Articles/Letters
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Renew Fest is regenerating and re-calibrating to re-emerge Wendy Champagne One of Australia’s best-loved eco-festivals – Renew Fest – is taking a year off to replenish, restore, and re-calibrate with the plan to re-emerge in 2020 as a power source for ecological, economic, and social renewal across the
nation and the world. Instead, the organisers are holding a Deep Renew Weekend that same weekend, 10–12 May 2019, at the Mullumbimby Civic Hall and Mullumbimby Showgrounds, with the full-blown version of Renew Fest set to return in 2020.
Photographic studio and creative space
by mr jason grant in Byron Bay
hello@mrjasongrant.com for all enquiries
Buddhists have this great image and spiritual practice of turning the wheel – they call it the dharma wheel. It signifies action in the world that generates harmony with oneself and the world. If turned with clear mind and heart eventually that wheel turns itself. This is the vision of the director of Renew Fest, Ella Rose Goninan, to create a self-sustaining movement towards global renewal. ‘It’s time to do some heavy lifting. The moment has come to re-organise and expand our festival and build resilience into our local and global community in this time of quickening crisis. We see our role at Renew to provide the foundation and wisdom to action real world change, to embolden clear, audacious vision for this planet, and in order to do that our organisation needs time to regenerate.’ Life made that vision and determination crystal clear
for Ella at the end of last year with the death of her friend’s son. Her grief and her role in supporting her friends in their grief brought home the fact that renewal is a precious and invaluable process and requires our full attention. ‘We human beings need to be working together to be successful in restoring our collective health and our impact on the planet,’ says Ella. Ella continues: ‘In December last year my friend lost her son in childbirth. The harrowing grief that prevailed for her, her partner, her family, and everyone present has changed and is continuing to change every fibre of my being. I spent the whole next month living in their home, providing constant and intimate grief support, co-ordinating rosters of community helpers with food and homecare. ‘There was a core team of us who dedicated ourselves to making sure communal support flowed and many
who participated in providing daily care. ‘I don’t yet know the full impact of this experience but I am certain I have to allow it. I recognise the importance of remaining close and available to them through the ongoing process of their tragic loss. It’s a deep honour to be able to make this choice to offer care in this way.’ In light of this experience Ella is announcing a change of pace this year, with a Deep Renew Weekend, focused on grief and elderhood in a time of climate crisis. The Deep Renew Weekend will feature two events with international author, founder of Orphan Wisdom, griefwalker and elderhood teacher Stephen Jenkinson, on both Friday evening 10 May and Saturday 11 May. This will be followed by a deep-listening Vigil For Grief in the fig-tree grove of Mullumbimby Showgrounds 11–12 May with the live immersive music-scape of
HHAARRPP, spoken-word meditations from festival director Ella Rose Goninan and guests, and the quiet contemplations of all those that attend. ‘We are buoyed by all the organisations and individuals who committed and expressed interest in Renew Fest 2019 and we encourage them and many more to join us when the bigger festival returns in 2020,’ says Ella. ‘In many ways my passage through this grief and support process parallels that for our festival. Connecting to grief within our human experience, including the grief for our impact on the earth, is a powerful resource for renewing our service to life. ‘Renew celebrates individual and collective desires for regenerating and caring for the planet and our human societies. It speaks to all of us.’ For more details bout the Deep Renew Weekend, go to www.renewfest.org.au.
LETTERS
a problem in the carpark then please stop resisting cameras. Thanks to the council trial there’s now a safe, sublime mainstream beach. Turn left, not right, at the end of Grays Lane – there are kilometres of near-deserted beach for you to enjoy without nudists or alleged sex pests. It is unacceptable that a handful of militant residents want to shut down a nude beach that has been reformed and is working for thousands of responsible people over the course of a year. Nude beach users and residents can co-exist
harmoniously. Ongoing, proactive management rather than prohibition is still the best way forward. David Dixon Byron Bay
infrastructure. Since well before this government decided in 2014 to ignore community opposition and insert a piece of western Sydney into Byron Shire’s Local Environment Plan, at higher densities than the landowners requested, their mantra has been that it is for affordable housing and that they will fund the bypass. No-one believes that West Byron will deliver affordable housing, and Ben’s government placed no constraints upon the development to do so. The developer’s estimate is that there will be a 66 per cent increase in traffic on Ewingsdale Road from West Byron, and yet the bypass will only result in the diversion of some 7–20 per cent of existing traffic around town, most likely 10–15 per cent. Ben has promised $9.5m for the bypass (it could cost more). This money would be more effective in addressing traffic impacts if it went into reducing the impact of West Byron by reducing the scale of the development by buybacks and/or rezoning. The National Party created this mess and they need to propose a solution that significantly reduces the scale of West Byron, as well as its massive impacts on koalas, Wallum Sedge Frogs and the Belongil estuary. Dailan Pugh Byron Bay
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with closing the beach. If an 800m stretch of nude beach offends you then please don’t go there. If there’s
Nats and West Byron Despite Ben Franklin and Premier Gladys Berejiklian admitting (Echo August 22) that their government’s rezoning of West Byron resulted in a ‘scale of that development is beyond what the community’s expectations are’, that is ‘too big to impose on the community’, Ben’s only solution (Echo 6 February) is more
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BYRON BAY Feb 21 – Apr 11
BYRON BAY WEDDING DJ Call Max on 0427 875 066
www.byronbayweddingdj.biz 16 The Byron Shire Echo DĕćſƖëſƷ ǨǪǽ ǩǧǨǰ
North Coast news daily in Echonetdaily www.echo.net.au