ALEGRÍA X Tounché

2026 Global Consciousness Summit, 8th Edition

Bambu Indah, Ubud, Bali

Objectives

The summit explores how joy supports resilience, how communities sustain joy in difficult circumstances, and how elders transmit emotional and spiritual strength across generations. “Suffering belongs to life, but joy belongs to the soul. Joy is not a luxury of the privileged. Joy is a spiritual strength. We cannot always choose our circumstances, but we can choose what grows inside us.”

It addresses the central question:

How can we be joyful in a world full of suffering?

This is examined through the lenses of elders' experiences, celebrating the wisdom they carry and showing joy as an inner strength rather than an external achievement. Joy is presented not as the absence of suffering but as a spiritual muscle cultivated through practice, perspective, inner discipline, compassion, and love.

The summit dedicates itself to elders' presence and wisdom.

In contemporary society, youth is often celebrated while elders are marginalized, their voices silenced, and their presence overlooked. Many individuals carry wounds from family and lineage, leading to distancing from predecessors and weakening collective life. In many traditions, elders are honored as bearers of wisdom derived from experience, stories, and time-earned perspective. They serve as living ancestors, embodying both struggles and treasures. Honoring them involves compassion, recognizing their humanity, accepting unresolved issues, and receiving their contributions.

The summit aims to restore elders' visibility, celebrate their lives and voices, promote listening and respect, and practice humility by honoring wisdom alongside imperfection. This facilitates healing of past and present relationships. Elders convey key lessons: laughter and community as medicine, forgiveness as heart liberation, aging as a harvest rather than loss, and joy as a practice rather than something awaited. In a fractured world, joy acts as spiritual defiance to protect humanity.

The summit restores generational balance, recognizes elders as essential to community health, and highlights joy, arising from presence, gratitude, and connection, as their gift.

Beginning the year with elders' voices provides grounding, as their words carry memory, perspective, and enduring values, sowing seeds of gratitude, courage, patience, and joy. This act of reverence opens the year with reflection, grace, and belonging, anchoring beginnings in humanity's memory and endurance.

Signage

The Tounché stage features:

1. A main signage with the Tounché logo ("Tounché" means "shift within" in Yoruba).

2. Additional signage around the space displays each of the Eight Pillars of Joy, styled in the Alegría aesthetic.

3. A board presents the day's schedule.

draft Schedule (in-progress)

The summit runs from 8:00 AM to 9:00 PM.| festival venue: Tounché stage

8:00 AM - 8:15 AM (15 min): Opening and Orientation

* Welcome by Swaady Martin, founder of the Tounché Global Consciousness Summit and Events

8:15 AM - 8:25 AM (10 min): Ode to the Elders in Our Community

* Spoken Word by Chris Walker

Chris Walker, a former corporate leader turned yoga teacher, speaker, and mentor based in Bali, delivers a poem or spoken word piece honoring elders’ presence at the festival and in the community. With a journey from West Coast California to London and Ubud, Walker embodies resilience through yogic philosophy and personal storytelling, inspiring humility and courage in the face of life’s uncertainties.

8:25 AM - 8:40 AM (15 min): Opening Elders’ Musical Blessing

* Performers: Babaji & assemble, Jane Chen

Babaji, an Indian Sikh priest and kirtan singer with over six decades of devotional practice, performs alongside Jane Chen, founder of Saraswat Pavilion, a sound healer and performer, in a musical blessing. Having founded a Gurdwara in Ubud after traveling India and the Philippines, Babaji’s harmonious chants blend Sikh service with Balinese spirituality, complemented by Chen’s sound healing expertise, invoking divine presence and communal joy for the day ahead.

8:40 AM - 9:40 AM (60 min): Joy as Resistance, Joy as Liberation (30 min talk, 30 min Q&A)

* Speakers: Teetee Weisel, Prof. Luh Ketut Suryani (TBC) (and translator), 1 or 2 more speakers TBD

* Moderator: Krystel Kismet (TBC)

• Teetee Weisel, a Liberian elder and author of Manna from the Motherland (2004), shares her experience of the Liberian civil wars (1989–1996 and 1999–2003), which killed over 250,000 people, displaced more than a million, and devastated the nation’s infrastructure and social fabric. She explores how Liberians reclaimed their joy through cultural resilience, communal solidarity, and spiritual strength in the aftermath of violence, displacement, and loss.

• Prof. Luh Ketut Suryani, a Balinese psychiatrist and founder of the Suryani Institute for Mental Health, integrates traditional Balinese healing with modern psychiatry to address mental health stigma and community care. A professor emerita at Udayana University and former head of its Psychiatry Department, she pioneered shortened treatment protocols, village outreach to free the chained ill, and spiritual-hypnosis assisted therapy. As an Ashoka Fellow and author of works like Trance and Possession in Bali, she advocates for elder dignity, child protection through CASA, and post-disaster psychotherapy, embodying culturally rooted resilience and compassionate service.

9:40 AM - 10:40 AM (60 min): Forgiveness and Freedom: The Secret to a Joyful Heart (30 min talk, 30 min Q&A)

* Speakers: Master Ketut Arsana, Master Joko (TBD)

* Moderator: TBD

Covers why forgiveness is not weakness, why resentment blocks joy, and how heart freedom founds peace.

10:40 AM - 11:20 AM (40 min): The Wisdom of Laughter: Humor as a Spiritual Technology

* Practice Teacher: Kadek Suambara (TBC)

* Moderator (introduction of the teacher): Candice Halliday-Bryant

Kadek Suambara, a seventh-generation Balinese priest, founder of Ambar Ashram since 1995, and the youngest person ever elected spiritual leader of his village at age 26, leads a laughter yoga (hasyayoga) embodiment session. Developed by Indian physician Dr. Madan Kataria in 1995, laughter yoga combines voluntary laughter exercises with yogic deep breathing (pranayama) and playful movement, triggering genuine laughter through group contagion. Now practiced in over 100 countries, it is grounded in the scientific principle that the body cannot distinguish between simulated and spontaneous laughter. Its philosophy positions laughter as a primal, non-cognitive pathway to presence, humility, and emotional release.

11:20 AM - 12:50 PM (90 min): The Art of Aging Joyfully: From Fear of Death to Celebration of Life (1 hour talk, 30 min Q&A)

* Speakers: Dr. Bobbi (Bobbi Aqua), 2 more speakers TBD

* Moderator: Carole Favre

Dr. Bobbi Aqua, an elder with 45 years in Chinese and Functional Medicine, addresses what elders know about mortality that youth cannot yet see, why acceptance brings peace, how embracing impermanence increases joy, traditional rites of passage, ancestral wisdom, and the soulful dignity of aging. Based in Bali for 17 years, she founded a holistic acupuncture clinic at Bumi Sehat to serve underserved communities, emphasizing spiritual health as true medicine amid global crises.

12:50 PM - 1:10 PM (20 min): Joy Meditation

* Meditation leader: Tamara Paterson

Tamara Paterson, a guide and space-holder for transformative experiences in self-love, spiritual healing, and ritual, leads a guided meditation focused on cultivating joy. With intuitive nurturing energy, she facilitates inner child work, womb healing, breathwork, and sensuality practices, drawing from her Bali-based workshops to foster empowerment, replenishment, and renewal.

1:10 PM - 2:40 PM (90 min): Lunch Break

Lunch break for participants.

2:40 PM - 4:10 PM (90 min): Community as Medicine: We Heal Together or Not at All (1 hour talk, 30 min Q&A)

* Speakers: Master Ketut Arsana (Om Ham Ashram), Kadek Gunarta (The Yoga Barn), Ida Resi Wisesanantha (high priest), Scott Bauer (12 steps community)

* Moderator: Namal Siddiqui (TBC)

• Master Ketut Arsana, a Balinese Yoga Master, Usada practitioner, and Mahatma healer from an ancestral line of shamans, born in Ubud’s Padang Tegal village, focuses on interbeing and interconnectedness.

• Kadek Gunarta, co-founder of The Yoga Barn and BaliSpirit Festival, a painter and architect from a lineage of socially minded Balinese, emphasizes community as joy’s source.

• Ida Resi Wisesanantha, a high priest guided by Bali’s Great Spirit since 2000 and leader of Forum Studi Majapahit, highlights indigenous models of resilience.

• Scott Bauer, a 13-year Ubud resident and founder of Usada Bali café and cultural center, practitioner of Ashtanga Yoga and Tibetan Buddhism, addresses loneliness as modern suffering through 12-step recovery principles.

4:10 PM - 5:40 PM (90 min): Joy After Loss: How the Heart Learns to Smile Again (1 hour talk, 30 min Q&A)

* Speakers: Kerry Clancey (lost her son), Scott Bauer (loss from addictions), 1 more speaker TBD

* Moderator: Candice Hallyday-Bryant

• Kerry Clancey, an intuitive spiritual teacher, sound healer, and meditation guide who experienced a near-death encounter in 2011 awakening her channeling abilities, shares on bereavement and grief after losing her son, transforming pain into meaning through heart attunement therapy and divine guidance.

• Scott Baur, a recovery specialist at Prana Bali offering luxury wellness retreats for addiction and trauma, discusses losses from addictions, integrating yoga, meditation, and empathetic support to rediscover joy. They explore the alchemy of turning pain into meaning, forgiveness, and letting go.

5:40 PM - 6:40 PM (60 min): The Sacred Duty of Elders: Keeping Hope Alive (35 min talk, 25 min Q&A)

* Speakers: Ibu Robin Lim (Bumi Sehat), Anak Agung Gde Rai (Arma Museum)

* Moderator: T-Bird Luv (TBC)

• Ibu Robin Lim, a Filipina-American midwife, 2011 CNN Hero of the Year, and founder of Yayasan Bumi Sehat since 1995 providing free prenatal care and birthing to combat maternal mortality, converses on being joyful in a collapsing world.

• Anak Agung Gde Rai, born in 1955 in Ubud’s Peliatan, a cultural practitioner and founder of ARMA Museum in 1996 to preserve Balinese art, shares what elders want youth to remember. They discuss why hope is courageous action rather than passive optimism, storytelling as courage transmission, and a blessing for the next generation.

6:40 PM - 7:40 PM (60 min): From Ego to Service: Why We Find Joy When We Stop Centering Ourselves (35 min talk, 25 min Q&A)

* Speakers: Ibu Robin Lim (Bumi Sehat), Janet deNeefe (Ubud Writers & Readers Festival)

* Moderator: Nichole Knight (TBC)

• Ibu Robin Lim, as above.

• Janet deNeefe, Melbourne-born founder of the Ubud Writers & Readers Festival (2004) and Ubud Food Festival, restaurateur (Casa Luna, Indus), and author. She co-founded Yayasan Mudra Swari Saraswati to nurture creativity and resilience through emerging writers programs, literary awards, school outreach, the Ubud Village Jazz Festival, and the annual Ubud Art Market (Artisan’s Festival), which supports local artisans, preserves traditional crafts, and fosters economic independence.

7:40 PM - 8:40 PM (60 min): Traditional Wisdom for Modern Burnout (35 min talk, 25 min Q&A)

* Speakers: Richard Quinn, Renee Ariel, John Hardy, Chokae Kalekoa

* Moderator: Simon Kingma

• Richard Quinn, an elder and dedicated teacher of the Bahá’í Faith with decades of service in promoting its principles of global unity, justice, and spiritual education, offers restorative wisdom drawn from his governance and philanthropic experience in education and nonprofit sectors, including Indigenous scholarships. As a Bahá’í, he embodies the Faith’s emphasis on the oneness of humanity and the transformative power of service, sharing insights on how these teachings foster resilience, community harmony, and inner joy amid modern challenges.

• Renee Ariel, a creative facilitator and artist at Capung Art Studios in Ubud, provides rituals for energy balance through silk batik painting workshops that blend traditional Indonesian techniques with mindful creativity for ages 8 to 84.

• John Hardy, Canadian-born visionary and co-founder of Green School Bali since 2006, shares restorative wisdom through bamboo architecture and sustainable education. After selling his jewelry business in 2007, he created a 20-acre jungle campus with the world's largest freestanding bamboo structure, the Heart of School, teaching 450+ students (including local scholarships) about permaculture, renewable materials, and environmental stewardship to combat hyperconnected burnout and return to joyful simplicity.

• Chokae’ Kalekoa, known as “Papa Witch,” a former actor on *A Different World* turned global spiritual guide, yoga coach, and meditation teacher, embodies endurance through rituals and self-care. With decades of practice since age 11, he leads space-clearing ceremonies and shares stories of transformation via his *Mind Your Is-ness* podcast, teaching acceptance, gratitude, and communal healing to counter burnout and sustain joy across cultures. They address hyperconnected burnout with silence, ceremony, nature medicine; what aging teaches; why elders report higher wellbeing; and lessons for younger generations.

8:40 PM - 9:00 PM (20 min): Closing Blessing

• Prayer Lead: Chokae’ Kalekoa

• Closing THANK YOU by Swaady Martin