Sacred Union Labyrinth

The first weekend in March saw the second ‘Gathering of WellBeing’ which Robin and partner Rob were on the inaugural organising committee the year prior. This year was a wonderful success with nearly 100 people in attendance. Workshops, Ceremony, Affinity Groups, Dance, Song, Cabaret and immersion in a wild nature place all contributed to a wonderful deep and enriching weekend. Robin was an Affinity group leader for the weekend and also ran a workshop entitled ‘Journey to the Heart of Community’. In her workshop, for the finale, participants walked a Spiral Labyrinth to transform anything getting in the way of being in one’s heart to live and be more fully in the heart of community.

The annual build of The Sacred Union Labyrinth by 14 people over the week prior to Woodford Folk festival, coordinated by Robin and organized by a core group of four – Christine, Stephane, Rob and Robin, went very well despite extreme heat and then some rain. The front entrance to the Labyrinth received a new mural art paint job, the guiding pennants got a solidifying make over and a quarter of the stone Labyrinth had some major drainage work done by hand!!! This drainage work turned out to be much needed due to rains during the Festival with thousands of people walking through the pathways then heavy, consistent rain on our pack down day. Huge thank you to our Build Crew team and for Woodford Folk Festival for supporting us as a mini Department and Volunteers. Also big gratitude to Woodford Programming Department for supporting us as a Ceremony team …

We’re delighted to announce that The Sacred Union Labyrinth will be fully set up, programmed and open to all festival patrons for walking any time or for attending the magical Ceremonies and any of the magnificent acts performing in our beautiful open air, garden venue.  The tickets to Woodford are capped this year so if you haven’t booked tickets yet, now’s the time. Here’s a link to the site  

Over 300 Woodfordia Citizens, staff, volunteers and Woodford Folk Festival organisers and friends got together recently for a weekend of reconnecting, future planning, ideas generation, music, fun and mural painting. The main highlight was the announcement that the Woodford Folk Festival is back this December, as usual pre Covid, from 27th December to 1st January. The Saturday program of the Citizen’s ‘Gathering the tribe’ weekend began with Robin leading a one hour Reconnection session with participants, followed by a stunning performance by Linsey Pollak. After lunch lots of subgroups formed to brainstorm and develop ideas for getting the word out about the festival, supporting volunteers, forming an onsite logistics working group as well as discussing ideas for The Planting Festival to have a new life and initiate the Conservatree project. Of course there was the now traditional ‘Mad Hatters Tea Party’, great music and entertainment and lots of exciting conversations …

Woodford Folk Festival didn’t happen over the Christmas/New Year period and so the annual Ceremonies at the Sacred Union Labyrinth led by Robin and friends didn’t happen either. To keep the energy of the site and the staff and patrons alive and flourishing the idea of holding ‘Bushtime’ at Woodfordia was born.  Robin was invited to offer a 3 hour ‘Ritual and Ceremony’ workshop at these laid back, lightly programmed bush camping experiences. Surrounded by other diverse and creative workshops, nature and science talks and walks, kids activities, the Lake for swimming, delicious food, fantastic music and relaxed and happy people, it was easy to have a good time. This was able to happen in a COVID safe environment and was designed to cater for up to 1000 people. Robin’s favourite workshop was a ‘Personal Shrine Painting’ two hour workshop with Gavin Ryan, the long standing Artist in Residence who …

The cover of the program booklet for The Planting If you’ve never been to ‘The Planting’ Festival before and you live close enough to have three days away over the first weekend in May, you’ll get to experience and participate in a delightful diversity of environmental, social and creative workshops, talks, wanderings and activities along with ceremony and of course great music. It’s held at the Woodford Folk Festival site and grew out of the tree planting weekends that have supported the site be a shady and beautiful wildlife and people haven. The Labyrinth at last year’s ‘The Planting’ with the split bamboo garden edge surrounds. For the second year running Robin and her troupe of labyrinth makers, ceremony weavers, workshop facilitators and musicians will create a luscious space for patrons to experience the serenity of labyrinth walking and guided ceremonies, accompanied by divine music at The Sacred Union Labyrinth. …