What is it about the experience of Transformational Music Festivals held in epic nature-centered spaces that puts us so much more in touch with that highest expression of the human spirit, of our soul, our dreams and indeed our physical body than almost any other music or festival experience? Perhaps it is rooted simply in how, in these settings, our bare feet are on the ground connecting us to the electrical impulses of mother earth, fully ‘grounded’ while our ears, eyes, nose and every sense in our body is fully alive and tuned into the sights, smells, vibrations and messages of trees, plants, birds, animals, the ground, the sky, the frequencies of musical artists creating soundscapes more in harmony with the natural environment and each other. This, in contrast to music concerts or even festivals held in the city in a building, outside on pavement, in parking lots or even in green spaces, but basically cut off from the full spectrum of mother earth’s full majesty and expression, fully oxygenated air and the sounds of a myriad of lifeforms resonating in cooperation, expression and joy, beautifully captured in this creative video by Ari Fararooy at Envision Festival held February 24-28, 2016 in Costa Rica.
What do so-called “Transformational Music Festivals” and permaculture have to do with each other? Rooted at the heart and purpose of these kinds of festivals is the urgent mission to inspire and birth a paradigm-shift in humanity’s relationship with nature, and with each other through diversity, resilience, artistic expression and permaculture principles. The widespread and urgent adoption of permaculture design, healthy local food, traditional plant medicines, expressive arts and transformational personal development experiences showcased at such events is an integral part of this paradigm-shift, I and many believe. This article chronicles my most recent personal journey to a tropical countries’ music festival and permaculture scene to further develop my sense of how festival culture is inspiring young people to embrace permaculture as a life path. It’s also a part of my own life-long love affair with great locally grown, organic food and the now global phenomenon that is the Transformational Music Festival!
I had been hearing great things about such a festival in Costa Rica for the last few years called Envision Festival. It had built a reputation for creating an experience rich in many ways with great live and electronic music, the best locally grown foods and drink, yoga and expressive arts & dance, fun experiences for kids of all ages, and, of course, permaculture teaching, projects and experiential workshops. Envision had grown a reputation for successfully weaving permaculture inspiration and teaching into their multi-day event. Envsion describes their festival, in part, as “Uniquely distinguished from any other festival on the planet, Envisionaries unite once a year to participate in the festival’s utopian permaculture community, which inspires self-expresson and holistic living through it’s regenerative infrastructure. Envision seeks to fulfill an inherent human desire to connect with like-minded individuals and feed the innate human need to be and live interconnected with nature”.
I had to go experience this festival called Envision and dig deeper into the fertile soil of the music festival and permaculture movement in their gorgeous tropical forest and beach setting that is classic “Pura Vida” Costa Rica!
According to one the fathers of permaculture, Bill Mollison, it is defined in his classic book, Permaculture, A Design Manual as “(permanent agriculture); the conscious design and maintenance of agriculturally productive ecosystems which have the diversity, stability, and resilience of natural ecosystems. It is the harmonious integration of landscape and people providing their food, energy, shelter and other material and non-material needs in a sustainable way. Without permanent agriculture there is no possibility of a stable social order. The philosophy behind it is one of working with, rather than against, nature; of protracted and thoughtful observation rather than protracted and thoughtless actions; of looking at systems in all their functions, rather than asking only on e yield of them and of allowing systems to demonstrate their own evolutions.” He also said “we need to learn to do things in a way that maximizes hammock-time”.
Music festivals like Costa Rica’s Envision Festival and others have been, for the last number of years, creating intentional villages, autonomous zones where a growing community, or tribe, of global citizens live for the duration of the event. So naturally food, sanitation, shelter, and energy needs have to be met. But these are people who care deeply enough about our planet and each other that they have been putting their creativity, skills, resources to work collectively designing, building and living for a few days to a few weeks in the kind of village where the “new earth” paradigm so many want to usher into being… can be experienced, can be lived in and contributed to, by anyone! One where the basic needs of people and the natural environment and all of it’s inhabitants are met and honoured in a way that is demonstrable to everyone at the festival and to the outside world, so that a new way may overgrow the system and the current dominant paradigm we all know is not sustainable.
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But, my question was; are people attending these festivals then actually going home and putting these practices into action, getting further education, and then teaching their communities, families and work colleagues to join the revolution? I wanted to know. I wanted to hear personal stories and see it happening with my own eyes.
Stephen Brooks, co-founder of Envision Festival and Punta Mona Center for Regenerative Design & Botanical Studies, both in sunny Costa Rica, can be easily overheard, with his trademark boundless enthusiasm, sharing his passion for growing some of the world’s best foods in the most healthy and regenerative way possible and sharing this with a great many permaculture students from around the world. “I love plants! I love trees! I love to walk out my door, pick my own fruits and vegetables, and eat them, knowing where my food comes from and having that intimate relationship with my food. We are at an exciting crossroads in human history. People all over the world are starting to really care where their food comes from and how it was grown. They also want to know the people who grew their food, and if it’s organic. They want to be able to look their farmers in the eye and say ‘thank you for growing this food!”
“If you set it up right, all you do is reap!” his mentor, Paddy, used to say to Brooks, when the young man from Florida would stay with him at Punta Mona, on the south Caribbean coast of Costa Rica back in the early 90’s at his own ‘Garden of Eden’ permaculture inspired farm. Food was everywhere in his ‘food forest’, grown organic and delicious, diverse and resilient and with minimal effort or inputs; bread fruit, coconuts, heart of palm, bananas, pigeon-peas, jack fruit, durian, passion fruit, avocado, and so many others were plentiful plus happy healthy chickens and plenty of seafood from the ocean. This vision of living in such a way so as to design and steward the land one lives on, growing an abundant variety of fresh food, both for people and animals and in harmony with nature, in order to “maximize hammock time” was a dream and a reality that inspired Brooks and his friends in those early days. He wanted to show the world how and why to design life and food growing systems in this way. As the visionary designer, Buckminster Fuller said; a radical re-design of the world is the answer to most if not all of humanity’s problems; economic, cultural, environmental & societal.
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It was in that Caribbean province of Limon, Costa Rica where chemical-cocktail Chiquita banana and Dole pineapple plantations, as far as the eye can see, revealed another, more disturbing reality for Brooks than what he had hoped for, one that he became determined to change. I also went to this part of Costa Rica back in the early nineties but just hung out on the beach with my girlfriend without really seeing what he saw going on there, what was happening to the land, water and these ancient, mysterious and beautiful people, the local Bribri indigenous living there since time immemorial.
Brooks was his rental car with his girlfriend one day exploring the area for the first time and was horrifyingly struck by the sight he has never forgotten; an airplane flying low over the Dole pineapple and Chiquita banana plantations spraying lung-choking and eye-burning pesticides, algicides and herbicides on all of it AND the Bribri children playing football on a nearby school field. How could this be allowed to happen, Brooks asked himself? Later on down the road his car was stopped by a banana conveyor-belt cable hauling huge bunches of the fruit across the road. Watching “perfect bananas” floating by for awhile he imagined how the world had come to operate in such a state of toxic disrespect. A regal, proud looking native man hovered by him, getting a ride on the same banana belt….covered in the sweat, chemicals and economic hardship that had left him and so many with no other option other than to go work those terrible plantations. Brooks decided right then and there to do something about it. The idea that this toxic and disrespectful way of farming could continue to overtake & dominate this region of the world he loved so much, so that North American and European middle class could eat perfect looking and cheap fruit, was scary, tragic and unacceptable.
Twenty-some years later Stephen and his wife Sara and their team still live at Punta Mona, right beside Paddy’s house, who has since passed on, and it has become one of Latin America’s top tropical permaculture teaching centers, having taught and inspired thousands of people to design and grow food-growing systems using permaculture, or “common sense” approaches and thus live in a more harmonious way with their natural surroundings that regenerates our planet! Out of this dream Envision Festival also grew. This video from Envision Festival 2015 captures the richness, fun and diversity of this epic festival.
As I walked onto the Envision grounds at Rancho La Merced near the seaside town of Uvita and Playa Hermosa (beautiful beach) on the last day of this 4 day & night festival one of the first sights was one of my friends from Vancouver, the raw food innovator of Gorilla Food, Aaron Ash, and several dozen other people, adults and youth, excitedly planting banana plants, papaya and others that provide habitat and food for the local animals and birds and other ornamental flora to line pathways and provide natural fencing. I was later informed that this was but one of the many legacies left to that jungle community from the Envision community!
In the just one afternoon and evening and the next morning at Envision I witnessed a global tribe of people genuinely embodying Costa Rica’s national mantra; “Pura Vida” or “Pure Life” as about 6000 Envisionaries danced, played music, practiced yoga, painted, made art, planted new life, hugged and loved each other, created and ate food & drink, swam, surfed, and communed in a very deep way in this utopian permaculture-inspired global tribe, completely Immersed in so many of the things that give us not only joy, but also a feeling of divine purpose in life. I was far from my home in BC but I felt a deep sense of ‘home’ too!
I saw people celebrating and exploring an entirely new way of being in the world while sharing in body and soul stirring music from globally celebrated artists like Random Rab, The Human Experience, Beats Antique, tribal house leaders Bedouin, and Costa Rica’s stand out electro-fusion rock band (and surprise festival favorite) Santos y Zurdo, to name but a few. Globally known and sought-after yoga teachers like Sienna Sherman, 5Rhymths dance teacher, Amber Ryan, celebrated classical Hatha Yoga teacher Marcos Jassan from Mexico City, and many more gifted teachers of all things yoga and expressive movement, guided festival-goers through beautifully transformative and empowering experiences.
In the heart of the festival grounds stood, The Village, a bustling caravan of educational workshops, inspirational speakers, and the fresh produce Vida Market complete with the live music Village Stage, Tea House Lounge, and a women’s only Red Tent Pavilion. Insightful talks were hosted at The Village stage including nutrition expert David Avocado Wolfe, prolific astrologer Kaypacha, and Envsion’s Stephen Brooks plus musical performances by Vir, Camillo and Incus. The Witches Healing Sanctuary provided a unique communal healing and ceremony space for herbalists, bodyworkers and educators to share therapeutic practices. Craft vendors boasted souvenirs with beautiful handcrafted jewelry, art and clothing from across the Americas while food vendors offered a selection of mouthwatering world cuisine made from unprocessed, fresh food sourced from local farms. Now that’s a village worth visiting for a few days!
On the permaculture side of things, and beyond the leave-behind planting of beneficial trees and plants, and the lessons learned by those participants, what I experienced at Envision was an eco-village festival experience without compare; no plastics for sale, only reusable dishes and cups, organic and ethically produced food and beverages, dry composting toilets and as efficient a public shower system I’ve ever seen for 6000 people, including hundreds of volunteers! This is “being the change we want to see in the world”! All of the stages, jungle-gyms, overhead walkways and structures were build using untreated bamboo, and re-used after, of course. One of the signature features of Envision Festival, for me, was the blue-grey locally sourced mud many people had artfully painted on their bodies, tribal-like, also acting as a sunblock that, when washed off, does not pollute the water and ocean. There were just too many beautiful and paradigm-shifting innovations showcased at Envision to possibly name. I can’t wait until next year to go back and take in the entire 4 day festival and spend a few weeks helping to build the village!
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Envision Festival 2017 will host it’s 7th annual festival in Uvita, Costa Rica February 23 to 26th, 2017. Come and join this evolutionary global tribe of change makers! For an enhanced sense of what you can expect to experience please enjoy this video of highlights from the 2016 Envision Festival
I went to Envision with the idea to find millennials having deep permaculture-immersion experiences and to talk to them about it and to find out how it is or has informed and inspired their life path…. but instead I ended up going on my own permaculture journey of discovery after the festival and also meeting some of these young men and women along the way living and working to build a new world, the permaculture way!
After a month in Costa Rica my trip was nearing it’s final week and I still had not managed to catch up with the very busy Stephen Brooks for an interview. Finally, he suggested rather than doing an interview I should come with him to Punta Mona and attend a 5 day event he was hosting called Jungle Camp, a 4 day yoga, culinary and permaculture learning experience. I jumped at the chance! A few days later I met with him and a group of yogis from Mexico City at a natural foods restaurant in San Jose called Mantra, appropriately. I was about to find out what his mantra is for re-designing a better world, especially when it comes to food. Within five minutes of arriving Stephen got a call from a 5th generation Columbian banana plantation owner asking for his help. The Columbian basically said “My family has been growing bananas for several generations using the status-quo practices of heavy chemicals; pesticides, herbicides, algicides and petroleum based fertilizers. I have more money than I could spend in several lifetimes but I’m not happy because I see the land, the animals, the water and the people being poisoned and I don’t want to do it anymore. I want to redesign how we grow bananas so that the land & water and everyone involved can be healthy, happy and respected. Will you help me?”
I knew I was talking to the right guy to learn about a better way to grow food!
The group of about 14 yoga students was led by their teacher, the aforementioned Marcos Jassan. Also leading the group was Conscious Living School’s Juan Pablo Barahona, or “Juanpa”, as his friends call him, a Costa Rican and long-time friend of Brooks who teaches personal transformational globally though breath techniques, yoga, chi gong, shamanic practices, music and sun gazing among other modalities. I knew I was in for a treat and a powerful learning and transformative experience.
The next day we arrived at Punta Mona’s tropical paradise of all things permaculture, tropical and beautiful! Exotic fruit and vegetable bearing plants and trees of too many species to name are everywhere on this 84 acre property. As our boat neared the shore Brooks excitedly exclaimed; “look! That’s black gold all over our beach!” A new batch of black seaweed to fertilize and mulch the plants had washed up on the beach since his last visit. Here, nothing is wasted. All resources are valued and put to use. For example one sign says “Take a pee & water a tree”. Human urine is rich in nitrogen and potassium which plants need so why not put it to use and save buying and transporting in such fertilizers! More colorful and informative painted signs all over this gorgeous oasis of nourishment and learning educate and inspire guests about what they are looking at as well as explain how and why things are set up as they are. Smiling staff members and volunteers let us know without a doubt that this is a very special place to work and spend time.
Before eating we always circled up in the kitchen area as a collective and shared our excitement and our gratitude for being in such a beautiful place, for each other’s gifts, and for the amazing fresh, organic and vibrant beyond-compare food we were about to enjoy. We knew we were very fortunate to be there! We enjoyed many of the foods in season at Punta Mona like buttery bananas, papaya, agua de manzana (water apples), heart of palm, katuk greens, cacao, passion fruit, ice-cream fruit, and one of my personal favorites, mame zapote an avocado-like fruit with dense orange flesh that tastes sweet, rich, and buttery, “que rica!” as the Costa Ricans say.
The yoga and breath classes with Marcos and Juanpa were excellent and the music we played together in the evenings was a joy to witness and be a part of. I was so grateful to have been invited!
During the several tours of Punta Mona’s bounty, with his trademark joyous animation, enthusiasm and good humor, Stephen taught us about the many species of plants and trees at Punta Mona as well as his wisdom as to why each tree and plant had been selected, both for the health of whoever eats it and for the planet. He announced confidently and I paraphrase from my notes; “Write this down, mark my words, it’s an idea that is going to take over the world. We need to transition the predominant diet of the world from annuals to perennials which don’t have to be replanted every season, they live on year after year. Annuals like corn, rice, basically all grains, squash, beans and so on have to be replanted every season and require huge inputs of labour and fertilizers and typically are less nutrient dense than perennials which are foods like nuts, avocados, cacao, pigeon-peas, all tree fruits and many more. They grow in a more symbiotic, evolutionary relationship with their surrounding plants and trees, and animals. We need to not only think about our own health when selecting what to grow but also what is good for the planet, for the soil and water, animals and insects. It’s not all about us but those “super foods” we love are mostly perennials and by moving our diet over to being more perennials based we not only will be better nourished, but the planet will be also!”
Brooks shared a story about one of his close friends who coined the term “grain damage” referring to how a fixation on grains and annuals, while feeding a lot of people, has not been the best thing for both the long-term health of those people and of the planet due to the reasons stated above. He showed us a real ‘food-forest’ which relies on diversity and cooperation among trees and plants. For example, a food forest does well with plenty of nitrogen fixing plants like beans or the local pigeon-peas supplying this the most in-demand nutrient for most plants. This, like in the Native American 3 Sisters garden which is corn to grow tall and create a structure for the nitrogen fixing beans to climb up, and squash which covers the ground with it’s large leaves preventing water evaporation. That’s cooperation through diversity!
Stephen Brooks of Punta Mona talks about perennial based foods and their advantages
Sometimes I feel like we are like Matt Damon in that latest movie, The Martian, where his survival alone on Mars comes down to whether or not he can redesign his environment to grow potatoes in the otherwise cold, no oxygen and waterless environment of the red planet. He had to re-imagine and re-organize his resources to create the conditions for life to thrive. So do we, except, unlike on Mars it’s all provided by Mother Earth already if we’d just get centralized, private control and crony-capitalism corruption out of the way and put our attention on living and designing our lives; cities, towns, farms and the countryside using these permaculture principles. The question that Brooks always puts out there to others is; “How can we live like this all the time? How can we take all the best things about this experience and infuse it into our culture?” The answer: Envision-inspired communities, both in Costa Rica and abroad. Plans are in the works to launch these ethos-and permaculture-based ideals and community building practices in Central America and all of the Americas!
This journey has sparked major changes in my life and priorities. I’ve since taken steps to re-design of my own life! Now, just 4 months later I’ve moved out of the city to the farmland of the Fraser Valley committed to live more harmoniously with nature, grow as much of my own food as possible, and model and share with way of designing and living life with others. I’m very grateful to my friend, Amir Niroumand, who synchronistically bought a beautiful piece of farmland and invited me and others in the community to come live with him on his Hobby Farm, for a more grounded, simplified, and nourished life on the land, growing food in the healthiest way we can and imagining and building a farm-based community hub based on sharing resources instead of just seeking profit. His blog, Narratives of a Dancing Scientist, What’s our new Story? is a great read.
Since my experiences with Stephen down in Costa Rica Brooks has shared with me his excitement at being commissioned to design an 8,000 acre permaculture inspired food-forest community in the south west of Costa Rica near San Isidro called RISE Costa Rica! There, he and his partners are reforesting hillsides and valleys previously cleared to graze cattle or otherwise uncared for, by planting 8,000 fruit trees and 60,000 native trees and creating a massive food-forest where many people will share in this better way of living within the natural laws of our life-giving Mother Earth. With reforestation, food-forests and permaculture practices as it’s prime directives, the first phase will see 50 homes built as a ‘founders village’. Learn more at RiseCostaRica.com
Stephen and his friends at Punta Mona are welcoming people to their next 5 day Jungle Camp starting September 26th, 2016 for another deep dive into permaculture and transformational experiences. Find out more and register at PuntaMona.org
There are many organizations and events worldwide that those interested in permaculture can tap into to take courses, connect with teachers, find resources and sign up for volunteer experiences. Some of my favorite are:
Numundo.org is a global online community that connects you with trusted and experienced permaculture teachers, centers and transformational permaculture-based experiences in nearly every continent.
GaiaCraft.com based in BC, Canada, connects you with free learning resources, networking, courses, know-how and local people to help build your eduction in permaculture.
Vancouver Island’s Our EcoVillage offers Permaculture Design, Natural Building and EcoVillage Design courses, and lots more!
The Permaculture Research Institute in Australia has a wide range of information and connections to all things permaculture.
The North American Permaculture Convergence happens September 14-18 in Hopland, California
If you want to put your hands and feet, eyes and ears into these kinds of transformative music festival experiences where permaculture is a focus here are two that I recommend this summer.
For those of you near or who love to visit Northern California, Enchanted Forest Gathering takes root and returns July 22-24. Celebrated as NorCal’s premiere conscious living, music, and movement festival, Enchanted Forest Gathering creates close-knit community experiences within a fairytale setting of majestic Oak trees at Black Oak Ranch in Laytonville, CA. This gathering showcases over 70 internationally-acclaimed live and electronic musical acts, including headliners Shpongle, The Polish Ambassador, Ayla Nereo, Hamsa Lila, PantyRaid, Minnesota, Fanna Fi Allah, Autograf, Lila Rose, Thriftworks performing atop four stunningly-constructed stages. EFG also hosts a movement festival within a festival, with over 50 workshops in yoga, dance, movement, and flow arts instruction led by globally-renowned teachers including 2016 yoga headliner Suzanne Sterling, Conscious Living School’s Juan Pablo Barahona, and DJ FreQ Nasty (Darin McFadyen) and Claire Thompson’s Yoga of Bass. Rounding out the list of marvels to discover at the festival are over 60 educational workshops and forums covering subjects around relationships and sexuality, science and spirituality, permaculture and ancestral arts, as well as health, wellness, nutrition and nourishment. Tickets & Info at Enchanted Forest Gathering
Back here in BC, Blessed Coast Festival is now holding it’s 2nd annual festival of music, yoga and art with a long-term permaculture focus also on July 22-24, at Cheekeye Ranch, near Squamish BC. Traditional Squamish First Nation ceremonies and wisdom teachings, facilitated by the elders, teachers and wisdom-keepers from the same land the festival is being held on, where the Cheekeye and the Cheakamus rivers form their confluence, will also be offered. This 3 day festival also features local Squamish Nation artist and activist of renown, Beau Dick, will make available his profound collection of cedar-carved native masks for a traditional mask dance, rarely seen by people outside of their community. Conscious connected breathing sessions, plus dance, acro-yoga and music workshops, plant walks, can be experienced. And, of course, it’s a festival designed from the ground up with the overall essence of what permaculture is; doing things in a way that works with the natural environment and regenerates and adds to the diversity of life-systems rather than negatively impacting them.
Renewable energy generation and a revolutionary battery system, all with zero emissions, will power the main stage where some of Vancouver’s favourite local artists like The Boom Booms, Trevor Hall, Buckman Coe, Yaima, Chris Berry of Hawaii’s Flow Fest, Sacr3d, Prosad , DJ AppleCat and a host of other amazing local and international music artists will move bodies, hearts and souls with their musical offerings all weekend.
Blessed Coast founder and recording artist & performer, KaLa Siddha, says of this community co-creation; “Blessed Coast is an answer to my prayer and so many in our community to come together for the purpose of honoring and celebrating the rich coastal cultures of the Salish Sea region, and the lands, waters and life-systems that support us all so richly. Blessed Coast is modeling the core aspects needed for a strong, united and resilient community where the traditions and laws of the original stewards of this place are deeply respected. Almost all of the necessary components of a village 2.0 are represented at our gathering, from ceremony to celebration, from renewable energy systems to sustainable food production. Food will be supplied by a farm in richmond that our Blessed Coast chef owns collectively with other members of our community. As a legacy, festival organizers and friends of Blessed Coast envision the establishment of our own all-season eco-village and permaculture-based farm in the Squamish area. The goal is to build this community alongside the Squamish First Nations. We have leaders in that community who support the idea of modeling all that we can do to live in harmony with nature and traditional cultures, on this our Blessed Coast”
Find out more about Blessed Coast Festival at blessedcoast.ca where you’ll find info on the full lineup of artists and activities, weekend or day passes, parking, meals and more. See you there!
Adam “Siddhartha” Sealey is a BC based foodie, environmental activist, budding farmer, and lover of the earth. When not helping Common Ground Magazine publish it’s next epic issue he can be found growing food, learning about permaculture, enjoying community and transformative music & arts festivals, writing, spending time in nature, kayaking, travelling in Latin America & learning more Spanish. His favourite environmental conservation organization is http://pacificwild.org Contact: adam@commonground.ca