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Camping with the veteran Oak
Orchard Barn activities at Folk East
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Tribe 22.8.18 (Friends, folk and ancient Oak)
I’ve just returned from a
delightfully long weekend at Folk
East. I was camping with other Orchard Barn Volunteers under a
veteran Oak tree. There is a row of these knarled trees marching across
the Crew camp site. I was blessed to sleep in their company for five
nights.
The festival was a timely reminder
of connection for me, and fed my need for Tribe. Mostly this is met by
weekly dancing with Boudicca Border Morris, but last weekend I was reminded of the
delights of early morning cuppas with fellow campers. Unbrushed,
unwashed and still in sleeping attire, there is something both
satisfying and scary about this level of visibility at 7 in the
morning. There is also something nourishing about providing hot water
for a neighbours first mug of tea, or being given a freshly boiled egg.
Whilst the canvas of our tents
provides us with privacy and ‘space’, it is only a thin veneer - the fragile face/facade of seperateness. It is
the field that gives us shared ground in which to connect; a temporary
respite from the compartmentalised lives we mostly lead.
I need this shared space in which to
meet others in a non-judgemental and open way. When I’m camping in this
way I have a sense of ‘coming home’ to my tribal roots, of sharing and
being cared for........
I need more camping before the summer rolls into autumn.
Thank-you friends, festival, earth, meadow
and trees.
The Orchard Barn stall at Folk East 2018
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