Medicine Festival basks in Summer Sunshine

There are times I feel so unbearably uncool I want to crawl into a dark hole. At Medicine Festival I feel this in spades. If you want to know where all the beautiful – alternative – people hang out search no further. Maybe flowing robes, braids, tattoos and indigenous accessories wouldn’t hack it in St Tropez, but at this beautiful English countryside festival it works a treat.

There’s more holding hands and staring for an age into each other’s eyes per square metre at Medicine than any other festival I go to. It’s a lovefest. At times it feels just a little too precious for my irreverent tastes, but it’s a vision of a more peaceful and heart-connected world and I’m 100% for that. This year the glorious sunshine helped fuel this bucolic waking-dream of what could be.

Medicine is a vegetarian/vegan alcohol-free festival and it’s all the better for that. I can’t vouch for it being plant medicine free, but other than a stall supporting ‘psilocybin access rights’ it’s certainly not officially sanctioned on site. The influence though of medicine is everywhere of course, from ‘visionary art’ (not my thing), to the soothingly deep and meaningful music – stand up Danit and Friends, and Peia for example, to the many references to ceremony, to the indigenous jewellery and clothes, to the great many ‘conscious’ workshops about this, that and the other (in all senses) …and, well, you name it. Things are not exclusively gentle and sensual onsite though, there’s plenty of techno and drum and bass going down in the hectic dance tents.

The whole medicine scene is about healing and, as well as it’s many workshops, the Medicine Festival has in Mamma Wellbeing probably the best dedicated healing area I’ve found in any festival. The practitioners are hand-picked by the Mamma Wellbeing team and if my very intense – and painful (those muscles were tight) – massage experience with Lukas Bozik is anything to go by they are all excellent. Appointments fill up quickly so if you come along to Medicine next year I’d advise booking a session asap.

The festival site is pretty huge and ranges from open grassland to beautiful woodland. If you’re fit enough – the field is a deceptively steep hill – it’s lovely to wander around enjoying the extraordinary sculptures and lakes (you can swim), sample good food and drink (the choice is excellent), gawp at the many art and craft stalls, venture into the sauna (not that I went there…next time), and visit the eleven or more very individual workshop and music venues. The main stage itself is an incredible sight, framed by twisting branches and fronted by an opened-winged eagle. At least I think it’s an eagle.

The attendee age range at Medicine is broad, but I’d say it’s primarily 20s and 30s. There are plenty of people who fall outside of that range of course. There’s a very inclusive feel to proceedings, which includes a big welcome to people with various gender identities and people of all ethnicities and homelands. The camping areas are good enough if, as ever, quite cramped. Some involve a little bit of a walk to the main arena, but what’s new? For some reason Medicine doesn’t provide enough loos and queues are irritatingly common; this is a ‘could do better’ for me. Ditto showers, but that’s almost inevitable at busy times.

Overall though Medicine does very well indeed. If you’ve got the requisite modern-hippy-groover genes, and/or if you’re ready to expand your horizons, you’re going to have a great weekend. There’s plenty of music and dancing on offer of course, but for me the beating heart of this festival is found in the Mamma Wellbeing area and the many and massively varied workshops. This year these included, and I pick them randomly: Slutty Witch Club, Womb Blessing and Alignment, Temple of Hathor – Embody your Erotic Innocence, Mushrooms for Wellbeing, Voice of Medicine Ceremony, Gravity Workshop ‘Intention’, Tabacco Ceremony, Kundalini & Tantra – Practices for Radiance, and, well, you get the idea. What more could you ask for?

By Neil del Strother www.neildelstrother.co.uk