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Peacemakers To Gather August 4 to 10

Banner Elk Festival To Foster Peace And Harmony

Story by Bernadette Cahill Corey Harris is one of the conscious music performers who will appear at the Gathering of the Peacemakers, scheduled for Monday, August 4, through Sunday, August 10.

A summer festival with the traditional camping and music scheduled for Banner Elk from Monday, August 4, through Sunday, August 10, is attracting participants from around the world—but it’s not the usual rock extravaganza.

The inaugural Festival of the Peacemakers aims to balance participants so they can return to far-flung homes radiating gentleness and love and start a wave of positive relations with themselves, others and with the earth that over time will transform our planet into a haven of peace and harmony.

Travelers from Wales, England, Guatemala, Canada and all over the United States have registered for this festival with a difference that takes place at Holston Camp, said organizer Robert Roskind of Blowing Rock.

“We are not so focused on ticket sales and entertainment. We are more focused on spirit and balance,” he said.

The festival will feature Mayan Tata Pedro Cruz as Elder-in-Residence. Daily workshops will deal with voluntary simplicity, finding your mission in life, creating and sustaining loving unions, handling your money wisely, co-housing, building your own home, living off the grid, solar and wind energy, organic and bio-dynamic gardening, permaculture, healing arts, yoga, herbal cures, wilderness skills, affordable shelter, and more.

Workshop leaders are from organizations such as Earthaven, Red Moon Herbs, Turtle Island, New River Earth Institute, Josephine Porter Institute and ASU’s Department of Appropriate Technology.

“People don’t come to this [kind of festival],” said Roskind. “They are called to it. People have gone to enough [rock] festivals. They are tired of it. They need to be with like-minded people [with a] complete break from materialism, commercialism, pop music, the political scene” and whatever causes anxiety, whether it’s rising gas prices, the melting of the polar ice caps or conflict escalation throughout the world.

To Roskind and his wife Julia, who have previously organized 76 free concerts in schools, prisons, Native American reservations, and public venues in Jamaica and the United States to generate awareness of a loving approach to relationships and the earth, the 150 or so participants will be honored and cherished guests.

“People usually leave festivals less balanced,” said Roskind, “but they don’t want constant stimulation. The whole structure of the week is so that [they] leave much more balanced than when [they] arrived. Our goal is to transport people and bring them to a still point where they can remember who they are and who they are not.”

The festival site will be commerce-free, although the Internet will be available and quiet use of cell phones will be allowed. This retreat from materialism will use the traditional arts of music, storytelling and drumming to elevate participants to a higher plane where they can heal from stress and then carry their healing back home.

Every night, Roskind will relate around a fire circle his and Julia’s tale of their travels among indigenous cultures seeking the message of unconditional love for all humanity. Throughout the night, a drumming circle will gather in the High Meadows.

“From the minute you get there, the whole thing is choreographed to conscious music,” said Roskind, who said that this genre uplifts the human spirit and encourages loving, forgiveness and justice.

“A lot of it is birthed out of Jamaica. Bob Marley’s music is that way,” he said.
Each night, live concerts will feature the Southeast’s best-known conscious recording artists, “who use their music to uplift the human race,” Roskind said. “It is all musical medicine.” Performers will include Corey Harris, Dub Conscious, Laura Reed and the Deep Pocket Band, Afromotive, Ras Alan and Chalwa.
The cost of the week is $275. Because the intent is to enable a group of like-minded souls to grow in peace together, no partial or daily tickets will be sold. Those who come don’t have to stay the whole time.

The festival price includes everything but food, with children under 12 half price. Rooms, cabins and dorms cost more. Meals are $125 for the week.
The festival’s message isn’t too much different from traditional Christianity, said Roskind. Over centuries, humans have been learning the essentials of a harmonious existence piece by piece, whether it is democracy, the abolition of slavery or equality for women.

“The last piece of the puzzle is war,” he said, and when our resources are freed up from war-mongering to correct world problems such as hunger, humans will be on their way to a just society. He said learning love and peace is the next stage in human evolution, and individuals can consciously help themselves develop it through activities like the Banner Elk festival.

“We don’t know when [this change] is coming, but it is going to come through individuals becoming more loving—learning and teaching to others—and hopefully we will get to a tipping point. Love gives to the giver and the receiver, continues on and on and never ends. [It is] more powerful than nuclear energy.”

People get overwhelmed by the big problems of the world, and the Festival of the Peacemakers’ intent, Roskind said, is to change that. Each person is “one six-billionth” of the solution and while everyone is capable, most are so far unprepared. But as healing and loving are each soul’s assignment on earth, it is important to learn not to worry about the big picture.

“Don’t fret for the future because each one of us can do the assignment that we are given,” he said. “We hope that people will leave [the festival] with peace of mind and share it with others. Everyone should walk their path with as much love as they can. If enough of us can do that, we have a wonderful future.”

For information, click to www.onelovepress.com, email roskind@boone.net or phone 828 295-4610.

Want To Go?

Date: Monday to Sunday, August 4 to 10
Time: All day throughout the week
Location: Holston Camp, Banner Elk
Cost: $275, advance registration required