If it were any other event, I might skip it to get home to my children after spending the weekend at a yoga retreat, my birthday gift to myself for turning the big 4-0.
But the people organizing Sunday’s Grow Your Health Wellness Festival are so earnest and passionate, and the documentary film In Organic We Trust sounds so compelling, I’m extending my time away to head straight there after morning yoga and brunch on Sunday.
This is my plan, even if it means my husband has to take our two kids (on the first day of Daylight Savings Time) to a birthday party for my toddler (with gluten-free cupcakes and lunch in tow) and a Navigators meeting for my first-grader. In fact, in addition to packing and writing, I’m hustling to prepare materials for my chapter of Holistic Moms Network to have a table at the Fairfax event along with cool companies like gardening coaching business Love & Carrots and holistic health coaches.
In learning about Grow Your Health, I drummed up an acquaintance with event organizer Jack Moore, whose nam
e I’ve seen for a while on the Northern Virginia Wholefoods Meetup Group. When Jack had a heart attack ten years ago, he got religion on health and wellness. Not everyone can quit working and devote themselves to healing, but if you can, it probably beats getting sicker by working harder.
In recent years, Jack has promoted health and wellness, for children especially. He and Heather Metz have been running a monthly Parent Nutrition Support Group for people trying to follow a whole foods diet or exploring nutritional approaches to illness, allergies or behavioral issues in their children. They meet the third Thursday of the month in the evening at Beloved Yoga, the sponsor of the retreat I’m heading to in an hour or so. It’s nice when things come full circle!
Jack also organizes monthly discussions on health and food politics on the third Thursday of every month through the Meetup group. I was too stressed out last month to attend the talk about inflammation and stress (!) with Beloved Yoga owner Maryam Ovissi, but I hope to hear some of her story this weekend.
And when the retreat is over, I look forward to attending Grow Your Health to learn more about gardening and about what “organic” really means (or doesn’t). I also expect to eat some delicious local fare in the wellness café catered by local farm the Fields of Athenry and to connect with other people on the local health and wellness scene.
The event is noon to 5 on Sunday, March 10, at Wilson High School in Fairfax, Virginia at 9525 Main St., Fairfax, VA 22032. The film screens and 1:00 with food available before and after. Workshops will occur after the film when attendees can also check out the exhibitor booths.
Tickets are $10 through Eventbrite and $15 at the door. Babies are free and children get in for $5. Farm-to-table lunch items are described and priced on the event website at http://grow-your-health.info/
Jessica Claire Haney is a wellness addict. She writes about living naturally — to the best of her ability, in the real world — and parenting her two children while she tries to parent herself at Crunchy-Chewy Mama.
