District216 "Death & Psychedelics" Marquee Event

🌈 District216 Presents:
Death & Psychedelics

✨ A Marquee Evening of Healing, Exploration, and Connection ✨
🗓️ Saturday, September 27, 2025 | 5–10PM | LoDo Studios, Santa Barbara, CA

🔥 A ONE-OF-A-KIND NIGHT AWAITS 🔥 

Join us for an unforgettable experience at District216’s next Marquee Event—an exclusive gathering at the crossroads of Death and Psychedelic Exploration.

🌟🌟 Explore, Expand, and Elevate — whether you’re a seasoned psychonaut, a wellness seeker, or simply curious, this evening is designed to inspire, educate, and ignite your journey.
🧠✨ All experience levels welcome — from curious first-timers to seasoned psychonauts.
💜🚫 Sober community welcome — we welcome those who abstain. And this is an alcohol-free event.

💃🕺 Dress Code — come vibrantly, come festive! We love bold colors, playful 'fits, and expressive style. 🌙 Evenings can get cool, so bring a cozy layer for the outdoor music vibes.

🚀🚀 Space is limited — purchase tickets today and step into the future of healing!

🎟️ ALL-INCLUSIVE TICKETS 🎟️

🌟 Expect an Immersive Journey Featuring: 🌟

• 🎤 Fireside Chats & 🎤 Discussion Panels with visionary leaders

• 🎵 Live Music and 📽️ Visual Performances

• 🌀 Interactive Workshops and 🧗‍♀️ Experiential Activations

• 🛋️ Rooftop Terpene Lounge & ✨ Curated Vendor Marketplace

• 🥘 Dinner by Blue Owl & 🍹 Functional Elixirs

🎟️ RUN OF SHOW + EXPERIENCES 🎟️

🎵 OPENING CHANT (6:15PM):

• Jon Vasu Seskevich - Spiritual Seeker, Healer, Retired RN, BSN, BA

🔥 FIRESIDE CHAT: "The Art of Good Endings: Apprenticing with Everyday Death"

• Jaclyn Vouthouris - Facilitator & Medicine Woman

• Jacob Tell - Chief Dreamer, District216 / Founder, LoDo Studios / CEO, Oniracom

🔥 FIRESIDE CHAT: "Sacred Passage: Psychedelics as Guides Through Death and Dying"

• Jacqueline Lopez - Visual Artist, Teacher, EntheoMedicine, Founder

• Amy Slonaker - Adjunct Professor / Independent Scholar, Survivorship Collective, Board Member

🗣️ DISCUSSION PANEL: "Death & Psychedelics"

• Jon Vasu Seskevich - Spiritual Seeker, Healer, Retired RN, BSN, BA

• Christine Caldwell - Founder/Executive Director, End of Life Psychedelic Care

• Mary Telliano - Death Doula / Founder of The Anam Cara Academy

• Moderated by Kat Walsh - Founder, Trip On This

🎵 LIVE MUSIC (8:00PM): 

• DJ Megi

• Kat's Meow (Kat Walsh) 

• Visuals by Michael Strauss

꩜ WORKSHOPS (8:00PM):

• "Collaborating with Everyday Death" by Jaclyn Vouthouris

🥘 DINNER: Blue Owl (5:15PM)

🧉 ELIXIRS: Functional, Non-Alcoholic Elixirs & Enlightening Beverages

🛋️ TERPENE LOUNGE: Enjoy Top Shelf products in our Rooftop Terpene Lounge

🏷️ VENDORS: Health, Wellness, Healing & Conscious Products & Services 

🌀 IMMERSIVE EXPERIENCES:

• Lily Sky Face Painting

• Fire Spinning by Elemental Arts

• Massage by Dream Bear Healing

• Elixirs by Tom

🌈 VISUAL EXPERIENCES: 

• Projections by UDOTAI

• Visuals by Michael Strauss 

• Experience Curation by Decelorator Lightsmith Visual

• Visual Alchemy by Altarbeast

💥 COST + WHEN + WHERE 💥

🌟🌟🌟 MARQUEE MEMBERS: Free Admission! (Become A Member Today)

🌟🌟 TDH + ONLINE MEMBERS: Discounted Tickets

🎟️ GUESTS WELCOME: We welcome guests to purchase NEWLY DISCOUNTED tickets!

• $89 Early Bird Ticket (Til August 15)

• $109 Mid Bird Ticket (August 16 - September 26)

• $139 Day Of Ticket (September 27)

🎉 (Note: Pricing has been reduced from 2024 prices!)

🗓️ WHEN: Saturday, September 27 | 5:00pm–10:00pm

🕰️ EVENT TIMELINE:

• Doors: 5:00pm

• Dinner & Vendors: 5:15pm

• Speakers: 6:15pm

• Music: 8:00pm

• Workshops: 8:00pm

• Wind Down: 10:00pm

📍 WHERE: LoDo Studios — 216 E. Gutierrez St, Santa Barbara, CA

🚗 PARKING: Available across the street (OfficeMax Parking Only, NO Smart & Final Parking!)

🎵 OPENING CHANT 🎵

Jon Vasu Seskevich - Chanting, Kirtan and Mind-Body-Spirit medicine speaker and recording artist, friend of Ram Dass from the East Coast and now living in Ojai. If you would like more information: https://jonvasu.com/about/

🎤 SPEAKER BIOS - FIRESIDE CHAT #1 🎤

Jaclyn Vouthouris - A modern medicine woman with an MBA from MIT, bridging the sacred and secular. She believes that when revolutionary leaders create from expansive, embodied intelligence, the whole ecosystem thrives alongside them. After working in VC in New York helping early-stage companies build scalable operations, Jaclyn trained in Earth-based ritual and ceremony to midwife leaders through death and rebirth portals. Her work focuses on guiding paradigm-shifting leaders and builders across major life thresholds and facilitating conflict alchemy with leadership teams.

Jacob Tell - Jacob Tell's journey from being a D.A.R.E. kid to the visionary behind District216, a psychedelic social club, is a testament to the transformative power of psychedelics and communal connection. His epiphany led him to embrace the Jungian concept of ego dissolution, recognizing the profound potential for personal and societal transformation inherent in psychedelic experiences. District216, Jacob's brainchild, is more than just a social club; it's a hub for community, information, and advocacy, aiming to normalize and legalize psychedelic use in daily life. Jacob facilitates scholarly yet joyous discussions, challenging societal norms and advocating for cognitive liberty.

🎤 SPEAKER BIOS - FIRESIDE CHAT #2 🎤

Amy Slonaker JD, Ph.D - Amy is currently enjoying her second career as an independent scholar of religion and mystical experience, working as an adjunct professor, speaker and writer. In a previous life she spent 20+ years working as an attorney in the areas of criminal defense and securities litigation in San Francisco and New York City. In 2017, while working as an attorney on Wall Street, Amy was diagnosed with Stage 4 metastatic breast to bone cancer and told she had two years to live. In response, Amy stepped away from her law career and focused on healing herself through a variety of modalities including psychedelic medicine. Amy counts her engagement with psychedelics as a major source of resilience for her continued struggle with metastatic cancer.

Jacqueline Lopez - A former CPA-turned-artist and founder of EntheoMedicine. For her, creating is a daily necessity—a layered, evolving journey of self-discovery, stemming from shamanic journeys that deconstructed her identity—a result of spiritual inquiry that pulled apart the local space-time and Self with it. A multidisciplinary artist whose works include acrylics, masks, fashion, and altar designs. The themes unpack her spiritual lineage through works that reclaim ancestral memory and hold space for reverence for her Hispanic-Portuguese and Guarani tribe cosmology. The altar installations honor those who walked before her, who carried and sustained ritual from her ancestors, and her grandfather, who practiced folk medicine. Her roots are embedded in the study of alchemy and deepen her mother's tradition of using dreams and visions to inspire her artwork. She shared the following statement: "I see the energy emanating from my altar as my kin, my friends, the ones that are rooting for me and that I go to when I'm either having a hard day or celebrating a win."

🗣️ SPEAKER BIOS - DISCUSSION PANEL 🗣️

Christine Caldwell - Founder, End of Life Psychedelic Care, a nonprofit based on the principle that safe and supported psychedelic care can help transform the death and dying journey. She is the Co-Chair for the Dying Well Initiative, a part of the Global Wellness Institute and a graduate of the 12-month Psychedelics Today Vital Therapies and Integration Program. Christine is a former Silicon Valley marketing executive as well as the former owner of a Sarasota-based 250-client home health care agency. She is a frequent speaker at psychedelic and end of life related conferences, in addition to leading many of the EOLPC online workshops and podcast appearances. Some examples of her speaking engagements include: Aging Life Care Association 2025 Conference; Final Passages Monthly Series; Florida Conference on Aging; Wonderland; PsyCon; University of South Florida Palliative and Hospice Care Center; Association for Death Education and Counseling. She also is a guest lecturer at Psychedelic Today Vital Program and Changa Institute. As an advocate for the safe and affordable use of psychedelics for end of life, she continues to engage at both the federal and state levels.

Mary Telliano - Mary's passion for end of life care began at the age of 12, where she would volunteer her summers to being of service in care facilities for the elderly. It was here that many seeds were planted, sprouting her fascination with the end of life process. With an inherent ability to see beyond the veil, Mary has been developing her intuitive skills since the age of five. The calling to become a death doula came with the passing of her grandfather, where she found herself effortlessly slipping into a state of service. Comforting him, loving him, and guiding him encouragingly as he made his way towards the light. It was as if the series of events through which life had taken her, had been a sort of training for this all along. Mary quickly dove in with both feet, becoming a certified death doula, and soon after, volunteering her time in hospice. In her experience, she has come to see the process of death and dying in new, and different ways. Mary has a mission; to rebrand death. Through training other death doulas, to education on grief, as well as The Anam Cara Podcast, Mary is midwifing the rebirth of dying well. In order to rebrand death we must first normalize it. Mary is connecting people to the universe that resides within them, and serving as a reminder that death is here, it is something we get to experience and it is ready to be carried in a new light.

Jon Vasu Seskevich - Jon is a lifelong student of meditation, Bhakti Yoga, and practitioner of mind-body medicine, nursing and healing. He has been an RN, a non-profit director, lecturer, problem solver, teacher, and musician. Through it all he has been devoted to helping people skillfully navigate the sufferings and joys of life, right up to their last breath, as well as helping nurses, doctors, health care professionals, and peacemakers deliver more compassionate care to patients, families and communities. He has won numerous nursing awards, (Great 100 in NC) (UNC School of Nursing Alumnus of the Year). He has seen over 40,000 hospital patients in a no charge consultation service. From 1990-2018 this trailblazer served as a nurse clinician at one of the country’s foremost academic medical centers Duke University Hospital. There he specialized in teaching the mind-body healing, stress reduction and non pharmacological adjunctive pain management approaches. He worked throughout the Medical Center with patients having complex and challenging health conditions and also served as a resource for hospital staff dealing with the challenges inherent in the changing health care system. In 1996, Duke Nursing leadership requested Ram Dass (Richard Alpert, Ph.D.) to write a recommendation letter for the nomination Duke Hospital was submitting for Jon to win the Norman Cousin’s Mind Body Medicine award. The winner that year expanded health care for poor people in Mississippi.

Kat Walsh (Moderator) - Kat Walsh is a multitalented show host, inspirational speaker, thought leader and founder of the popular psychedelic platform Trip On This. Featured in prominent publications like Forbes, Kat creates an accessible bridge for those new to their psychedelic and spiritual path. Prior to launching Trip On This in December 2020, Walsh worked behind the scenes in the entertainment industry working with talent at Creative Artist Agency (CAA), developing series as Director of Development at Edyson Entertainment, and overseeing major marketing campaigns for BMW, HBO, and Freeform. While life looked glamorous on the outside, it often felt like a monotony of routine and endless stress. It wasn't until psychedelics entered the picture did life transform from the ordinary to the extraordinary. Kat has now dedicated her life to helping others uncover their own power and potential.An avid lover of electronic music, Kat also began DJing in 2020 with the intention of creating an atmosphere of joy, love and self-expression. She plays a range of music from house to disco leaving everywhere she goes buzzing with good vibes.

🎨 ARTIST BIOS - PERFORMANCES 🎨

DJ Megi (Performer) - Hi, I'm Megi. Born in Detroit, shaped by West Coast rhythms—I’m a DJ, dancer, and creative soul fueled by music, movement, and the magic of community. From ‘90s San Francisco raves to sun-soaked Santa Barbara beach dances to international poetry slams, I’ve seen how beats, bodies, and bold expression can bring people together. Dance isn't just movement—it’s how we connect, celebrate, and create something bigger than ourselves. My sets blend juicy beats with playful energy, reading the room and turning it into a shared experience. Expect rhythm, surprises, and that spark that keeps the vibe alive long after the music fades.

Kat's Meow (Performer) - Kat Walsh is the Creator & Host of Trip On This podcast. An avid lover of electronic music, her intention with every set is to create an atmosphere of joy, love and self-expression. Kat plays a range of music from deep house to disco that will leave you grooving on the dance floor.

Michael Strauss (Performer) - A visionary VJ, digital artist, and event producer from Los Angeles,California, who has been crafting mesmerizing psychedelic audiovisual experiences and immersive environments for nearly two decades. His stunning visuals have brought life to countless events, enhancing the performances of numerous artists and transforming reality through technology and creativity. Michael's work is renowned for its ability to open hearts, lift spirits, and blow minds. Throughout his career, Michael has collaborated with a diverse array of top electronic music producers, DJs, and live bands, including notable names such as The Crystal Method, Paul Oakenfold, DJ Z-Trip, Infected Mushroom, and Dirtwire. His visuals have graced the stages of various arts and music festivals, such as Burning Man, Lightning in a Bottle, and Symbiosis, as well as iconic venues like the Orpheum Theater, House of Blues, and the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. Michael's innovative work has led to collaborations with psychedelic legends like Alex Grey and Shpongle. In 2018, he was chosen as the official VJ for the Bicycle Day 75th Anniversary Tour, where he remixed Alex Grey's art. He also curated the "Augmented Visions" exhibition at Grey's Chapel of Sacred Mirrors museum in 2019.

🧿 FACILITATOR BIOS - WORKSHOP 🧿

Workshop: "Collaborating with Everyday Death" - An experiential deepening of the Art of Good Endings fireside chat, where you'll practice reframing and finding agency to co-create with a "death" already present in your life and unlock its transformational potential.

Facilitator: Jaclyn Vouthouris

🧠  BECOME A DISTRICT216 MEMBER TODAY 🧠

Find a Membership Plan that suits your needs: https://app.district216.com