News / Wellbeing
New wellness festival promises to feed body and soul
A three-day gathering coming to a lakeside near Bristol will be “more than a festival”, say organisers.
Offering an alternative to the festival’s typical escapist approach, Fire in Your Soul will combine wellbeing, conscious culture and climate storytelling to encourage attendees to slow down, reconnect with nature and celebrate community.
The programme includes woodland saunas and ice-bath immersions, energy vitality workshops, yoga and breathwork in the woods which house barn owls and deer.
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Music on offer features a live appearance from electronic artist Madame Ghandi, whose latest work including field recordings of melting glaciers and is the first to officially credit nature as a featured artist.
Also on the lineup is Natural Symphony, a bio-reactive installation that produces sound from living plants, and Bristol’s multi-instrumentalist Bethany Ley and DJ Milly On Air.
A landmark collaboration with EarthSonic, a global initiative using music to tell the story of climate change, will drive discussions on the power of music for environmental storytelling and awareness raising.
Elsewhere, nighttime UV mushroom foraging walks will be led by Bristol Fungarium, festival poet in residence Beth Calverley runs a nature connection writing walk and slow food ‘root-to-flame’ sessions will be hosted by fire chef Simon Dyer and festival founder Luke Hasell.
With her Poetry Machine, Beth asks illuminating questions and weaves the answers into a personalised typewritten poem to take away – photo: Ania Shrimpton
The festival site in Chew Magna has been farmed by Hasell’s family for five generations, and is where he now produces organic beef from native breed cows using regenerative methods including conservation grazing in Leigh Woods.
He also founded the Community Farm, supplying veg boxes with organic produce grown on his land nearby, and is the owner of acclaimed Bristol restaurant Root.
Hassel is passionate about sustainable farming, and its benefits for the health of both people and the environment. If there’s one thing he could inspire people to try, he says, it would be growing their own food:
“We could all learn a lot by getting our hands in the soil and growing something that we can eat.
“There are so many stories to tell in the wellbeing world with regards to the roots of everything we thrive from, what we eat, the nutritional value of the things we put in our stomachs,” he says of the inspiration behind the festival.
“I feel a huge responsibility to help people navigate through the regenerative world of food and farming, tracking us right back how we feed the soil, the way in which we farm.
“My personal journey into the wellbeing world, understanding more about the roots of it all and the nutritional benefits of pasture-fed meat, has made me realise I want to communicate that better. With Fire in Your Soul I’m hoping we can welcome people to the farm, put that knowledge out there and give them abit of a journey into their own world of wellbeing.”
The yoga programme is led by a collective of teachers including Amy Cotterill, Bex Luther, Safia Almaghrabi and Jo Green – photo: Fire in Your Soul
Hassel, who also founded Valley Fest which celebrated its tenth anniversary in 2024 before taking a break this year, says the focused and intimate nature of this new event provides a good opportunity for people to explore alternative lifestyles and wellness practices.
“It will be 3-400 people out in the open, in nature… I don’t know if small is more beautiful but this is definitely a starting point for a wellbeing event that we want to put on the map and allow people to dive abit deeper into that world,” he says.
“We can’t carry on sustaining a broken world, we have to be regenerative about our approach. I think having these messages at the core of what we do is so important. And people do really care.
“There are some really exciting things on our programme. At festivals people are relaxing, kicking back, stepping out of the world they live in – and maybe they have abit more of an open mind about things, to take things away that they can change in their daily lives.”
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Festival curator Lucy Evans sums it up: “We’ve built Fire In Your Soul to be more than a festival – it’s a space for deep personal and collective regeneration,” she says.
“This isn’t about escapism or lifestyle trends. It’s about slowing down, reconnecting with the earth and creating culture that heals – through music, movement and meaningful care.”
Fire in Your Soul takes place July 4-6 in Chew Stoke, Somerset. Find all details at fireinyoursoul.co.uk
Main image: Fire in Your Soul
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