Reflections on The BIPOC Chill & Liberation Lounge at MAPS Psychedelic Science 2023, Denver CO

THE CREATION

When we packed up my car at 4am on June 14th and hit the road for the 15-hour drive to Denver for the MAPS Psychedelic Science 2023 conference, none of us could have imagined what would unfold. Our Minnesota-born nonprofit, The Medicine Objective (TMO), had a full week planned: I was scheduled to lecture on "Decolonization in the Psychedelic Renaissance" on Wednesday, we had a Forum Theatre (Theatre of the Oppressed) program called We’re Trippin’ on the agenda, and we were set to host the BIPOC Chill & Liberation Lounge (BPCLL), which was envisioned as an unstructured sanctuary for Black, Brown, Indigenous, and other People of Color (BIPOC) to find refuge, connection, and community. The space was to be open all day with cozy corners, nap zones, self-care stations, arts and crafts, sensory activities, peer support, low-cost healing services, and a guided talking circle.

The concept for the BPCLL came from TMO, but we knew from the start that we lacked the resources to furnish, staff, and sustain a space of that scale across the entire conference. Initially, we proposed hosting the BPCLL for just a few hours each day during the last two days - what our small team could realistically manage. MAPS responded by offering us only a single 90-minute slot. However, they also proposed adopting the BPCLL into their official programming, promising full-day availability, ample space, furnishings, staffing, and resources.

Despite reservations about handing over the reins - especially to the same organization setting the limitations - we agreed. It was the only way the BPCLL could happen at scale. I sent over our materials, and within a week, MAPS had listed the BPCLL on the PS23 website and began recruiting other BIPOC orgs to help staff it in exchange for base-tier conference passes.

For the next month and a half, I watched from the periphery as MAPS moved forward with planning. Then, LESS THAN A WEEK before we were scheduled to head to Denver, they notified us that they could no longer host the space. The options were: take it over ourselves or see it canceled.

Sally Jeon, our COO, followed up with MAPS to clarify the current planning and funding status. The response blindsided us: there was no budget, no plan, no staff - just a designated room and a short list of orgs who’d been offered tickets in exchange for helping out. After months of supposedly organizing this space, not once had MAPS mentioned any delays, shortfalls, or capacity issues. The fact that they were willing to let it all collapse less than a week before the conference was not just unprofessional - it was a betrayal.

With only days left, it would be an understatement to say TMO lacked the capacity to take over. We were a new nonprofit, only a few months into incorporation, working entirely as unpaid labor. We'd raised just $800 for the entire trip and were already $2,000 over budget, which would be paid by personal funds. Our exhibit displays, decorations, merchandise, and marketing materials for the conference were all designed, painted, built, printed, cut, and prepared at home, then packed in my personal vehicle and driven out to Denver. The news that MAPS had dropped the ball on us was a slap to the face. I recall having a moment of uncharacteristic speechlessness when Sally first read the email aloud, followed by a characteristic string of “fucking fucks.”

We called it then and there: somehow and someway, we were going to see this through.

Sally, also a third-year medical student deep into clinicals, and I have been organizing for health equity since 2020. We believe healing is a human right, and that those who carry the power of a medical license have a duty to wield it for justice. In a colonial society, there is no neutral ground. The U.S. medical system was born from harm and remains steeped in it. To participate without resistance is to uphold it.

One thing that medical school will teach anyone is the ability to push forward at total overexertion in the face of seemingly hopeless odds. Even medical students with access to all the resources, tutors, and study aids available will at some point find themselves grappling with hopelessness. You swim while sinking, eyes fixed on the surface. I founded TMO as a medical student and that ethos is baked into the org. Sals and I had burned through countless 12-hour days in the lead-up to this trip, and by the time we arrived in Denver, I was already burning out and Sally was holding the lead and pushing the hustle. Was it sustainable? Absolutely not. But that wasn’t the question - the question was: is it possible?

We began by reaching out to the other BIPOC organizations that were already planning to volunteer in the space, asking that orgs contribute at least one item to the space. We asked for simple items - pillows, blankets, decorations, arts and crafts - but with the conference only days away, we received little response. Located in Minnesota and disconnected from Denver’s local psychedelic community, we had few threads to follow, but Sally extended their reach like wildfire and in less than a week our Denver network had grown from 2 individuals to 30.

Melanie Rose Dodgers, a Denver local and Community Organizer and founder of the group BIPOC Psychedelic has been at the center of psychedelic activism since 2018. Without hesitation, Melanie joined forces and began connecting us to local BIPOC healers, activists, and community leaders in the psychedelic space, like Teresa Schwinghamer, and Ana and Rich Cornelius of Primal Wellness Ltd.

As we connected, it quickly became apparent that the reality of the Denver psychedelic renaissance had a dark side. We learned about the roles of local legislation and psychedelic corporate stakeholders in welcoming, exploiting, backstabbing, and ultimately stonewalling people of color in order to drive legalization in support of commercial and industry buy-in. Tribal community leaders and local activists and orgs like BIPOC Psychedelics were integral to the developments that ultimately allowed for PS23 to take place in Denver under psychedelic legalization and had worked with and alongside MAPS for over a year, yet when many of them sought tickets and scholarships for the conference, they were denied. It was becoming clear to us that the joyful climate around PS23 was a thin veil. (As a fresh medical school dropout with a reputation for radical institutional reform who runs an organization specializing in health equity and systemic decolonization, I wouldn’t have thought it possible to become any further disillusioned by the methods through which public and nonprofit institutions collude with capitalism, but MAPS seems to have taken the cake for 2023).

I know what it’s like to be exploited, betrayed, and discarded by an institution that I trusted and pledged my allegiance to, which is why nearly two months later I’m still overwhelmed with gratitude and humbled by the fact that, after everything they’d been through, it was those people who were so mistreated, that were the first to step up and offer a helping hand. In hindsight, I realize that this is the point where The Medicine Objective’s agenda for the week began to shift. We never had any real discussion about how to move forward and what it meant for the organization, and I don’t think it occurred to us that there was any discussion to be had. We were deeply disappointed of course – we’d come a long way from our absolute elation at being selected as a community partner organization, and I bitterly let go of the stunning sense of accomplishment I’d felt upon receiving MAPS’ invitation to speak as an expert presenter at the conference. It seems that Sally and I each made our own silent choice to stand with and for the people and that’s what we did, no discussion. And the people showed up for us.

We managed to negotiate a few more conference passes from MAPS and we distributed them to our new Denver teammates. 

The morning of the conference, the BIPOC Psychedelic squad arrived pulling wagons loaded with pillows, blankets, tapestries, and wall hangings. Ana and Rich arrived with traditional and ceremonial art, candles, sage, eagle feather, and hide drum. Rich set up shop in the corner of the room where he would offer energy healing and spirit medicine and Ana constructed a breathtaking altar with precious stones, pine rosin, mountain water, and other healing treasures. Across the room, Pammy, a local sound healer, arranged a stunning array of singing bowls. From my and Sally’s respective homes in Minnesota, we set up a small library of healing and empowering books along with inspirational art, dimmable lamps, essential oils, decorative moss, more pillows and blankets, and we set out a 15-foot blank canvas tapestry spread out with paints and brushes. We set out tea and a hot water kettle, a few salt-rock lamps, and finally a big wooden bowl with sage that we’d gathered on the cross-country drive so that people coming through could take a little bit of the good medicine with them. Before long, the cold, cavernous room with high fluorescent ceilings and blank walls was starting to look like a cozy bohemian hideout. It was still cold (we never resolved that), but with piles of cozy blankets now covering the floor, the temperature became part of the ambience. Over the hours and days, people would come and go and while nothing was taken, treasures and offerings were sometimes left so that as the conference evolved, so did our space. 

We hadn’t anticipated having to gatekeep the space, but the need became clear almost immediately. Anticipating curiosity, we had taken great care with our signage to make the purpose of the space unmistakable. On one side of the entrance stood a 2-foot tripod sign reading: “BIPOC Chill & Liberation Lounge” and “BIPOC: Black, Brown, Indigenous, People of Color.” On the other side was a table with a sign-in sheet, a QR code linking to literature about the space, and a detailed explanation of what a safe space is and why BIPOC-only spaces are necessary. We added another sign to the front of the table and one on the door that read, “Please read about this space before entering!” The signs were vibrant, minimalist, professionally printed and laminated (Sally had outdone themself), and they were impossible to miss.

I sat out front and greeted everyone. Some white attendees tried to enter despite clear, beautiful signage defining the space and its purpose. Most turned away respectfully, some didn’t. I handled it with smudge and patience and a lot of support from Ana. At some point, someone thanked me for gatekeeping, and that’s when I realized the weight and honor of protecting this space.

THE CHARADE

From day one, the conference felt disorienting. The expo hall felt more like an international trade show dominated by the pharmaceutical and commercial wellness industry.

For me, it was like walking into a sea of appropriation. Familiar patterns - textiles, imagery, words like “sacred,” “healing,” “medicine” - called out to my subconscious like signals of safety. But again and again, I’d follow those signals only to find booths selling commodified versions of ancestral traditions, severed from the communities they came from. The symbols were there but the people were not. It was cultural presence without cultural representation. It was colonization in aesthetic form. The abundance of BIPOC ethnocultural artifacts contrasted with the sparsity of actual people of color was like a fever dream. Inevitably, I began to wonder if I too was just part of this charade.

Had MAPS assumed we wouldn’t notice?

They were wrong.

My nervous system ricocheted between hope and hypervigilance. Relief and re-traumatization. I dissociated almost immediately, and I wasn’t alone - throughout the conference, BIPOC attendees wandered into our space stunned and depleted.

Attendees from around the world paid up to $2500 per person to be a part of this conference. For all its issues, this conference was indeed a historic event in that it was the first mainstream psychedelic gathering, and for so many psychedelic enthusiasts - many of whom had spent decades in the proverbial closet for fear of being exiled from their professional and academic spaces - this was monumentally special. In the BIPOC Chill & Liberation Lounge however, the story we heard again and again was of people who had invested so much time and resources to be “a part of the breakthrough” and arrived at the conference overflowing with excitement, only to realize that the breakthrough wasn’t meant for them.

Maybe MAPS assumed that we wouldn’t notice our demographic underrepresentation in the vast sea of white psychonauts. They didn’t think we’d mind the white people selling Indigenous art and new age retreats with ancestral medicine, or that we’d notice that the advertising opportunities were dominated by the pharmaceutical industry. They thought we’d appreciate the diversity of the speakers and fail to notice the tokenization. And none of us anticipated the way that all these little stings would build up to overwhelm the nervous system. They thought we would be too glamoured to challenge the whitewashing of the psychedelic narrative.

They were wrong.

THE TRUTH

People gravitate towards perceived safety - it’s an instinctual defense strategy and coping mechanism that all people share, but for people of color in white dominated spaces, seeking safety often means seeking out other people of color (shoutout, why do all the black kids sit together in the cafeteria by Beverly Daniel Tatum). For many attendees, the BIPOC Chill & Liberation Lounge was the only space where we could drop the armor, be ourselves, and engage with the conference with safety and an open heart.

When I first arrived in the BIPOC Chill & Liberation Lounge after my panel talk on Decolonization in the Psychedelic Renaissance, entering was like taking shelter from the storm - peeling off cold, wet clothes and changing into warm dry ones. I’m welcomed by hugs and hot tea, and sighs and sweetgrass hung in the air.

We anticipated that the space would offer people refuge, a safe place to rest and decompress, but what we didn’t anticipate is what the people would offer the space. We didn’t anticipate the many healers who would come to offer their services, the little gifts, snacks, and offerings that would be left behind, the tangible effect of energy and sound healing offered continuously in one space, the hugs, the tears, the gratitude, the ceremony and song that was offered, the mingling of sage, sweetgrass, pine resin, palo santo, cocoa butter, and shea.

The BCLZ was more than a space - it was a gravitational force. Folks slowed down when passing. Some hovered at the edge. I offered a smile, a wave, a smudge - and most came in. By day three, folks were speed-walking to the room first thing in the morning.

The last day of the conference, TMO hosted our Forum Theatre program, We’re Trippin’, as a protest in the front atrium. Originally buried on the agenda without a room number, we sourced a speaker and a mic and took it to the people. With humor and raw truth, we tackled appropriation, commercialization, and erasure. People gathered. Police and security flanked the edges.

If nothing else, our demonstration served as a call to brothers and sisters, and they came. When I re-entered the BCLL alone, I noticed something had changed. A hum. Voices. Dozens of conversations in soft, hushed tones. The space was full. The BIPOC Chill & Liberation Lounge was filled with people who had come and found what they were looking for. I wanted to cry, I wanted to laugh, and as I went deeper into the space, I was hugged, and greeted, and thanked. Someone beckoned me to a talking circle that had spilled out into the hallway. I was handed the feather. And I wept. Everything I’d held in - anger, grief, exhaustion, gratitude, came pouring out. And I was held.

The BIPOC Chill & Liberation Lounge was not a side room or supplemental service. For so many of us, it was the heartspace of the conference It was where truth could exhale, where the medicines were honored, not commodified. Where we could be soft, loud, grieving, playful, messy, and be real - without needing to explain ourselves.

And let’s be clear: this wasn’t something MAPS empowered. We built something MAPS could never have produced, because it was made from trust, reciprocity, and ancestral memory, not funding, not branding. There are some things that money can’t buy. The BPCLL happened because we showed up for each other when MAPS didn’t. We transformed abandonment into sanctuary. We turned institutional failure into communal success. And in doing so, we created something sacred that extended far beyond the walls of Room 711.

More than taking refuge, people came to unleash the open-hearted enthusiasm, eagerness, excitement, and wonder that had brought them to this conference in the first place. The BCLL became an oasis. A place to settle in and be authentic, creative, and find nourishment. Ana said that we are like dandelions in the cracks of cement, we will always grow, and we will always grow towards one another. And grow together we did - a sacred garden and wellspring.

The BCLL was never just about the conference. It was a portal. And now that we’ve walked through it together, there’s no going back. The BCLL planted a seed to propagate across cities, disciplines, and movements. The BIPOC Chill & Liberation Lounge was a spark - a mycelial node in a larger movement. We are the ones weaving spaces of safety, joy, and power across every terrain we’re told we don’t belong in. We are the ones building the future in real time. We are growing toward one another. We are claiming space, and we’ll keep growing toward one another like dandelions through the cracks of empire.

We’re still here. We’re still creating. And we’re just getting started.