Reviewed by Ian Mowll.
I’ve been to Buddhafield five times, and each time I’ve enjoyed it. If you are not a Buddhist (I’m not), don’t be put off by the title. The festival is more of a Buddhist/Pagan infusion, and it has a lot in common with green spirituality. There is an area in the festival dedicated to Buddhist teachings and meditations, but also other areas which explore spirituality, practical action, creativity and more.
The festival has talks, workshops, dance, rituals, a sauna area, stalls, music, spoken word performance and café areas. There is an area ‘Land and Social Change’ which is dedicated to practical action. And this year there was a ‘Soma’ tent – this is contact improvisation; a free format dance with physical contact between partners. Seize the Day did a couple of performances – songs from this band are sometimes sung at GreenSpirit events.
The festival is drug and alcohol free, which gives it a gentle and conscious vibe. People of all ages come along, and the festival is particularly good at inclusion with specific areas or talks and workshops aimed at certain groups. The 12-step programme often has its own area, helping people to move on from addiction.
This year, one of my highlights was a talk on the Universe Story from a Buddhist perspective, given by Dhivan Thomas Jones (https://dhivanthomasjones.wordpress.com/). The Universe Story is the story as revealed by science from the big bang to the present day. In his talk, Dhivan highlighted some of the key stages in the Universe Story and explained how these resonate with the Buddhist teaching about emergence – how the right conditions have to be present for something new to emerge. It turns out that Dhivan has read some of the works by Thomas Berry and Brian Swimme (two people who have inspired GreenSpirit), so the talk combined both science and spiritualty. It was attended by around 100 people and was very well received. It’s encouraging to see the Universe Story being interpreted within the Buddhist tradition; there continues to be a slow but steady growth of the Universe Story into different areas of human thought, culture and spirituality.
I met many likeminded people at the festival and felt very much at home. You can find information about this year’s festival here:
https://buddhafield.com/buddhafield-festival-2024
Or look out for future festivals on the website here: