words aren’t ready yet. An altar runs through the retreat, gathering what each person brings, and nature is part of the container too: a threshold walk, a silent walk with your puppet, and a closing offering left outdoors rather than carried home.

On Journey, Symbol, & Story: Kinship of Bones unfolds in two acts. In the first, the medicine opens the door. The journey brings wisdom, ancestral knowledge, and feeling to the surface, held by a group and a team that stays with you throughout. In the second, the creative work begins. You build a puppet with your own hands, give what surfaced a shape, and find words for it among people who simply witness. Both acts are medicine, and both are integration. Integration begins the moment the journey ends, and the making is how what you found becomes something you can hold, see, and say aloud. Your nervous system already knows how to move through what it has been given. It has simply rarely had this much time, this much company, or a container strong enough to carry it. A puppet can be that container. So can a circle of witnesses. No one is assessing your craft. What matters is that your creation can hold what you felt, not that it is well made. And if a puppet isn’t right for you, a drawing, an object, or words are always welcome.

Who This Is For: This retreat is for anyone who wants more than a single dosing session followed by a debrief. It is for people who want what the journey opens to become something they can hold: a shape in their hands, and in time, a story spoken aloud and witnessed. You don’t need to be a therapist or clinician to belong here, though clinicians are warmly welcome too. You only need to be ready to work with what the journey surfaces, in community with others doing the same. Groups are small, up to 10 participants, with additional clinical support during the journey.

Safety & Screening:

Medical and psychiatric intake is completed before the retreat, and screening is reconfirmed on Day One.
Two KAP therapists co-hold the group at all times during dosing and circle work.
There is a clear opt-out at every stage: the journey (right up until the medicine is administered), puppet-making, and the witness circle.
Facilitators use your stated name and pronouns from intake forward.
A follow-up integration session is held as a group one to two weeks after the retreat.

Cost & Location: $3,000 per person. A limited number of adjusted-rate spots are available, so price isn’t the reason someone sits this out. The retreat is held at a private mountain retreat site in Colorado. The exact location is shared upon registration.

Next Retreat: We’re gathering in Spring 2027. Dates are coming soon as we finalize our retreat site. Join the interest list and you’ll be the first to know, before spots open publicly.

Contact: To join the interest list or ask a question, contact Bryn to learn more.

Come with what surfaced. Let it take shape.