The Foliage Folk Festival

The sunset over Whalebone C foliage of the treehistoric Hadlyme Public Hall, and for an instant it looks like fiwindows, small lights twinkle and fade as silhouetted bodiesyou meander up the wide, white steps lined with mums and pdeep red curtains break slightly to reveal the magic at work in ove hits the s framing the re. Through the move within. As umpkins, the side.

It’s a Brooklyn-New York-meets-Burlington- Vermont-movie-perfect setting where millennials, gen-Xers and boomers gather on antique wooden chairs and children play amongst the hay bales covered in burlap and blankets. Indian corn and leaves the colors of fall decorate the tables in the back where people convene over spiced apple cider and whispered conversation. Folk musicians strum on banjos, and the high notes of a fiddle add emotion to songs about love and loss and healing.

The smells of home cooking drift up from the lower level of the building. Sweet notes of maple pulled pork and the warmth of cornbread entice you down the wooden stairs where you find the bustling of a marketplace. Artisan vendors line the room, their faces filled with light and excitement as they share their passion for crafting delicate silver rings or sturdy wheel-thrown pottery mugs. You watch a young man as he picks up a hand-carved wooden soup spoon, plying the soft finish. The smooth texture contrasts with his hands, speckled with scars, a reminder of a disease that once ravished his life.

Much has been written about the ways we heal. But when an epidemic - deadly and stigmatized - sweeps through our communities, we’re often left wondering at the ashes and grasping for meaning. As the wise Wendell Berry once mused, “Healing is impossible in loneliness; it is the opposite of loneliness. Conviviality is healing.”

“Through the windows, slights MALL twinkle and fadesilhouetted bodies move within

The Foliage Folk Festival, happening this Columbus Day weekend, is complex in its character. Born in 2017, from a fiery group of human beings fed up with the opioid epidemic, the festival combats tragedy with community, crafts and music. The proceeds benefit addiction recovery services and youth programs. It embodies the very essence of conviviality, an all-encompassing warmth that is only felt when a community realizes that it has always known that this is how we heal. That bringing together farmers, musicians, parents, handcraft businesses and people in recovery is how we support ourselves and our communities.

The Foliage Folk Festival is magical because it highlights the most charming parts of our New England communities in the fall, gathers the best and brightest rising folk musicians, and because it accentuates the best parts of ourselves and who we can be.

“Be moved. Not by the rhyth

The Foliage Folk Festival runs October 5-6 at the Hadlyme Public Hall.

We firmly believe the best way into our hearts is through our stomachs -- so we’ll have plenty of food available for purchase at the festival. Friday night, we’re making it like mom used to with home-cooked options fresh from the kitchen. On Saturday, we’ll take it to the street with a food truck. Both nights offer vegetarian/ vegan options. BYOB.

“It’s a Brooklyn-New YorBurlington-Vermont-moperfect setting...”