If you go down to the woods in June… go on your bike! Body & Soul is a festival concept originating as part of the annual Electric Picnic. Now with its own home at Ballinlough Castle, Co. Westmeath, it offers more than the standard music festival experience by including a diverse range of activities, foods and experiences while linking up with local and environmental groups and charities. The lineup for 2013 has now been released, and having run a promotional stand and “The Story of The Universe” at last year’s festival, Green Sod Ireland are delighted to be nominated by Body & Soul as this year’s chosen charity.
The main event of this partnership will be a charity cycle with the festival as its destination; potentially, a major profile raiser for our organisation, with attendees of all ages and backgrounds expected from around the country. As Freddie Kirk of Body & Soul stated “We would like to nominate Green Sod as our chosen charity this year – for a couple of reasons. Apart from the fact that we love what you do and also your involvement with Body&Soul last year, we feel that it ties in well with our sustainable policy for this year which is partly looking at ways to give back a little to the land that we are so reliant on to run our events.”
We would encourage anyone interested in the growing, healthy and environmentally friendly sport of cycling (and their friends) to help raise our profile – and some funds – by taking part in this event on Friday June 21st. More details on the charity cycle here and the festival website.
The weekend of 22-24 June last year saw us bring The Story of the Universe to a festival setting for the 1st time. Telling the Story at a Festival differed in many ways to telling the Story in a school. Firstly we were outside. At Body and Soul we told the Story, with the enthusiastic help of all the children, under the beautiful setting of a woodland canopy. What better place to be telling this story than surrounded by the natural beauty of the world that we were discussing – the birds, the flowers, the trees and butterflies and grasses, the wind, even the rain; all of which were telling the same story in their own way, exactly as we were trying to do.
The second difference was that there was a wider range in participant’s ages. We had a 1 year old babe-in-arms who was our astronaut all the way to parents dressed as ‘Water’ and ‘Bacteria’ and ‘Planets’, but mostly our participants were children from as young as 3yrs to 12yrs.
The third difference is that we had to condense the workshop into one hour, 13.73 billion years in one hour – not so easy!
If you go down to the Wood…..
At Body & Soul, we completed 4 workshops in this festival style over two days and we were always surprised by the reaction. It seems that people respond to this Story in a way that catches their imagination and enthuses them, children and adults alike. People become involved and excited by it. Part of the success was the costumes which the children got to wear. They were colourful and bright and extremely creative in an unpolished and fun way. The children got to act out their parts and share their knowledge and so the Story was told together.
Although it is ‘a new story’, it is very familiar at the same time. Sometimes to see a flash of recognition going off in parent’s eyes, as if it had ignited something deep within them, something cellular. And the children, they do not need to be told that they are part of Nature or about the importance of Nature, it’s self evident for them and so they throw themselves into their role and talk about their favourite animal and are the real teachers. It is a wonderfully, exciting project to be part of, an hour of creativity and imagination, of knowledge and play, and each workshop, just like the Universe itself, unfolds in its own unique and inimitable way, making every one a different learning experience and a joy to participate in.
Roll on this year and if your down in the woods come join us…..And if you cycle to Body & Soul all the better for everyone.
Source: Greensod Land Trust – Body & Soul Partners with Green Sod
