Building community with music & soil

Music is known as a universal language. If you can play music, you can converse with other musicians musically. No shared verbal language is required. Emotions can be shared beautifully through music, music can make people laugh, cry, dance and feel elated, to name only a few. It is an incredibly powerful way to connect with others. When you involve people in making music, or when people can dance to music they enjoy, a bond is formed with other likeminded folk like nothing else. Smiles are shared and people connect, even if they have little else in common and don’t know each other. All of a sudden, people feel part of a community.

According to an article on greatist.com (with scientific links to each conclusion made in the article), scientific research has proven that music can:

1. Ease pain
2. Make people exercise harder, improve endurance and post-workout recovery
3. Improve sleep quality
4. Help people eat less
5. Enhance blood vessel function
6. Reduce stress
7. Induce a meditative state
8. Relieve symptoms of depression
9. Elevate mood
10. Improve cognitive performance
11. Help people perform better in high pressure situations
12. Reduce anxiety as much as a massage
13. Relax patients before surgery
14. Ease stress after surgery
15. Elevate mood while driving
16. Help cancer patients manage stress and anxiety
17. Ease recovery in stroke patients

According to an article by Didge Project studies are now showing that people with blood pressure issues, heart ailments, mental/emotional dysfunction, learning difficulties, depression, post traumatic stress, alzheimers and more all benefit from playing and listening to music.

Click here for another great article with 200+ studies showing the benefits of music.

Interestingly, gardening has a lot of similar benefits! Being outside and in touch with nature is so important, especially in these days of electronic overload. Getting your eyes used to green foliage instead of computer blue light, breathing fresh air, having your hands in the soil and creating healthy and clean food has many of the benefits listed above.

As time goes by and the need for caring for this planet becomes more urgent, it is extremely important that we band together as human beings and connect and educate ourselves on ways to minimise our footprint and educate others. It is vital that we have a great time doing that, as it is the joy we feel in our hearts when we connect with each other and the planet that will enable us to keep going. The People Care ethic in Permaculture often is forgotten or pushed aside by the importance of the Earth Care ethic, however People Care is extremely important, especially if we want to achieve the Earth Care and Fair Share ethics! This is the purpose of CelebrATE!

CelebrATE! is an event which raises money to enable not for profit organisation PermEco Inc. to fulfil its objectives. Ticket sales monies go to paying our presenters, artists, catering and any expenses incurred running the event. If there is any money left over it will go towards paying for people to be educated and trained in sustainable living and regenerative agricultural practices on the Kendall Permaculture Farm (our permaculture education and demonstration site), and towards helping people and projects in need. (See our homepage at permeco.org for more information on our projects and objectives).

CelebrATE! integrates music and permaculture, as we feel that music is an ideal way to create community plus we are passionate about music (see all the benefits above!). The event celebrates Bill Mollison’s life by educating people and creating a community feel with permaculture and music workshops. This year we have moved the event from May (Bill Mollison’s birth month) to September (which is the month he passed away). People have loved coming to the event in the past and have made some great inter-personal connections at the event!

Tickets for the CelebrATE! event are only for sale online through Eventbrite, ticket sales finish on Wednesday 18 September for catering purposes. No ticket sales at the gate! You can find out more about CelebrATE! here, or buy tickets on Eventbrite here.

Author: Zaia Kendall

Zaia grew up in a family of musicians in Holland, and has a background in top sport (snow skiing) and web development and design. She co-founded the PRI Luganville and PRI Sunshine Coast Inc (now PermEco Inc.) with Tom, and runs the “invisible structures”, like finances, business administration, website design and maintenance, writes articles and records and edits videos. She assists Tom in running the Kendall Permaculture Farm and supervising other volunteers. She is an active member of several musical projects and bands, involved in community music and runs percussion and marimba workshops, is the percussion leader for the Woodford Folk Festival People’s Orchestra and composes as well as plays music. She is passionate about community music and loves seeing people discover that they can play!