My Weekend in the Woods: Wild Roses Festival Review

I wrote this article for Edify previewing the Wild Roses Festival in July. Here’s my follow up.

I drove just over an hour west to get to Evansburg in my dad’s VW Touareg. He warned me it's getting old. Sometimes the power just shuts off while you’re driving, and the driver's side front tire seems to keep losing air despite replacement. Don’t worry, he says, there's a compressor in the trunk with a mobile battery charger and an emergency kit. Listening to his pre-loaded CDs, Amanda Marshall and Meatloaf, I made it with no problems.

My plan was to get settled Friday in my Airbnb close by, go to bed early, and start the next morning with a visit to the Nordic Spa. I parked in the day parking. Unprepared, I walked into the converted campground festival grounds.

It was up a grassy hill with a deciduous forest on one side and farm fields on the other. My great-grandparents had homesteaded on this land a few miles over. That felt important. The draw to the weekend was also a draw to the land. My current writing project is fictionalizing their journey to Canada, so this is an important setting for my novel. There was a check in. Someone handed me a bracelet, and I looked over the schedule and map. Orienting myself with the location of washrooms, food trucks, market, stages and parking was confusing. Everything was temporary, but beautiful. Beautiful in that bohemian, hippie sort of way with wildflowers and macrame and repurposed wood.

In my ball cap, lululemon leggings, sports tank and running shoes (I’d come straight from physio at the gym), I was out of place. Like I’d forgotten the invitation to a dress-up party and was wearing the right outfit. Loose was the uniform - loose dresses, big flowy wraps and sweaters, wide brim hats and braids. There was one dress in my suitcase, I was pretty sure, I’d brought it in case the heat was unbearable. I felt wildly uncomfortable, though I doubt anyone noticed me. Disturbed by the quiet, I felt the aloneness. I’d expected a comfortable hum, like a coffee shop, I could blend into.

Being the thoughtful, self-aware, mindful person I was supposed to be, I sat down with my Notes app.

“Why does this make me so wildly uncomfortable?” I wrote to myself.

My body needed to adjust. I’m not used to being in open fields under the big blue sky. The space, the quiet, the sun, it felt too open. Like the opposite of claustrophobia, there’s nowhere for me to hide. Women were friendly, smiling and saying hello. But I felt disoriented. Maybe everyone here was enlightened and knowing and one with themselves. They certainly looked it.

I checked my email, grateful for the Wi-Fi, though I was supposed to be journaling, and saw there was space in the Cannabis Nurses workshop. “Buy Tickets” I clicked. It was starting in a few minutes at the Bloom Tent, which I’d have to find. A scheduled, structured setting felt safe. And I was curious. People kept telling me about CBD for my joint pain, so I’d listen.

Again, I’d missed the memo, and I couldn’t find the spot, so I came in late as people were introducing themselves. Everyone was on a blanket, yoga mat, or cushion. Smart. I tried to sit down on the itchy grass. My hip yelled at me. I’d had surgery a month before and didn’t have full range of motion. As I attempted to get on the ground, I leaned as far as I could to the ground and fell the last few inches, resembling a grandmother. Good thing I was among friends. I hear people introducing themselves as arthritic and car accident victims. That’s why they were here. I chimed in as “I’m one of those chronic pain people.” Many participants were healers. Many just enjoy cannabis. A speaker, one of the nurses, brought me her sitting pad. She was kind and kept looking over at me through the talk. My hip didn’t let me sit still.

We learned about CBD and THC and CBN and terpenes and dosage and methods of taking cannabis. Up until this point, I was scared of it. The discussion turned to being mindful of how we use cannabis, and the intention we set with it, so it's an aid and not a crutch. Someone handed out a goodie bag of samples to us. The Jointment balm, a topical cannabis infused ointment for pain and inflammation, was my favourite. We were offered to smoke or drink some samples, but I wasn’t in the mood, so I left as the others partook. 

Walking back to my car, I felt my chest calm a little. I’d been holding anxiety the whole time. Maybe I needed a gummy like they’d suggested to “take the edge off,” but I was nervous about that too. This was hard for me and I’m not sure why. Leaving the kids, rushing to an unfamiliar place, and then - space - I wasn’t sure what to do with it. Weed was still a bit of a taboo to talk about, but sitting there with 50 other women who mentioned the various ways they use it, I felt like the odd one out. I could see they were excited to find a place where they could speak on it without shame. I felt empathetic. The nurses guided me with their detailed knowledge to a perspective shift. My goodie bag sat beside me on the passenger seat.

The tiny cabin I’d rented was truly adorable. It was close enough I could’ve walked. Driving across the field to my quiet spot by a motionless pond, I admired the fairy lights, the symmetry of the structure, and sent a thank you up to the sky for this peace I wasn’t sure what to do with. Then I tucked myself into bed.

*           *           *

Major error the next morning. I’d left the coffee filters for the pour-over at home. My partner made sure to send me coffee beans, the hand grinder, the pretty-spouted kettle, my special thermos and even the food scale. And I’d somehow not grabbed the filters.

The Mill Bakery had coffee. I’d noted that. I doubted the Vietnamese, Lebanese, Hot Dog or charcuterie food trucks would be open first thing in the morning. I only had an hour before my Nordic spa appointment, but I could hustle to make it there in time.

Today I would go with the crowd. I dressed in jean shorts over my swimsuit but packed a long fake-silk dress covered in tiny stars that fit the prairie-girl aesthetic. Too bad I didn’t have a hat. Maybe there was one at the market. They said to bring two towels and lots of water for the sauna, so I did. And I grabbed a big quilt from the cabin so I could sit on something this time.

My body language was different that day. This time when I parked in the day parking, I took a minute to look up at the sun, feel it on my face, and stand up straight. I wasn’t the same hunched-over rushed woman I was the night before. Stepping out of the car, I stretched, yawned, closed my eyes, smelled the fresh morning, cracked my neck and headed to the coffee line up. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one coffee-less.

The line-up was forty minutes long. We small-talked, held each others’ spots for bathroom breaks and cooed at the little babies in line. Mothers brought their tiny ones, maybe up to age two or three, most of them nursing, and I wished there was a place like this when I had my babies. Most of the women weren’t wearing bras - I didn’t want to either - we were out of the male gaze. Some were all done up with makeup, others were fresh out of bed. We could just be.

“A small latte please,” I smiled up at the cashier in the food truck, “and thank you for being here. We need you,” I laughed and tried to give her a moment. She was facing coffee orders for hours.

“That’s it? No specialty milk or flavour?”

“That’s it,” I smiled, “just plain.”

“Well, you’re easy.” She handed me the machine to tap, and I stood to wait in the crowd.

There were clearly mostly city girls in this line, with lavender oat-lattes and sugar-free vanilla cold brews. The truck took apple pay. I was surprised but grateful, out here in the country. I still wasn’t sure what we were doing in this big dress up party of glamping and wellness. The authenticity of the whole thing was still a question to me, but I hadn’t experienced the day yet. I tried to keep an open mind, but it felt contradictory to come make a little village in the woods and not really take the woods for what it was. At the same time, I’m really not a camping girl, so it made me more comfortable to be able to get my latte.

The Nordic spa was what I’d come for. Edmonton doesn’t really have a place for hydrotherapy, but it is something I always look for when I travel. The hot-cold-hot-cold changes my body, when I had seen it on the Wild Roses website it was the first thing I signed up for. 

Tents were set up around a field with a fire circle in the middle and a section of cold plunge pools were lined up on one side. A kind woman with an undercut showed us where the change area was, the outdoor shower and a tent for bucket showering. She reminded us to drink lots of water, remove our jewellery so the metal didn’t heat up and burn us, and that we listen to our bodies going back and forth between temperatures. Oh, and sit on a towel please, for courtesy. 

I stripped down to my suit, put my backpack in a basket and realised I’d left my second towel in the car. I guess I’d dry out in the sun and use this one for my sweat on the cedar benches in the saunas. They looked like converted ice fishing tents with a chimney out the top. I unzipped and entered, sitting across from a woman well into her sweat. We greeted each other with a “good morning” and sat in silence. We inhaled the hot humid air scented with eucalyptus and lavender. 

“Do you mind if I steam it up?” she asked.

“No, please go ahead, I love the steam,” I smiled and watched her spray a bottle of essential oil water on the stones over the stove. Then she ladled more water from a bucket, hissing and crackling on the heat. A wood-burning stove smelled like pine inside the tent. I felt the steam rise and curl around my back and neck until it was almost painfully hot to breathe. We covered our mouths and noses with our hands to filter the air. It calmed down after a moment.

I watched my thighs turn red. My swimsuit had metal clasps, and they were irritating my skin. I took my water bottle from the floor where it was cool and remembered I needed to keep sipping. I knew my time in the heat was up when I felt my heart rate increase.  My heartbeat was visible on my chest.

We both stepped out, zipped the tent back up and stood there a moment. We lined up to shower at the outdoor spout before our cold plunge.  This was the hard part.  Remember to just breathe, I told myself. Women varied in their undress from total nudity to topless to swim-suited to covered up with a big t-shirt. I envied those brave enough to bare themselves.  I want to be confident in myself.  I’d do it later, I promised, for the experience.

I rinsed my feet in the little buckets in front of the big tub.  The cold was soothing on my ankles.  I held the edges of the black rubber trough and stepped in. Cold. But not unbearably cold. I edge down onto my knees, closed my eyes and breathed. Icy cold rose up through my shins taking my breath away.  I force myself lower, so my waist is in the water.  This is what I wanted, the cold on my aching hip. Pin-prickles chilled my lower body, but I kept going.  Kept breathing.  I leaned back until the water was to my armpits.  Cold water around my lungs froze me for a minute, I breathed through the panic.  Then I stood up.  Enough for one round.

I went back and forth for my full hour, until I was seeking out the coldest tub and sitting in there, so it was up to my neck.  Every time I emerged from the steam, I was more awake, more alert, more alive. I only stopped when time ran out and considered another visit the next morning.

I ended in the luke-warm bucket shower.  At that point the temperature didn’t bother me. There was a wood stove in the tent where I could warm up water, but I didn’t feel the need to.  I scooped a small pail and started splashing the sweat off myself.  A man I had dated, from Zimbabwe, told me how he liked to take bucket showers to remind him of home. We wasted so much water cleaning ourselves here in Canada, but a bucket shower was quiet, close to the earth, and required little. This was the first time I’d tried it. And it was true. Without water running as I shampooed and lathered, I just had to rinse with a few handfuls of fresh water. I sent thankful thoughts his way and walked to change into my festival-appropriate dress.

I wouldn’t go topless, but I wouldn’t wear a bra either. Or underwear. That was my rebellion. Against what, I’m not sure, but it felt free and airy and fresh.

I’d taken too long and missed the next session I’d had planned on, Healing the Mother Wound. Perhaps I didn’t really want to go and take that on after an invigorated morning. I had a Green Goddess bowl for a late breakfast and sat at the long table under a flower-adorned tent, listening to a folk singer and watching people. Many women sat alone. In an okay-to-be-alone way, not looking around for company, or hunched overlooking anxious. Some had journals and some read a book.  Many were with others, friends, mothers, sisters, little groups. It would be a fun experience for a mom and daughter, I thought, and made a mental note to bring my girls when they are older.

My belly was happy with the ultra-healthy Green Goddess bowl full of seeds and greens and nuts. I wandered over to the market to admire handmade jewellery, clothing, crystals, and meet artisans. There were too many pretty things. I might want some new earrings; I hadn’t been wearing earrings much lately, or a necklace. Why not feel pretty?

Then I spotted the hat store. It was a custom hat decorating studio in the corner of the large Quonset that sheltered the market stalls. The designers were busy, but I tried on several.  I chose a straw cowgirl hat with a flowery weave.  One of the ladies came over and suggested I wrap it with scalloped lace, a leather band and perhaps a small bundle of wildflowers.  She had a good eye, so I agreed.  They’d text me when it was ready.  Then I’d save myself from sunburn and blend completely into the crowd.

While I waited, I wandered the market. I chose gold hoop earrings with tiny little roses and thought how my daughters would love this place. I missed them. These women were all things beautiful, holistic and wellness focused. My life should be wellness focused.  I’d always made a point to eat well and work out, visit the spa when I felt I needed a rest, but a daily sort of wellness was hard with life happening.

“You’ll never breathe as deeply as you do at Wild Roses,” someone said to me. There were so many moments of stopping to breathe, breathing and taking a moment to set an intention before we gathered, and so many offers to breathe in essential oils and herbs.  That’s what I’ve been missing.  People talk about breathwork, but it takes time, and it takes space to stop and actually just breathe.

In the afternoon I’d booked a foot reflexology session with Manori Reflexology Healing and then a massage with Cloud 9.  There was to be a disco-rave-dance-party in the field that night, but I’d already decided I wasn’t up for it, as fun as I’m sure it would be.  While waiting for the reflexologist I chatted with a girl I recognized from the cannabis class. She was a vendor with her friend from Edson, not far away. Again, the empathy and compassion I felt from others, unprompted, startled me. The group of women felt all relaxed, kind, and like they genuinely cared for each other's well-being. She asked about my hip, my weekend, my story and shared hers. She motioned to her tent where she offered massage. “I have tarot cards over there for anyone to use if you feel like it this weekend.” Then she wandered off, and I sat to wait.

The reflexologist told me how she had been a medical doctor in Sri Lanka, but she retrained here and much enjoyed helping people holistically with her hands now, in Saskatchewan. She sat me in an antigravity chair, and I felt like I was falling asleep the entire time. My body was heavy and slow. At the end, she told me it was obvious I needed deep rest. “Go and take a nap”, she said. In a daze, I drove back to my cabin and listened to her instructions.

*           *           *

A Meeting With Your Wild Feminine Ancestors, the session was called. I wandered over to the Rosebud site. It was an enormous field surrounded by deciduous forest. The speaker, Elise Braithwaite, told us to sit on the ground with nothing between us and the earth. I put my quilt, keys, and water bottle to the side and listened. We breathed in the wind; she prepared us; she uploaded and downloaded our spiritual councils. She asked for the minimum number of spiritual guides for the maximum effect. I’d never heard someone speak this way, but I kept my mind open. When we were ready, we lined up in lines and lines, facing the trees and closed our eyes. We meditated and our spirit guides came to us.

In lines, we took a step back. We were in our mother’s body. I saw a flash of red behind my eyes and felt shaky with rage. You are feeling what your mother felt, she said. If you feel sad, she felt sad. If you feel nothing, she felt nothing. I felt anger, and yes, she was an angry woman. I wanted out of this body. Take another step back; you’re in your grandmother’s body. I felt numbness as I checked out of the rage. We took steps back nine generations. Somewhere along the way, I parted from the group in my mind.  A grandmother was there. 

She’s tiny. She walked up to me, put her arm around my waist, as small arthritic older women do, and told me to walk with her. She walked with me back several generations. Holding out her claw of a hand, swollen joints deformed with arthritis, she showed me pieces of us.

With the women before her, she encircled me, they held me, I saw bright orange light and felt love. She walked back with me. She was a no-bullshit lady: she told me I know what to do, so go do it. She showed me her plant apothecary, the men working in the field, and with her crippled old hands she kneaded bread beside me.

Together we felt the expansion of pregnancy, deflation of labouring, and opening to bring that child from the womb. I was that child, at some point. And she was a child to one of the ancestors too. We come from a long line of women. Strong women. Women who survived. Women who were angry, numb, afraid and quieted. But also, women who were joyful, abundant, loving and alive.

“You come from a long line of mothers,” Elise told us. She brought us forward, back to our bodies, back to the present in the field by the trees. Some women were crying, some smiling. We’d gone through all the emotions. I felt spacey, but strong. I picked up my quilt and my water bottle and headed away from the field to think through it.

The Healer’s Village was in another field, next to the last one, surrounded by white festival tents. It was quiet. They offered anything you could think of in the wellness and spiritual realms. Tarot readings, massage, Akashic record readings and facials. It was a holistic village of all sorts of healers. Waiting for my massage, I looked through various sets of Oracle Cards outside the Cloud 9 tent. Turns out the woman I had been speaking with earlier was the one who would give me a massage. She was thoughtful and empathetic; it was a happy surprise.

My massage gave me more space to rest, and she worked on my headache muscles. I’d been having constant headaches for months. I found some relief and we made friends. She gave me a hug after, and it felt like she genuinely cared for my well-being.

Wild Roses has a position called being a Space Holder, and she was one of them. These individuals were to be there to hold, support, listen, and make space for others who needed support. I felt held and supported, cared for. In an almost familial way, despite being amongst strangers. But I was amongst other women here for a break, too. My body knew it needed to slow down and my nervous system was finally listening. 

As I walked to my vehicle, I reached for my bracelet with the car keys. I’d lost the car keys. It threw me out of my relaxation and into a panic. This was not even my car. Did my Dad have an extra set? I’m out in the middle of nowhere. Insert all the swear words.

“If your prayers are ever going to be answered, it's going to be here, and if someone is going to be helpful, it’s at this place,” I told myself. I flashed back to setting down my things in the big field. I walked over there and searched in the grass. Nothing. I retraced my steps. I asked vendors and ladies at the various tents. I asked the cafe and the front welcome desk. I left my number and asked the universe to find them. My phone was almost out of battery, so I sighed and started walking back to my cabin. It wasn’t far, and the sun was low in the sky. A nice evening walk along the highway.

I posted on the Facebook group, I sent messages to speakers, I did all I could to try to make contact with my keys. I made myself some dinner and wrote in my journal. I waited and got ready for bed. When I wiped my face with a cleansing cloth, my phone rang.

“I think we have your keys. Can you come get them from me?” a volunteer asked.

I felt the relief as my body sagged with a huge breath out, “yes, I’ll be right there,” I saved her number just in case and started walking back.

“Thank you so much. I’m so grateful. It’s my Dad’s car, and he’s from out of town and I didn’t want to have to tell him I was in the middle of nowhere and lost his keys.”

“That explains the look on your face before. You looked so sad and hopeless. I’m glad we found them for you.”

My sleep that night was deep, restful, nourishing sleep. I said goodnight to the stars from my little porch and thank you to the land. I sent gratitude to the universe as the sun set at 10:10.

The weekend finished with one more visit to the Nordic Spa. I got my coffee, like the day before, listened to a workshop about Perimenopause, realized I was there if not headed that way, and breathed deeply to accept it. I went to a Sourdough Workshop where we named and fed our first starter. Mine was Baby James, son of Chloe, the original sourdough starter. The woman who led it, Karla Rice, taught us about making bread. I couldn’t wait to go home and try it and feed my family. I painted a watercolour picture of roses laced with poetry at a Paint Your Prayers session. This time I opted into the Cacao ceremony after the sauna, and as I sipped the dark, thick drink, I felt stillness.

A month later and it's been on my mind often. I crave the peace I felt walking through the grounds, looking up at the birch leaves rustling and down at the buttercups. Vegetation I see every day but never really look at till I’m in that head space. Sometimes I can find it, the place where my nervous system has dropped down a level, when I meditate or if I spend enough time walking in nature.