Matthew J. Foran

Enchanted Forest has been advocating an eco-friendly environment for music lovers since its first festival in 2011. However, it is not only the festival grounds that maintain a presence that would make any Earth-lover proud. Enchanted Forest encourages its attendees to participate in workshops that promote ways for people to help make the Earth a cleaner, safer, and more sustainable place. These Earthing/Ancestral Arts workshops cover topics ranging from permaculture and mushrooming to caring for plants and the earth they grow from. 

 

Sean Hula has been working with raw organic foods for over seven years, and he is hosting the Edible Seeds of Life class to help spread the knowledge he has gained over the years.  Here, Sean will be discussing a variety of seeds, focusing on their unique cultural and nutritional uses.  You will even get to eat many different types of them, too, all while sharing ideas to help plant the knowledge of the seeds across the globe!

 

Another workshop that focuses on a connection with natural sustenance is Rye N Flint’s Rewilding: Living Like Homo Sapiens seminar.  Focused on a reconnection with our wild roots, the seminar will teach how humans have lived in harmony with nature for thousands of years, and how to remake that connection.  Rye N Flint will teach you which wild foods to embrace that grow around you, and how to plant a tasteful food garden in your own backyard!  These wild foraging and permaculture techniques are wonderful solutions for today’s growing technological problems.

 

Sowing Sacred Habitats is a workshop hosted by the TEDTalk-experienced Geisty Bear.  This class will teach its students ways that they can feed themselves without a wallet, because as we all know, there is no nutritional value in paper.  With the years of Social Security retirement benefits coming to an end, it is becoming increasingly important that people begin to find ways to sustain themselves.  By concentrating on edible landscapes and self-made shelters, Geisty Bear will help us learn how to use the naturally occurring resources all around us to thrive in tough economic times.

 

None of these methods aimed towards creating a more connected and self-sustaining lifestyle with the earth will matter if our forests are left unprotected. That’s where Karl Peterson’s Reducing Forest Fuels/Fire Suppression workshop comes in! It focuses on the prevention of forest fires by diminishing forest fuels as well as ways to suppress already burning fires.  This knowledge is becoming more important as drought is increasing on the West Coast.  As a Forestry Technician, Karl has learned many techniques that he hopes to pass on to you!  To top it all off, Karl also wishes to share his knowledge of edible and medicinal plants with those interested in protecting our forests.

 

Obviously not your run of the mill music festival, Enchanted Forest is dedicated to protecting the environment. To this end we are creating a space that cultivates the sort of learning that will plant the seeds for a brighter future, for both the planet and its people.