This program is being offered virtually through Zoom. In order to participate and receive the Zoom link, you must register here or by emailing carla@smithcenter.org

with Debra Diamond, Ph.D.

In “Diary of a Death Doula: 25 Lessons the Dying Teach Us About the Afterlife,” psychic medium, and near-death experience researcher Dr. Debra Diamond presents the story of life as a hospice ‘Death Doula’, revealing 25 critical life lessons from those at the threshold of the afterlife, and those who have already crossed over, ultimately revealing a new way of understanding death.
Dr. Diamond will present for ~45 minutes, followed by a question & answer portion.
About Debra Diamond, Ph.D.

Debra Diamond, Ph.D. is a former Wall Street money manager, regular CNBC commentator and Professor at the Johns Hopkins University who left a high profile life to pursue a life of purpose and spirituality. She earned an MBA from The George Washington University and a Ph.D. from the Esoteric Interfaith Theological Seminary. She is a graduate of the Holistic Studies Institute of New York, has completed mediumship training at the Arthur Findlay College in the UK and trained at the Carl Jung Institute in Analytical Psychology in Zurich, Switzerland. Debra is the author of “Life after Near Death: Miraculous Stories of Healing and Transformation in the Extraordinary Lives of People with Newfound Powers” and “Diary of a Death Doula: 25 Lessons the Dying Teach Us About the Afterlife.” Debra is dedicated to the empowerment of her clients.

with Tamara Wellons, Artist in Residence Manager at Smith Center for Healing and the Arts

featuring Kinard Cherry

Valentines Day 2020!

Please join us for a new concert series at the gallery hosted by our very own Tamara Wellons, Artist in Residence Manager at Smith Center for Healing and the Arts and Washington, DC based vocal artist.

Each quarter Tami will host a series of different accompanying artists and musicians. The first series will debut on Valentine’s Day as we celebrate love with the smooth rhythms of Tami Wellons and her husband, Kinard Cherry.

Tamara Wellons is a vocal music recording artist who has a voice that flows seamlessly from hymns to soulful house music. Upholding her southern Virginia roots and musical tradition, Tamara has performed on prestigious national and international stages, such as London’s Jazz Café, DC’s Blues Alley, Richmond Jazz Festival, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and many more. Her latest project was recorded with bassist, drummer and lead guitarist and husband, Kinard Cherry.

Tickets: $15

with artist Leigh Davis

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Join us for a conversation and discussion with artist Leigh Davis focusing on ELEs (end-of-life experiences). ELEs are unusual experiences that typically occur around the time of a death and are experienced by a person who is dying or who has lost a loved one. These experiences can be interpreted as premonitions, deathbed visions, golden light, changes in the temperature or atmosphere, terminal lucidity, or eerie coincidences. The talk invites the audience to participate and speculate about the boundaries between the physical world, the emotional world, and what may exist beyond.

 

About Leigh Davis

I create multimedia work that is both deeply personal and anthropologically rich, navigating the complex line between voyeurism and empathy. In recent years, projects have taken the form of shrines, altars, and collections of various objects and images that work together to form a cohesive and immersive installation. To house these works, I have been drawn to sites that present their own spirituality or sense of community, using this intrinsic human quality to complement the stories represented in the installations. My overall work is designed to foster connection between viewers and community members, encouraging conversation about the aspects of humanity that keep us apart and bring us together. Currently, I am working on a body of work about the modern rituals surrounding death and the remnants of the life left behind. Vigil, my recent site-based audio installation, stems from my membership with a community of women continuing the tradition of bedside singing to the dying. This project was created for the historic chapel at Green-Wood Cemetery 10/17. I teach courses at Parsons the New School for Design and work between Brooklyn NY and Washington DC.

with Erin Price, LGSW, and Samantha Evans

A workshop for caregivers of a loved one at any stage of cancer treatment. We will incorporate writing and creativity to process the topics of self-forgiveness and guilt.

 

About Erin Price

Erin serves as Smith Center’s Director of Young Adult and Psychosocial Support Programs. She is trained in Integrative Patient Navigation, a Project LEAD graduate, and holds a Masters in Social Work. A seven-year breast cancer survivor, Erin is passionate about providing support and community to other cancer survivors, especially young adults. She works with Smith Center’s DC Young Adult Cancer Community and is also actively involved in the cancer community through Young Survival Coalition, Critical Mass, the Georgetown Breast Cancer Advocates, National Breast Cancer Coalition, and the DC Cancer Action Partnership.

About Samantha Evans

Samantha Evans is getting her Masters in Social Work at the University of Maryland. She will be joining the Smith Center as a Social Work Intern until April 2020. Samantha is excited to be joining the team at the Smith Center for Healing and the Arts. When not studying for graduate school, Samantha spends her free time with her dog, reading, and with friends.

with Priya Shamsundar, NP

Please join us for an engaging presentation that reviews palliative care medicine as a medical specialty that improves quality of life and helps to relieve symptoms at home for people of any age, at any stage of an advanced illness, whether that illness is curable, chronic, or life limiting. The underlying premise of this discussion is supported by the belief there should be a holistic and spiritual infusion with approach to conventional medicine.


About Priya Shamsundar

Priya Shamsundar is a Palliative Care Nurse Practitioner that works with Capital Caring. She received her Bachelor’s degree in Nursing from Stony Brook University and her Master’s degree from Pace University in 2013. Her specialties include Urology, Pain Management and of course Palliative Care. Her aim as a Palliative Care Nurse Practitioner is to provide holistic care with a collaborative approach to patients with chronic and long term illnesses such as cancer and end stage illnesses. She is well versed in initiating discussions that address advance care planning and insight to questions that may arise when dealing with any chronic or long term prognosis. She currently cares for patients in the community of the District of Columbia and is one of the only Palliative Care providers that makes home visits. She continues to show commitment to her patients with hopes that her expertise will ease the journey and anxieties that comes along with managing a chronic or life impacting illness.

with Yael Flusberg and Kevin Mutschler

Learn more about the benefits of incorporating yoga, tai-chi & qigong for cancer and related side-effects.

About Yael Flusberg, C-IAYT, ERYT500 & Kevin Mutschler, L.Ac 

Yael Flusberg Gentle Yoga Instructor Smith Center

Yael Flusberg first came to yoga hoping she could get rid of stuff, namely the ways life’s stresses and traumas had become painfully embodied. Fifteen years and thousands of layers of release later, yoga continues to teach her how to make strategic, creative, and life-nourishing choices. Trained as an integrative yoga therapist, Yael’s classes blend active with receptive states of being, and are both insightful and lighthearted. Off the mat, she is a coach, writer and energy therapist. Since 2005, Yael has taught yoga classes at area hospitals, libraries, workplaces, schools, and yoga studios. As an integrative yoga therapist (E-RYT500) she facilitates both group and individual yoga therapy sessions, working with people dealing with a variety of conditions including cancer, digestive disorders, diabetes, eating disorders, fibromyalgia, hypertension, mental health challenges (including depression, anxiety, grief and trauma), rheumatoid arthritis, scoliosis, and sports injuries. She currently teaches a weekly therapeutic class for people living with cancer and their caregivers on GW’s campus. More info: www.yaelflusberg.com

Kevin Mutschler, L.Ac

Kevin is a board-certified acupuncturist (NCCAOM) and Qigong educator with over twenty-five years experience in healing arts practice, research and education, including work in medical anthropology, somatic therapy and Traditional Chinese Medicine.

Kevin has special interests in working with patients living with chronic illness, migraine, MS and cancer. He is a Smith Center fellow in Integrative Cancer Care Navigation and is a member of the Society for Integrative Oncology.

View some video tracks of Kevin’s Qigong classes.

Medical Qigong

with Kevin Mutchler

Grief Loss Mary Anne Cook Smith Center

Join Kevin bi-monthly on Mondays 6:00pm – 7:00pm! This is an all levels introduction to the practice of Medical Qigong. You will learn about the human energy system or subtle body through lecture, movement and an energetic transmission and meditation.

Upcoming sessions:

  • July 22

Medical Qigong is widely used in China for Oncology support and is very helpful for helping the body through any type of cancer as well as maintain physical and emotional health through cancer treatment.

Qigong when it is done in a medical setting can work as a medical intuitive reading to get a more tangible feel for the deeper layers leading to any disease process, as well as provide a roadmap to healing and transformation. This includes working with the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual layers to get a full and complete picture of healing and cultivating wellness. This is very helpful in oncology support as Medical Qigong can help make these layers more tangible and manageable to provide a complete healing process.

About Kevin Mutchler, L.AC.

Kevin is a board-certified acupuncturist (NCCAOM) and Qigong educator with over twenty-five years experience in healing arts practice, research and education, including work in medical anthropology, somatic therapy and Traditional Chinese Medicine.

Kevin has special interests in working with patients living with chronic illness, migraine, MS and cancer. He is a Smith Center fellow in Integrative Cancer Care Navigation and is a member of the Society for Integrative Oncology.

with Andrei Stoica

Grief Loss Mary Anne Cook Smith Center

Medical Qigong is widely used in China for Oncology support and is very helpful for helping the body through any type of cancer as well as maintain physical and emotional health through cancer treatment.

Qigong when it is done in a medical setting can work as a medical intuitive reading to get a more tangible feel for the deeper layers leading to any disease process, as well as provide a roadmap to healing and transformation. This includes working with the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual layers to get a full and complete picture of healing and cultivating wellness. This is very helpful in oncology support as Medical Qigong can help make these layers more tangible and manageable to provide a complete healing process.

About Andrei Stoica, L.AC., MSOM, MQP

Andrei has been practicing qigong for many years. His initial opening into the healing arts started with learning martial arts in high school. This lead to a study of various forms of yoga and mediation. Andrei attended Massage school and Acupuncture school in Berkeley CA. During Acupuncture School, Andrei discovered Medical Qigong- the energy healing branch of Chinese Medicine which is the basis of acupuncture. This practice lead to several personal transformative experiences which served as a type of initiation process into the healing arts, as well as the development of medical intuition and energy manipulation. Andrei is currently an Energy Healer and teacher as well as a Chinese Medicine Practitioner- specializing in Medical Qigong. Andrei focuses on the areas of Oncology, Neurology and Psychology. He combines traditional Chinese Medicine concepts with medical Intuition, and powerful energy healing techniques to custom create treatment plans.

This event has been postponed. Please check back to register for the new date.

With Tina Lassiter

Collaging, Co-Listening & Cancer infuses collage art with the art of listening as participants are invited to share stories about their cancer journey and the path they are walking with a partner. Come create/“conversate”/listen in a mindful space; bring an open heart, mind and spirit. No arts experience is needed.

About Tina Lassiter

Tina Scott Lassiter is an Integrative Healthcare Consultant & Practitioner who, in the spring of 2016, launched mindful to a T., an entrepreneurial venture that showcases her passion for the healing arts and training in mindfulness/mind body medicine; programs, retreats, & workshops developed for both organizations and individuals are tailored to meet the needs of the client (www.mindful2aT.com). She is certified in Divine Sleep Yoga Nidra, Reiki Levels 1 – 3, and Acupressure and is also a Certified Pediatric Massage Therapist and Infant Massage Teacher. She completed coursework in Integrative Training for Healthcare Professionals; Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction; initial and advanced Mind Body Medicine; Touch Therapy for the NICU; and corporate wellness. One of her personal mindful/art practices was featured on the online version of Spirituality & Health magazine; she was selected to post on the Wellness Within website; and her first book, “morsels of peeps…mindful musings, inspirational thoughts, quiet images” was published in 2018.

In addition to her work in health and wellness, Tina is an accomplished artist and photographer (www.tinascottlassiter.com). Her intricately designed collages, some which focus primarily on the female body form and are referred to as goddesses, had their debut exhibition at Smith Farm Center for Healing and the Arts, have hung in several other group shows in the DC metropolitan area, and were featured in Body & Soul Connection, a national magazine published by Spirituality & Health; Ms. Lassiter was the featured artist in this same issue. Her goddess series and a body of work addressing issues that affect women serve as the inspiration for workshops designed to tackle self-esteem, body image issues, and current events; enlightening conversation and self-reflection have been provided to participants across the country during these sessions. In 2013, she was commissioned by the Capitol Breast Care Center to create a goddess image that came to represent the strength, courage and resilience of any woman and later received a Community Service Award for her work in the healing arts from Lambda Kappa Mu, a women’s business and professional organization.

Tina served as the Director of Creative & Therapeutic Arts at Children’s National Health System for 15 years.  She spearheaded efforts to bring a comprehensive complementary and integrative care program targeted at patients and families to the hospital organization, delivering her unique brand of mindfulness practices to thousands of patients, families and staff. After developing a complementary care model for caregivers in a medical setting, she was invited by Decision Health to present at several healthcare conferences which led to conducting a webinar for Ernest Health, followed by an interview for an article in the Joint Commission newsletter on the topic of Caring for the Caregiver.  During her tenure, Tina developed and instituted the first organized system for selecting, purchasing, installing, and cataloging art throughout the hospital in addition to establishing a criteria for accepting art donations.  Working closely with area schools and visual arts organizations, she and her staff secured then installed art in all 25 of Children’s off site clinics throughout the area; she collaborated with area interior designers to choose artwork created by children for the annual Show House to benefit the hospital for two years. Her curatorial effort to diversify the types of artwork on display at Children’s brought to the forefront the work of children living with AIDS; young artists with disabilities; a photographer who compiles a photographic record of children with life-threatening illnesses for their families; and local girls who are the victims of or exposed to violence via The Clothesline Project. Not only did she move the latter display to a prominent and highly visible gallery in the hospital, she also added a writing of narratives component, and eventually established and hosted an annual evening of awareness and education for staff, parents, and children; the DC Rape Crisis Center later joined as a hosting partner bringing in artwork and awards for children participating in Who Would You Tell?. She co-designed a forum that provides pediatric medical residents with comprehensive training in the importance of the arts in a medical environment; she was instrumental in the creation of an arts-based program which led to a five-year $1.2M Science Education Partnership Award; and presented at numerous national conferences and seminars discussing the value of arts programming and art in a pediatric setting.

Ms. Lassiter serve(d)s on both grant related and judging panels for various arts organizations; spoke at numerous conferences and seminars on the importance of art in a healing environment; was Art Editor/Columnist for NEWORLD Renaissance, a New York-based multicultural magazine of the arts; and sourced then visited galleries/artists around the country to select art for Black Enterprise Magazine. She is a former Adjunct Instructor for Smith Center for Healing and the Arts where she facilitated a variety of workshops using the cultural arts combined with mindfulness meditation; graduated from the Arts in Medicine Intensive at the University of Florida Center for the Arts in Healthcare Research & Education; holds an MBA in Marketing from NYU’s Stern School of Business; and a BA in Communications with a minor in Social Work from Howard University.

with Lauren Cates, LMT & Christina Tian, LAC, CMD, DACM, BSBA, Dipl. OM

Grief Loss Mary Anne Cook Smith Center

Learn more about how the benefits of oncology massage, acupuncture, & acupressure in the treatment of cancer and management of cancer side-effects.

About Lauren Cates, LMT

Lauren is one of Healwell’s founders, its Board Chair and Executive Director. Lauren speaks around the world on a variety of topics related to integrative medicine, emotional self-care for practitioners and the mechanics and politics of introducing massage therapy into clinical settings.

They* have been participating in research, teaching and developing curriculum for massage therapy courses focused on hospital-based practice, oncology massage and end of life care since 2007.  Lauren is passionate about elevating the profession of massage therapy and also about broader and more seamless integration of massage therapists into mainstream healthcare.

*Lauren identifies as gender non-conforming and uses the pronouns they, their, and them when being referred to in the third person.

About Christina Tian, DACM, MAOM, L.AC., DIPL. OM, CMD

Dr. Christina Tian is a second generation practitioner specializing in acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine. She first encountered acupuncture at the age of six; watching as her father cared for his patients as if they were his own family.  His dedication to Traditional Chinese Medicine and for his patients inspired her to pursue this healing path.  Her father, Xiaoming Tian, L.Ac., CMD,  was appointed as the first clinical consultant on acupuncture at the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center.
Her clinical experience spans adolescent, adult and geriatric medicine.  Her experience treating patients at the Elder Service Plan of the North Shore assisted her development of gentle acupuncture techniques that all patients young and old appreciate.
Dr. Tian was recruited by Sibley Memorial Hospital, Johns Hopkins Medicine, to spearhead acupuncture services in a new Integrative Health program pilot.  During the pilot, she offered Traditional Chinese Medicine services such as acupuncture and acupressure to oncology patients. Dr. Tian continues to provide treatments to Sibley patients and participates in advanced oncology education and training at Memorial Sloan Kettering.
§  Doctorate in Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine, Pacific College of Oriental Medicine, focusing on evidence-based integrative medicine approaches.

§  Master’s Degree in Oriental Medicine, specializing in Chinese herbal medicine and acupuncture, from the New England School of Acupuncture, the oldest acupuncture school in the United States

§  Post-graduate work at Beijing University’s First Teaching Hospital under Prof. De Ying Wang, MD, CMD§  Certification in Clean Needle Technique by the Council of Colleges of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine

§  Nationally board certified by the National Certification Commission for Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine in Chinese Herbology and Acupuncture

§  Certified in Ear Acupuncture from the Auriculotherapy Certification Institute.

§  Certified by the World Federation of Chinese Medicine (Beijing) as a Doctor of Chinese Medicine

§  Editorial Board Member of the World Federation of Chinese Medicine and World Congress of Chinese Medicine

§  Licensed to practice acupuncture in Maryland, Virginia, and Washington D.C.

§  Member of the American Association of Oriental Medicine, and the Acupuncture Societies of Maryland, Virginia, and Washington D.C.

§  Chief Acupuncturist at Sibley Memorial Hospital, Johns Hopkins Medicine.

Through her upbringing and exposure to Chinese Medicine she is an avid cook and loves looking at the medicinal properties of foods and spices and is currently working on a book utilizing ancient Chinese nutritional therapy for modern use.  On weekends, you may find her volunteering at the local farmers market where she shares Chinese nutritional advice and recipes with patrons. Dr. Tian travels to further develop her understanding of different medical systems while regularly practicing Qigong.  Dr. Tian works and volunteers for various acupuncture societies in both the United States and China and participates in international Oriental Medicine conferences to ensure she bridges cutting edge findings with the ancient wisdom of this profession.

To schedule an appointment, please contact 301.530.5308 at her Bethesda location or 202-660-7775 at her Sibley Integrative Medicine location.