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Wednesday, April 19 • 8:00am - 5:00pm
Conscious City Conference

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Healing the individual; healing the collective -- tomorrow’s Charlottesville starts with each of our journeys.

As our opening track, this conference takes us on an intellectual and an experiential journey through healing. We all experience suffering in our lives – physical ailments, mental stress, emotional pain, societal pressures – and it’s up to us to decide how we handle it. The process of understanding, accepting, forgiving, and ultimately healing ourselves is a lifelong journey. How can you experience wholeness and happiness on an ongoing basis?

We explore a variety of proven ways we can heal ourselves and increase our awareness and happiness -- from meditation and mindfulness to plant medicines (inc. psychedelics) and guided practices such as counseling, yoga, energy healing, hypnosis, and more. Along the way, we will explore ideas about what is meant by “consciousness,” whether any part of your consciousness might survive death, how to bring more awareness to all parts of your life, and how you can meaningfully increase joy and fulfillment in your day-to-day activities and truly flourish.

Note: This conference is a ticketed event. To create your event schedule here on Sched you must first purchase your tickets on Eventbrite. Click here to purchase your ticket. (All Tickets are Pay-What-You-Can)

Speakers
avatar for Freddy Jackson

Freddy Jackson

CPP: Sunrise Meditation w. Freddy Jackson, LoveNoEgo
Freddy is an inspirational and transformational speaker, mentor, personal trainer, educator, author, and founder of The Love No Ego Foundation, located in Charlottesville, Virginia. Freddy's  Love...No Ego philosophy serves as the foundation for pushing the human spirit into greatness... Read More →
avatar for Kate Byrne

Kate Byrne

Chief Growth Officer & Podcast Host, Good Light Capital
Kate Byrne is the Chief Growth Officer at Goodlight Capital and Advisor to PlusMedia Solutions and Emerge, as well as the podcast host for MediaVillage's WomenAdvancing.org, Rebels with a Purpose and African Tech Conversations.  A leader in digital media and social impact for over... Read More →
avatar for Martize Tolbert

Martize Tolbert

National Director of Client and Community Engagement, Fountainfund
In his role as National Director of Client and Community Engagement, Martize is providing leadership in our expansion to new Fountain Fund communities. Working with our staff and community partners across the nation, Martize ensures that Fountain Fund programming and implementation... Read More →
avatar for Ravi Respeto

Ravi Respeto

President and CEO, United Way of Greater Charlottesville
Ravi Respeto joined United Way of Greater of Charlottesville in July 2018 as President and CEO. Her career in nonprofit leadership started as Campaign Manager for Charlottesville Waldorf School with a $3 million-dollar campaign to build an environmentally sustainable school. Her commitment... Read More →
avatar for Alex Patterson

Alex Patterson

President, Ambiwasi
Born and raised in Charlottesville, Alex became an unshakable advocate for the legal and sacred use of Plant Medicines after a transformative experience a decade ago.  Today, he is the President of Ambiwasi (House of Healing), a nonprofit organization headquartered in Charlottesville... Read More →
avatar for Adam Healey

Adam Healey

Founder & CEO, Novela Company Inc.
Adam Healey is an Internet entrepreneur, angel investor, and startup mentor. His current startup Novela is creating the first transactional marketplace for the wedding industry. Adam is a graduate of Darden Business School and the McIntire School of Commerce, both at UVA. He is an... Read More →
avatar for Kwasi Adusei, DNP, PMHNP-BC

Kwasi Adusei, DNP, PMHNP-BC

Senior Prescriber and Clinical Liaison, Journey Clinical
Dr. Kwasi Adusei is a service-oriented, curious Ghanaian native passionate about the intersections of community, well-being, and technology. He has a vision for a future driven by inner and outer restoration and how they converge to alter the maladaptive systems of our current world.As... Read More →
avatar for Sam Heath

Sam Heath

Manager, EJUSA Evangelical Network
Sam leads EJUSA’s engagement with evangelical people and spaces. His faith background in Southern Baptist, Presbyterian, and now Anglican denominations enables him to tell stories about the realities of justice and injustice in America and hold together a view of the world as a... Read More →
avatar for Alicia Lenahan

Alicia Lenahan

Executive Director, Common Ground Healing Arts
Alicia joined Common Ground in August 2022. This has been a drastic and delightful departure from her earlier roles. Common Ground's mission is predicated on generosity. Our goal is to serve everyone who walks through the door, regardless of their ability to pay. No one's journey... Read More →
avatar for Polina Mischenko

Polina Mischenko

Founder / Mindfulness, Movement & Meditation Facilitator, Castle Hill Collective
Dr. Polina Mischenko is passionate about cultivating appreciation for the interdependence of all beings as a way of promoting inner peace and collective well-being. In the past eight years she has lived her dream researching, developing, directing, and facilitating mindfulness and... Read More →
avatar for Mary Coleman

Mary Coleman

Executive Director, City of Promise
Mary Coleman is executive director at City of Promise, a Charlottesville nonprofit that seeks to end generational poverty through education. Raised in the Lutheran Church, Mary was introduced to conservative evangelicalism and the charismatic movement at the age of 19. After 20 years... Read More →
avatar for Eddie Howard

Eddie Howard

Executive Director, Abundant Life Ministries
Eddie Howard joined as Executive Director in fall 2021, after serving on staff for eight years in the early 2000’s. Eddie grew up in the Prospect neighborhood, Abundant Life’s focus for ministry and served on staff building deep relationships in the community and helping to launch... Read More →
avatar for Paul Beyer

Paul Beyer

Executive Director, Tom Tom Foundation
My professional interests and passions are around community building; with a specific focus on my hometown of Charlottesville, VA. I love the instigators, entrepreneurs, artists, activists, and healers who are filled with civic purpose and desire to create communities of friendship... Read More →
avatar for Christopher Murray

Christopher Murray

Founding Director, Panorama Natural Burial
Rarely does one stumble on work that feeds body, mind, and spirit. Christopher Murray has been incredibly fortunate that Panorama Natural Burial has become one of those vocations.  Having buried three family members at the 200-year-old cemetery on Panorama Farms, he saw how leveraging... Read More →
avatar for Stephanie Bonney

Stephanie Bonney

General Manager, Panorama Natural Burial
Stephanie Bonney was born and raised in New England. She has a degree in psychology from Salem College in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Having always had an interest in deathcare, Stephanie went back to school briefly for mortuary science and apprenticed at a funeral home in Vermont... Read More →
avatar for Yolonda Jones

Yolonda Jones

Founder and Facilitator, The RESTORE Project
Yolonda Coles Jones, also known as "The Calm & Thrive Coach", is an international Healing, Wellness & Empowerment-Centered Coach and Consultant who specializes in teaching home, community and business leaders to deepen into attentive connection with themselves and with those around... Read More →
avatar for Greg Gelburd

Greg Gelburd

Physician & Founder, Greg Gelburd Foundation
Retired family physician founder of Downtown Family Health Care, previously worked in Eastern NC, in Bertie County, previously masters in public health.Besides family medicine, he has taught UVA medical students for thirty years and has been a part of many boards and foundations... Read More →
avatar for Dr. Kim Penberthy

Dr. Kim Penberthy

Professor of Psychiatry and Neurobehavioral Sciences, UVA School of Medicine
Jennifer “Kim” Penberthy, Ph.D., ABPP is the Chester F. Carlson Professor of Psychiatry and Neurobehavioral Sciences at the University of Virginia School of Medicine, where she conducts research, teaches, and provides clinical care. She is a Board Certified licensed clinical psychologist... Read More →
avatar for Monica Rao

Monica Rao

Transformative (Intuitive) Energy healer & Transformational Spiritual mentor
Monica Rao, MSA has been a passionate meditator for more than twenty years, originally trained in Mumbai, India. Grew up in a family of artists and world-renowned musicians. Learned the art of meditation in her teens. Earned a Bachelor’s of Art with a focus in Graphic design and... Read More →
avatar for Patrick Belisle

Patrick Belisle

Advisory Board Member for UVA’s Division of Perceptual Studies | Fundraising Consultant | Wedding Celebrant
Patrick Belisle is a practical mystic; a nonprofit executive, teacher, and world traveler. He studied business and theology with Benedictine monks at his Minnesota college, meditated with Buddhist monks in Thailand, and had a mystical experience at the Osho Commune in India on a one-year... Read More →
avatar for Ian Solomon

Ian Solomon

Dean, UVA's Frank Batten School of Leadership & Public Policy
Ian H. Solomon is dean of UVA’s Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy, where he leads a multidisciplinary faculty of scholars and practitioners who are committed to creating new knowledge, developing ethical and effective leaders, and advancing solutions to humanity’s... Read More →
avatar for Claude Atcho

Claude Atcho

Pastor, Church of the Resurrection
Claude Atcho is the pastor of the Church of the Resurrection in Charlottesville, VA. He is active in the Charlottesville community as a youth sports coach and mentor. His writing has been featured in Christianity Today, The Witness: A Black Christian Collective, and Christ and Pop... Read More →
avatar for Andrew Chomer

Andrew Chomer

Managing Partner, Integrated VC
Andrew is a Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Integrated, serving as a  board member to multiple portfolio companies as well as their sister non-profit, Reconsider. Integrated is a 70M AUM venture fund partnering with value-aligned companies transforming the health and wellbeing... Read More →
avatar for Neil Markey

Neil Markey

Cofounder, Beckley Retreats
A Captain in the US Army Special Operations 2nd Ranger Battalion, Neil was deployed once to Iraq, and twice to Afghanistan. After, in 2012, as an MBA/MIA masters student at Columbia University, he suffered from depression and PTSD. This led him to alternative wellbeing practices and... Read More →
avatar for David Fife

David Fife

Managing Partner, Integrated
David is a Managing Partner at Integrated, a leading venture capital firm partnering with value-aligned companies and entrepreneurs that are transforming the health and well-being of our communities around the globe. We are committed to using our capital to back entrepreneurs seeking... Read More →
avatar for Gregory Thompson

Gregory Thompson

Co-Executive Director, Voices Undergound
Gregory Thompson (PhD, University of Virginia) is an artist of diverse creative background who works at the intersection of moral imagination and social healing. Focusing on matters of race, religion, public memory, and hospitality, Gregory currently serves as Co-Director of Voices... Read More →
avatar for Beth Eck

Beth Eck

Director, End-of-Life Doula Services, Hospice of the Piedmont
Beth A. Eck, PhD, is a practicing death doula and the Director of End-of-Life Doula Services at Hospice of the Piedmont in Charlottesville, VA. Beth started at HOP on August 1, 2021, where she was hired to develop an in-house death doula training program. Beth did her own training... Read More →
avatar for Ron Cottrell

Ron Cottrell

President/CEO, Hospice of the Piedmont
Mr. Cottrell previously worked as Vice President of Business Development, Blue Ridge Region of Sentara Healthcare, serving Sentara Martha Jefferson Hospital (Charlottesville) and Sentara RMH Medical Center (Harrisonburg). During his time at Martha Jefferson Hospital, Mr. Cottrell... Read More →
avatar for Karolyn Kinane

Karolyn Kinane

Co-founder, HearthCville
Karolyn Kinane, Ph.D., has been working at the intersection of contemplation and education for two decades, with particular interest in how practices of awareness and connection can enhance values-alignment, accountability, and transparency. Karolyn earned her Ph.D. in English and... Read More →
avatar for Erin Burt

Erin Burt

Director of Admissions, Union Presbyterian Seminary
Erin is an ordained pastor in the PC(USA). In her current role, she supports prospective seminary students who are discerning a call to ministry. She has also served as a chaplain at VCUHealth. She enjoys creating sacred spaces and rituals for transition, transformation, and healing... Read More →

Artists
avatar for Andrei Matorin

Andrei Matorin

Violinist
Andrei Matorin is a Brazilian-born violinist, composer, songwriter, and producer. He began performing professionally at the age of 15 and spent most of his professional career in New York City. He has since been featured as a soloist at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, The Kennedy Center... Read More →


Wednesday April 19, 2023 8:00am - 5:00pm EDT
CODE Building