Last weekend I attended my third Village Continuum Festival. It's an amazing three days of community, craft and collaboration held on an organic farm just north of Melbourne in the foothills of the Macedon Ranges. Coming back for my third year felt like coming home - there were so many familiar and delightful faces to see and new friends to meet.

I loved camping under the stars for three nights and walking barefoot on the earth. It was so lovely to spend the whole time outdoors, breathing in the fresh air and reconnecting with nature. The girls ran wild and I barely saw them. They touched in briefly at the shared mealtimes around the campfire and then were off again, exploring, making new friends and having fun.

As usual the incredible lineup was packed with abundance and choosing which workshops to do was very hard. In the end I went with the flow and did what felt right on the day. I ended up spending most of my time hanging out at the campfire catching up with friends and chatting. Rest? Relax? I know, crazy! But it felt so good to just sit and be instead of rushing here and there trying to make everything and fit it all in. It helps that I've already dabbled in some of the wonderful workshops that were on offer - it took the pressure off doing it all while I was there.

One of the workshops I did make it to was the pencil making workshop run by Cherie from the Earth Alchemy Forest School in the kids area with my seven year old daughter. We had so much fun sawing and drilling our timber before melting the beeswax and cacao mixture over the open fire.

Some of the workshops on offer this year were fish skin tanning, blacksmithing, trap making, tracking, natural building, tiny houses, spoon carving, friction fire making, nature games, permaculture, herbalism, labyrinth building, moon rise mothers, kombucha kitchen, basket weaving, rope making, knot tying, primal pottery and more. A seriously good line-up as usual. Of course, being on crew last year and facilitating a leather craft workshop again this year means I'm slightly biased when I say it's the best festival ever. But it's true! (would I lie to you?)

By now you're probably wishing you'd been there if you didn't make it this year (and you really should have come). But wait - there's more! This year there was lots of live music around the campfire at the hearth. On Friday and Saturday nights the Tasty Morsels and Josh Riggs serenaded us after dinner with covers and original tunes. If that wasn't enough, we also had dancing on Saturday and Sunday nights with awesome, feet tapping, body shaking play lists. Dancing under the light of the full moon, barefoot on the grass with an incredible bunch of joyful people was an amazing experience. And while we were packing up the site late on Monday afternoon the guys in the photo rocked with their unique blend of celtic gypsy pirate punk.  So keen to catch them playing some gigs when they come up with a line-up and a name!

 
I feel so blessed to be part of such a wonderful community of like minded people who value the old crafts while keeping one foot in the modern world. Thanks to everyone who helped to make it happen - all the crew, farm folks, facilitators, volunteers, support folk and everyone who came to spend a weekend in the village. We'll definitely be back next year!