Last Updated: February 13, 2023

By: DanceSafe Staff

It’s mid-August meaning it’s that time of year again when you thought you had finally removed most of the playa dust from around your home only to realize it’s crunch time to prepare for another journey of radical self-reliance! While you are contemplating your decision-making and working to convince yourself it’ll all be worth it (as it always is), don’t forget to add the list of talks below (all featuring our Executive Director, Mitchell Gomez) to your “reasons why I’m stoked to attend Burning Man 2018” list. If it’s your first time, be excited, be prepared (nobody likes a sparkle pony), and stop by one of the many talks below to make sure you’re on track to have a safe, happy, healthy and consensual time at Burning Man!

Building a Consent Culture at the Burn and Beyond
Date and Time: Monday, August 27th at 4:00 PM
Location: B.E.D. Bureau of Erotic Discourse

What is consent culture? What is rape culture? How do we build a community (and a world) that understands these issues?

Join Mitchell Gomez from DanceSafe, Sol from the Black Rock City Bureau of Erotic Discourse and Presley Peach from ConSensual Circus for an interactive conversation on consent at the burn and beyond.

Sol is a member of BED’s leadership team, who specializes in developing materials and trainings, and co-facilitates specialty workshops. Their free-time in default includes community organizing around sexual assault prevention, intersectionality, development of accountability and restorative justice processes, sex education with an emphasis on queer and trans communities, and sex worker advocacy. The Black Rock City Bureau of Erotic Discourse (BED) is a team of volunteers who gather each year at Burning Man to provide information and education regarding sexual assault prevention and consent on the playa. BED offers a consent playshop throughout the week for all burners to find fun tips and tricks to improving their consent and communication practices. BED also offers Safe Camp Certifications for camps to learn how to minimize boundary crossings and sexual assaults within their camps.

Presley Peach is a performance artist and sex worker who uses their experience in both fields to create sexual education that is fun, non-threatening, and informative. Presley believes that American sex culture is broken and that sex is also a core human need and therefore, a very important aspect that needs healing. Presley has been a performer for over 8 years and a sex worker for 4 years. Most notable is their project ConSensual Circus based out of Denver Colorado. This project combines sexual education with circus and uses that platform to talk about sex in local communities.

‘The Talk’ – A harm-reduction focused speech for older teens and their parents about health, safety and substance use
Date and Time: Tuesday, August 28th 2:30 PM
Location: Kidsville

Having that first talk about substance use is never easy, but we can make it easier! Join Mitchell Gomez from DanceSafe (with your older teen or without) for a talk that emphasizes harm reduction, rational and factual information, and healthy decision-making. Abstinence-only drug education programs like D.A.R.E. have been shown to statistically increase “hard” drug use in those who go through them, but there is a better way. It’s never too early for the talk! Located in the center of Kidsville (bring an extra chair or two!).

5-MEO-OH MY GOD
Date and Time: Tuesday, August 28th from 6:30 – 8:00 PM
Location: Palenque Norte (At Camp Soft Landing)

5-MeO-DMT (5-methoxy-N,N-dimethyltryptamine) is a psychedelic tryptamine found in a wide variety of plant species, and a single psychoactive toad species, the Colorado River toad (Incilius alvarius). First synthesized in 1936, 5-MEO-DMT has been used in ritualistic snuffs in Central and South America for thousands of years, and the use of psychoactive toad venom was almost certainly known to ancient Pre-Columbian cultures. Although outlawed in the United States in January of 2011, the use of 5-MEO-DMT continues to rise throughout the world, in both religious and ‘recreational’ contexts. Although often described as ‘literally indescribable,’ we have gathered a panel of experts to try to break down what this experience is, both subjectively and from a neuropharmacological perspective, and what it might mean. We will also discuss the emerging ‘best practices’ for facilitators and users to be as safe as possible when engaging with this substance.

Included in this panel are some of the world’s leading experts, authors and poets who discuss these issues, including:

Ashley Booth – Ashley Booth was previously employed as an oceanographer at Stanford, UCLA, and the City if LA before switching gears, as a direct result of a 5-MeO-DMT experience, to dedicating herself to legitimizing psychedelics as medicines. Three and a half years ago, she founded a Los Angeles-based psychedelic society, the Aware Project and co-founded InnerSpace Integration. She worked for a year and a half at the Crossroads Treatment Center in Mexico as a psycho-spiritual retreat leader with ibogaine and 5-MeO-DMT before it’s closing in 2017. Currently, she is earning her second masters degree, this time in social work, and working as the study coordinator for the MAPS-sponsored clinical trial of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for the treatment of PTSD, on her way to becoming one of the first legal psychedelic therapists.

Sebastian Job, PhD, is Honorary Associate in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Sydney and Visiting Lecturer at the National Institute of Dramatic Art, where for the past five years he has taught in the Writing Masters program with an emphasis politics, philosophy, and psychoanalysis. His PhD analysed the motivations of Russian racist nationalists, and he has also conducted research with the Aztec revivalist danzantes of Mexico City. His focus in recent years has centered on the entheogenic uses of psychoactive substances both in Australia and Latin America, with a particular interest in the environmental, political and philosophical significance of the cultures of use of these substances.

Rafael Lancelotta – Rafael is the founder and administrator of 5meodmt.org (aka, the 5Hive), a graduate from the University of Wyoming with a masters in Mental Health Counseling, and a therapist at a cannabis and ketamine assisted therapy clinic. He is also a published author on multiple papers looking at the therapeutic and healing potential of 5-MEO-DMT.

James Oroc – James is the author of Tryptamine Palace (the first published book about 5-MeO-DMT) and The New Psychedelic Revolution, is regarded as one of the leading entheogenic philosophers of his generation.

The Teafaerie – Teafaerie writes stories, poems, movies, plays and essays, makes videos, organizes flash mobs, and is a frequent writer for Erowid. She is also the author of the widely popular 5-MEO-DMT poem entitled ‘Mapping the Source’.

Moderated by Mitchell Gomez, Executive Director of DanceSafe.

Harm Reduction Principles and Practices – The evolving guidelines to helping everyone get home.
Date and Time: Wednesday, August 29th at 1:00 PM
Location: EntheosRising

Do you worry about the rise of misrepresentation in recreational drug markets and the subsequent increase in adverse medical incidents? Are you the ‘rave mom or dad’ of your group always helping out those having a difficult night? Do you throw a festival (or want to) and worry about how to keep everyone safe? Join Mitchell Gomez from DanceSafe, Sara Gael from Zendo and Meagen Coral from Harmonia in an open and honest discussion about the emerging ‘best practices’ in harm reduction.

Everything you’ve always wanted to know about microdosing, but didn’t know who to ask
Date and Time: Wednesday, August 29th at 4:30 PM
Location: Pink Heart

What is microdosing? Why are stories talking about it showing up all over your feed? What are the risks and perceived rewards? Where did this whole thing start?? Come by Pink Heart to hear Mitchell Gomez from DanceSafe talk about Microdosing 101, with a Q&A to answer all of your questions afterward!

Harm Reduction 101
Date and Time: Wednesday, August 29th at 7:00 PM
Location: Radio Interview on KPPR (get frequency)

Tune in for an interview with Mitchell Gomez, Executive Director of DanceSafe, about harm-reduction, drug policy and cognitive liberty! KPPR, broadcasting live on 103.3 to a porta-potty near you (or any other radio you happen to have)!!

The Principles Beyond the Playa – Running a Non-Profit like a Burner
Date and Time: Friday, August 31st at 1:00 PM
Location: Burners Without Borders

What is this thing we’re doing in the dust? How does it apply to the default world? How can we take the lessons we learn here and use them to make the world a better place? Three Executive Directors of non-profits, who are all long-time burners, give their thoughts at this incredible talk. Join Christopher Breedlove from Burners Without Borders, Rick Doblin from the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies and Mitchell Gomez from DanceSafe to discuss the 10 principles, and how they apply to non-profit management in the default world.