Agenda

At this three day in-person conference, with 3 simultaneous tracks, Chacruna will convene comprehensive panels and experiential opportunities that will foster conversations around topics including: 

○ Interfaith Dialogues, ○ Psychedelic History & Research, ○ Psychedelic Elders, ○ Community and Grassroots Initiatives in the Psychedelic Space, ○ Global Psychedelic Landscapes, ○Inclusivity and Diversity in Psychedelics, ○ Challenges of Psilocybin Research, ○ Intercultural Dialogues, ○ Sex and Psychedelics, ○ Performances with tambores and samba and many more.

Friday, April 17th

To read the contents from each panel click on the title. The program will be complete soon.

TRACK 1

  • When talking about the growing psychedelic renaissance, folks often immediately think of the Western medical model and legislation as the most prominent and progressive. However, psychedelic plant medicines have long been used globally, across thousands of traditions, and across many millennia to the present day. This panel will shed light into a few different psychedelic landscapes, particularly in the Philippines, South Africa and Gabon, and the ways in which psychedelics have been perceived and integrated as part of their environments historically and in the present day. The panel will explore Panaeolus cyanescens (endemic psilocybin in the Philippines) and other psychoactive plants, lessons from South Africa’s litigation approach to psychedelic drug law reform, the spiritual clinic in the Fang Bwiti tradition of Gabon, and the many promises and challenges in integrating these medicines as part of these larger landscapes. The panel will aim to provide insights, lessons and cross-cultural dialogues, bringing non-Western perspectives into the larger conversation on psychedelics.

  • In psychedelic clinical and therapeutic settings, there is a fundamental need for safety and education around harm reduction. Much of the emphasis in these larger conversations focuses on understanding the possible adverse effects of the consumption of psychedelic medicines; however, there are many intricate layers that make up the broader web of ensuring wellbeing. This wellbeing is important not just for the person or client consuming the psychedelic, but also for the therapist and facilitator holding space. This panel will explore these interrelated dimensions, including psychedelic literacy, embodiment and vulnerability in altered states, questions of power and therapist resonance, as well as broader concerns around mycelial care, community accountability, and the dynamics of medicalization, academic hierarchy, and psychedelic exceptionalism.

  • This panel will include representatives from four initiatives focused on healing for Veterans: Operation Solace, The Aya Mission, Truth Medicine: Healing and Living Authentically through Psychedelic Psychotherapy, and the ketamine-assisted psychotherapy (KAP) clinic at the San Francisco VA Health Care System. These initiatives advocate for the potential of psychedelics to support transformative healing for Veterans, situating PTSD within a broader constellation of psychological, historical, ethical, and political harms produced through and beyond military service. From the perspective of Veterans themselves, this panel will discuss cultural stigma and the “Invisible” Veteran, lived experience, ethics and the prevention of exploitation, responsible trauma-informed care, and the broader question of healing from violence in and through community.

  • As psychedelics move into the mainstream, plant medicines are increasingly shaped by Western clinical models and market logics, often sidelining the Indigenous knowledge systems that have sustained them for generations. This panel asks what it would mean to truly decolonize psychedelic research by moving beyond reductionism and extractivism toward frameworks grounded in reciprocity, relationality, and cultural accountability. How do histories of colonization shape BIPOC engagement with psychedelic therapy, and what might it look like to understand these experiences beyond Eurocentric and anthropocentric perspectives? From rethinking methodology to centering Indigenous leadership and land based ethics, this conversation explores new pathways for research rooted in responsibility, relationship, and justice.

  • Some of the biggest mentions of psychedelics in the mainstream media that have received a lot of attention are those of famous figures speaking on their life changing experiences with plant medicines, one of those people being Aaron Rogers, who is quarterback of the New York Jets. Athletes have been considered instrumental in mainstreaming and changing public perception about psychedelics. While this is promising, there have been mixed feelings about mainstreaming through this route. This opened up the conversation in pop culture about the intersection of athletics and psychedelics, about the potential benefits and perils of psychedelic use, and how these plant medicines have the potential to cause major shifts in social change. How can psychedelics influence the minds of those who regularly practice aggressive physical contact sports? How have psychedelics shifted athletes’ mindsets on things such as physical health, wellbeing, and spirituality? This panel will spotlight two athletes who have been involved in this sphere, discussing these questions and more in regards to how psychedelics have majorly impacted their perspectives.

  • As psychedelics gain legitimacy, access remains uneven and shaped by deeper structures of inequality. This panel examines how race, gender, neurodivergence, aging, and cultural stigma shape who feels safe and supported in psychedelic spaces. Why are some altered states celebrated while others are pathologized, and how do disparities in training, representation, and care reproduce harm? Drawing on experiences from underrepresented communities, this conversation highlights the gaps in current models of healing while asking what it would take to build a more just and inclusive psychedelic future.

TRACK 2

  • Highly decorated Navy SEAL Marcus Capone returns from Afghanistan and attempts to readjust to civilian life. But years of unprecedented warfare have left Marcus with treatment-defiant PTSD, traumatic brain injuries, and severe depression beyond what current government treatment options can effectively address. Fearing for Marcus’ life, his wife, Amber, finds hope in a groundbreaking therapy combining two powerful psychedelics unapproved for use in the U.S., but with seemingly limitless applications. Inspired by Marcus’ remarkable recovery but still confronted with the alarming rate of veteran suicide in their community, Marcus and Amber embark on a new mission: providing access to this lifeline. Alongside intimate interviews, captivating animation, and first-of-its-kind research at Stanford’s Brain Stimulation Lab, In Waves and War, from Jon Shenk and Bonni Cohen (Athlete A, An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power), is the emotional, inspiring odyssey of three American heroes as they overcome the aftereffects of war and rediscover their humanity.

TRACK 3

  • This session invites participants into a reflective exploration of lineage, memory, and the role of storytelling in psychedelic healing spaces. We will begin with a curated 12-minute screening of short documentary videos highlighting lived experiences within the Decriminalize Nature San Francisco movement. Participants will engage in small-group conversations reflecting on their own personal histories and ancestral lineages, exploring how storytelling can serve as a powerful tool for destigmatization, healing, and collective understanding. The session will conclude with a collaborative discussion about broader visions for a fully psychedelically integrated society. What might that truly entail? What systemic changes are still needed? Together, we will reflect on policy, community engagement, and the evolving role of local governance in places such as San Francisco where entheogenic plants and mushrooms have been decriminalized, but are unevenly accessible to all.

  • This presentation on the potential role of somatics in psychedelic spaces takes the form of a dialogue between Nick Walker (author of Neuroqueer Heresies and co-creator of the Psychedelic Studies program at CIIS) and Valeria McCarroll (therapist, psychedelic educator, and CIIS faculty member). Drawing from backgrounds in somatic practice, nondual wisdom traditions, depth psychology, queer theory, and neurodiversity studies, we examine two interconnected threads: First, we consider the vital role of somatics in the field of psychedelics, not just as a tool for integration or cultivated intervention, but as a fundamental ethical ground and an essential foundation for countering the insidious influences of commodification, medicalization, and systemic inequality within psychedelic spaces. Second, we explore the connections and potential synergies between somatics, psychedelics, and authenticity. How do psychedelics, when grounded in somatic practice, support an unmasking of the whole person, across multiple spectrums of personal and cultural experience? This dialogue addresses themes often absent from the mainstream discourse around psychedelics, centering embodiment and somatics as practice, philosophy, and liberatory strategy.

  • We are living through a trauma epidemic, both individually and collectively. Many people now conceptualize that they have trauma, but how do we heal and liberate ourselves and our communities? Often used separately, four therapeutic modalities for metabolizing trauma are psychedelic medicine, a trauma reprocessing technique called eye movement desensitization reprocessing (EMDR), parts work (derived from Internal Family Systems), and dance. In their chapter in Queering EMDR Therapy, “Loving Yourself and Community with the Help of EMDR, Parts Work, Psychedelics and Dance,” Cash describes how all four of these pillars of healing are inherently Queer and psychedelic. In this workshop, Cash will facilitate an experience that uses the four pillars in tandem, as siblings, to show how they can create a powerful healing container for trauma reprocessing. Participants will explore parts identification while being guided through EMDR techniques accompanied with dance movement which elicits a psychedelic altered state of consciousness. We must get creative as we tackle the multifaceted trauma we are facing today. Together we will call upon ancestral multidimensional restorative practices that stimulate non ordinary states to bring hope and wellness to the cosmos of our consciousness.

  • The intersection of Art Therapy and psychedelic treatment is innovative and multifaceted. Practitioners use imagination and free association to access the subconscious and process shadow material, while mindfulness and grounding techniques foster somatic awareness and integration. Creative methods include guided visualization, 2D and 3D artmaking, music, dance, drama, and play. This workshop will provide an introduction to the application of creative arts therapy in a psychedelic-assisted therapy setting. Participants will engage in a mindful, communal art-making exercise designed to invoke an altered yet grounded state that promotes inner peace and interpersonal trust.

  • Many of the spaces we occupy carry inherited systems, most never built with neurodivergent people in mind. This is not coincidental: Western systems, rooted in binary thinking, have long pushed neurodivergent people to the cultural margins, excluded from belonging, leadership, and access. These margins are not places of lack but of insight: Sacred Margins where unique ways of sensing, relating, and perceiving hold deep wisdom, revealing structural blind spots present in virtually every designed space. As awareness of neurodivergence and neurodiversity grows, practitioners are being invited to examine the default models they have inherited and design more intentionally. Grounded in neurodivergent-centered, disability-informed, and trauma-informed design, this workshop examines how any space, ceremonial, therapeutic, educational, or communal, can be redesigned from the Sacred Margins outward to support safety, regulation, ethical practice, and belonging across altered and everyday states. Attendees will leave with design questions, self-assessment tools, and concrete frameworks, not as accommodations, but as foundational architecture.

  • Art can function like a psychedelic: shifting perception, blurring boundaries, revealing connection. Spores in Your Mouth is a multimedia performance that enters non-ordinary states through spoken word and sound. Tony Martin performs an original piece tracing grief, healing, and encounters with the more-than-human world. David Franklin provides a live, improvisational soundscape that moves with the shared energy of the room. Followed by a conversation about the role of art and embodied experience in the psychedelic field and what it means to move through the world when the membrane between self and everything else has thinned.

Saturday, April 18th

To read the contents from each panel click on the title. The program will be complete soon.

TRACK 1

  • Interview with Kevin Feeney, author of Fly Agaric: A Compendium, on the oft misunderstood magic mushroom, Amanita muscaria. This interview-style presentation aims to demystify the fly agaric through discussions of a variety of topics, including the differences between Psilocybes and psychoactive Amanitas, the nature of the experience, microdosing and therapeutic applications. The discussion will also address contemporary topics such as the emergence of neo-ritual practices and ceremonies with Amanita muscaria as well as the use of the fly agaric as a tool for marketing psychoactive edibles, with unknown ingredients, as purportedly legal psychedelics.

  • This panel brings together diverse perspectives on how cultural, social, and political movements today are shaping the evergrowing psychedelic landscape, and vice versa. Panelists bring perspectives considering over 5 decades working in the psychedelic field, contemporary Indigenous healing practices, anthropological lenses, policy and legislation, class differences and social impacts. Panelists will consider questions such as: What is the role of embodiment in social movements, and more broadly where do we see our society moving as psychedelics become more mainstream? What are some reflections when it comes to the cultural and social impacts of psychedelics in contemporary society? What is often overlooked or misunderstood about the psychedelic movement by those new to psychedelics? What’s important for the psychedelic community to understand as more people become aware of and integrate psychedelics into their personal and communal practices? Together, this panel invites attendees to consider how psychedelic rituals can move beyond personal experience to inspire collective transformation in contemporary society.

  • In a landscape shaped by algorithms, censorship, and information overload, who gets to tell the psychedelic story and who gets heard? This panel explores storytelling as a site of power, from journalism and digital media to grassroots voices working at the margins of visibility. How are narratives about psychedelics produced, circulated, and constrained, and how do platforms reshape language, attention, and the future of the field itself? Bringing together writers and media makers, this conversation examines both the risks and possibilities of storytelling today and what it takes to shift narratives at scale.

  • As reflected in international agreements such as the Convention on Biological Diversity (1992), the Nagoya Protocol (2010), and the WIPO Treaty on Intellectual Property, Genetic Resources and Associated Traditional Knowledge (2024), sacred plants and Indigenous knowledge are increasingly recognized by states and international bodies as requiring legal and ethical protection. These frameworks highlight ongoing debates around benefit-sharing, free, prior, and informed consent, and the appropriation of Indigenous knowledge. For Indigenous movements related to ayahuasca, jurema, mushrooms, and other sacred medicines, intellectual property and the protection of Indigenous knowledge have become urgent political concerns. These debates extend beyond plants and fungi to include ceremonial practices, chants, symbols, designs, clothing, artistic expressions, music, and other forms of cultural heritage. This panel brings together Indigenous voices to examine the intersections of rights, spirituality, and art in relation to sacred plants and ancestral knowledge. It explores the challenges of cultural appropriation and the protection of Indigenous intellectual property within the plant medicine field, while also addressing tensions between market expansion and Indigenous resistance. Art is approached both as an expression of Indigenous cosmologies and as a strategy of cultural and political resistance. Panelists will share lived experiences of how art can strengthen identity, support economic autonomy, and revitalize Indigenous languages and traditions, with particular attention to the leadership of Indigenous women. By centering Indigenous art as a living site of resistance, memory, and exchange, this dialogue seeks to build collaborations grounded in equity, respect for sovereignty, and genuine co-creation between Indigenous peoples and non-Indigenous allies.

  • Tambores e Samba is an energetic and vibrant percussion group rooted in Brazilian tradition while embracing a diverse, inclusive spirit. Composed of professional percussionists, they perform lively live shows at street parties, private events, and Brazilian dance classes across the Bay Area. The group is inspired by the iconic Bloco Afro da Bahia, a prominent presence in Bahia’s carnival celebrations since the 1970s, and brings that cultural festivity to audiences today. Founded and led by Abel Damasceno from Salvador, Tambores e Samba uniquely blends Brazilian heritage with a multicultural flair, uniting people of all ages, ethnicities, and backgrounds. Their performances are dynamic, rhythmic, and captivating, as seen in their fantastic street show at the San Francisco Carnival.

TRACK 2

  • Weaving comedy, personal narrative, and cultural observation, The Plants Are Laughing is an evolving performance about psychedelic experience, mental health, and the tension between vulnerability and self-protection. Moving through fragmentation, integration, and the ongoing attempt to make sense of it all, Adam Strauss explores what happens when profound cosmic insight collides with the realization that you still have to pay rent. Michael Pollan has called Adam’s work “brilliant, hilarious and moving,” while The New York Times says he “mines a great deal of laughter from disabling pain.”

TRACK 3

  • Chacruna is happy to provide meet up session during the conference for various communities within the psychedelic field. These sessions will be hosted by leaders in the field who are a part of these communities, with the hope that these groups will provide: in-person networking, a more intimate discussion/conversation with experts in the field, sharing of resources in the psychedelic space for folks within this community, sharing of upcoming relevant projects for people to look out for, insights and advice for navigating the psychedelic field as someone in this community, a space to foster relationships that might help create new friendships and professional collaborations, and plant seeds that will blossom and change the future of this movement.

  • Ayahuasca Now is not just a film about healing: it is an immersion into the battlefield of the human mind. Following male and female veterans of Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan living with post-traumatic stress disorder, the documentary traces a journey from the aftermath of war to the depths of the Amazon rainforest, where a different kind of confrontation begins. Guided by shamans and ancestral ceremonies, participants enter states of consciousness that force them to relive, reinterpret, and ultimately confront the trauma they carry. Here, ayahuasca is presented not as a cure, but as a powerful catalyst, one that dissolves the boundaries between memory, identity, and emotion. Directed by Carlos Bruno Cejas and co-produced with Mario Stecher, the film avoids traditional narration, allowing the veterans' voices to guide a raw and intimate experience. Music by Oscar winner Gustavo Santaolalla deepens its sensory impact. We will also be joined by Brenda Russell and Jared Rinehart, the documentary’s protagonists, who will share their experience with the audience.

  • Join Co-Directors Denisse Mendez LMFT and Sabrina Sierra LMFT in an intimate conversation where they will discuss their current roles at Alchemy Community Therapy Center, a local non profit providing equitable ketamine assisted psychedelic therapy and continued education training in the Bay Area. Denisse and Sabrina will discuss Alchemy’s approach and theoretical orientations which are the foundations for Alchemy’s overall community engagement, as well as discuss setbacks and successes they have encountered since opening in 2019.

  • Not all mushrooms are equal, and the difference is not small. Through testing at the Church of Ambrosia, we have found a 1 to 80 variation in potency across samples of the same species. Meaning some mushrooms are 80 times stronger than others. A member receiving what looks like a standard dose may be getting a threshold experience or an overwhelming one. The mushrooms look the same. The weight is the same. The outcome is not. This is not a theoretical concern. It is a real challenge with real consequences for safety, ceremony, and member care. And it is solvable when you know what you are working with. This session walks through the work we have done at the Church of Ambrosia to address this problem. Dave Hodges, founder of the church and pastor to more than 137,000 members, presents the testing approach that revealed this variance, the dose calculation methodology developed in response, and how facilitators can apply that framework when potency data is available. The math is practical. The protocol is real-world tested. Attendees will leave with a working dose calculation model, a clear understanding of what a 1 to 80 potency variance means in practice, and a framework for translating test results into dosing decisions that are safer, more intentional, and grounded in what the sacrament actually contains.

  • The past decade has seen an explosion of interest in psychedelic medicines. While a medicalized approach to psychedelic healing centered on addressing individual problems has dominated that discourse, many of these medicines have been held within the ancestral wisdom traditions of the Global South for generations. Indigenous wisdom traditions broadly uphold the idea that our individual well being is rooted in relationality; we are all tied to the well being of the planet and linked to collective spiritual prosperity. Without uplifting the collective, we cannot thrive individually. Here in the West, many psychedelic users ask themselves how they can build a practice around psychedelic use that is rooted in respect, deep healing, and collective joy in the modern world. In this workshop, Quechaua Ayamara Indigenous Advocate and Just Transition Facilitator, Mitzy Clementina Bautista, and psychedelic therapist and author, Dee Dee Goldpaugh, will explore the limitations of integrating psychedelic medicines into a medical model and instead provide a blueprint for engagement with psychedelics that seeks to honor ancestral traditions while avoiding appropriation, relating to the Earth we are on to develop living rituals that honor the medicines we are using, and how to break the spell of self-obsession cultivated under capitalism to embrace the power of community healing. These two dynamic speakers will present ideas through shared dialogue, and then bring these principles to life offering a guided practice that will include music, movement, and ritual activation both from Andean ancestral traditions and modern ritual derived from Earth-based practice accessible to all people in this very moment. The audience will then be able to engage in dialogue with the speakers and each other to share our collective wisdom from our own experience and lineage.

  • It is not uncommon in psychedelic experiences for themes related to legacies of colonization, slavery and imperialism to arise. In this interactive workshop, facilitators will discuss how to address these ancestral legacies in a psychedelic context using an Internal Family Systems (IFS) approach. Through various activities such as drawing, writing and dyadic dialogue, participants will be invited to explore how legacies are showing up in their own lives. Participants should be prepared to share their experience both in small groups and the large group.

  • Dance music offers pathways into non-ordinary states through rhythm, repetition, and collective movement. Historically, dance music spaces have served as sites of liberation and sanctuary, particularly for queer communities and people of color, while fostering expression, connection, and cultural resistance. This experiential workshop invites participants to explore how movement and music can regulate the nervous system, support self-expression, and cultivate collective resilience. Through guided somatic practices and communal dance, participants will move from grounding and body awareness into shared celebration and identity-affirming expression. Rooted in the cultural and political history of dance spaces, this workshop highlights the power of collective movement as both personal practice and collective resistance.

Sunday, April 19th

To read the contents from each panel click on the title. The program will be complete soon.

To read the contents from each panel, click on the title.

TRACK 1

  • Who counts as an elder in the psychedelic space and who decides? This panel brings together women who have lived and shaped psychedelic worlds across decades to reflect on aging, lineage, and authority in a rapidly evolving cultural landscape. What does it mean to become an elder and what responsibilities do newer generations hold toward those who came before? Centering the often overlooked role of women in carrying and transmitting psychedelic knowledge, this conversation explores how plant medicines support the ongoing evolution of wisdom, identity, and legacy.

  • As demand for plant medicines grows, so do the ecological and ethical stakes of extraction. This panel asks what healing means if it comes at the expense of the Earth, examining the environmental impact of the psychedelic industry alongside Indigenous approaches to restoration. What is biocultural repair and how does it challenge dominant models of care and sustainability? Bringing together perspectives on land, memory, and resilience, this conversation invites a deeper reflection on how relationships with plants, ecosystems, and cultural knowledge can be restored and sustained.

  • What happens after the ceremony ends and how do personal insights translate into collective change? This panel explores how psychedelic experiences can inform activism, community building, and everyday forms of engagement. How can practices rooted in specific cultural and ecological contexts find respectful continuity in urban environments, and what does it mean to carry these teachings into social and political life? Drawing on diverse traditions and grassroots initiatives, this conversation considers how psychedelics can support not only individual healing but new ways of showing up for each other and for the communities we are part of.

TRACK 2

  • This panel brings together distinct yet intersecting perspectives on the history and future of peyote ceremonies in North America, grounded in both lived experience and critical engagement with the archive. Historian Erika Dyck traces peyote use in Canada through records that privilege police and state narratives, while Reanna Daniels, a Cree educator who married into a family of peyote ceremonialists, reflects on how these ceremonies are lived, transmitted, and interpreted within and beyond Indigenous communities. Kelly Daniels, a Cree Elder born into the Native American Church and former President of NAC (Canada), brings decades of ceremonial experience, offering insight into the significance of peyote practices and the pilgrimages that sustain them far beyond their natural growing regions. Together, they explore how peyote ceremonies moved across borders into the Canadian plains and beyond, while interrogating the uneven terrain of historical knowledge shaped by colonial archives. It foregrounds the role of Indigenous knowledge keepers in rebalancing these narratives and situates peyote practices within ongoing struggles over sovereignty, cultural continuity, and rights. At the same time, the discussion engages the tensions between Indigenous ceremonial life and the growing biomedical and scientific fascination with these ritualized settings, asking what is at stake as peyote circulates across cultural, political, and epistemic boundaries.

TRACK 3

  • Rita Sales Kaxinawá, Huni Kuin, is a researcher of the knowledge and traditions of the Huni Kuin people, and is politically engaged in the movement. Rita has a BA in letters, is a musician of traditional Huni Kuin songs, and is an artist (especially painting, traditional jewelry, and fabric making). In this workshop, Rita will discuss these different methods of art making, and their significance in Huni Kuin culture, with an experiential opportunity for participants to practice making art of their own and have an experiential contact with Huni Kuin's knowledges and cosmology.

  • This breakout session will include a Q+A discussion with Maestras Laura and Edelin, Shipibo healers born into a family of female leaders, accompanied by their non-Indigenous allies and supporters Jessica and Karina. These maestras will share their journeys of answering the calling required to walk the path of an onanya, a path that is learned through years of dieta, discipline and encounter with plant spirits. They'll speak to the significant transformation that began sixty years ago, when Shipibo women started doing plant dietas and working with oni (ayahuasca), learning to integrate their bodies' natural cycles with the demands of plant medicine work. This is an unique offering co-designed by Chacruna, the maestras, and their team, trying to bring other forms of knowledge and relationship to teach the psychedelic movement to honor and protect sacred plants and cultural traditions, while also trying to maintain and sustain the seed of personal and collective transformation.

  • The game "Huni Kuin: Beya Xinã Bena (New Times)" is being developed in collaboration with members of the Huni Kuin people. Its plot deals with climate change and how it is affecting life in the villages. In the game, seven ancient stories are told by the shaman to a young man, who seeks to find a solution to the problems faced today using ancestral knowledge. In this section, we will explore how the game was made, its collaborative methodology, its challenges, and its innovation in addressing medicinal plants using new technologies and interactive audiovisual media. The game will be released in the first half of 2026.

  • What happens after the ceremony ends and how do personal insights translate into collective change? This panel explores how psychedelic experiences can inform activism, community building, and everyday forms of engagement. How can practices rooted in specific cultural and ecological contexts find respectful continuity in urban environments, and what does it mean to carry these teachings into social and political life? Drawing on diverse traditions and grassroots initiatives, this conversation considers how psychedelics can support not only individual healing but new ways of showing up for each other and for the communities we are part of.

  • As ways to alter one’s state of being, psychedelics and dance have much in common. In certain cultural contexts, they even go hand in hand. So why do we rarely hear about dance and physical movement in the field of psychedelic science? Corporeal and kinesthetic engagement is commonly de-emphasized in work with psychedelics in favor of stillness, perpetuating long-held values of mind over body. However dance and movement-based therapeutic modalities can be a way to contemplate, reflect, engage in inner dialogue, actuate healing, and effect lasting change. While the stillness of meditation and “going inwards” is one potent way to engage with the psychedelic experience, it can be argued that dance, somatic therapies, movement-based practices and forms of energy work can be just as effective. Often, these are incredibly potent tools for helping the ego surrender so that deep expressions of healing can be accessed via the body. Engaging with one’s corporeal experience catalyzes physical and emotional release, often reprocessing stored trauma in the body and nervous system. Moreover, in certain contexts from ayahuasca religions such as Santo Daime to rave culture, dance creates relational healing through communion with self and others through shared expressions that can be both purgative and joyous. In this workshop, interdisciplinary critical dance studies scholar, Ana Flecha, and Somatic Energy Worker, Certified Psychedelic Facilitator and DJ Taylor Bratches give continuity to their participation in the MAPS Psychedelic Science conference reflecting on highlights from the panel “Between Ecstasy and Escapism: Raving as a Contemporary Ritual” and sharing thoughts on their work with dance and somatic processes in relation to psychedelics. Ana and Taylor focus their dialogue on ways they have each found movement to be a kinesthetic catalyst for multidimensional realms of healing, and a bridge of accessibility for integrating these experiences into daily life. In the spirit of the experiential, they will also guide the audience into a short movement-based meditation practice.