Sapwood Projects
Community – Connection – Creativity
We all start as Sapwood
The Role of Sapwood
There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it
Minnie Aumonier
We all start as sapwood, a form created to build and grow our nutrient stores, to protect and send sap around our bodies, the life line of the tree. Sapwood Projects was inspired by the slow growth and change occurring inside trees and how their existence is holding space for others to grow. These very trees help us to breath, create homes both as lumber for houses but for animals in every ecosystem. They provide food, shelter, nutrients, shade, and a playground for humans and animals alike.
Sapwood is outer, living layers of the secondary wood of trees, which engage in transport of water and minerals to the crown of the tree. In young trees and young parts of older trees, all of the wood in the stem is sapwood. But as the tree gets older and its trunk increases in diameter, things change. No longer is the entire cross-section of the trunk needed for conducting sap. This, combined with an increased need for structural support, causes significant changes in the wood. The cells nearest the center of the trunk die, but they remain mostly intact. As these older sapwood cells age and die, they become heartwood.
As we grow physically and spiritually, outer layers providing safety and flow through our bodies and spirit, just like a young tree, as we grow older and wiser our protective layer shrinks. We form a stronger heart and soul that grows like the rings of trees over periods of time, we must be patient. No matter what stage of life you are in; you are providing life, feeding souls, and forever growing.
In this cross section you can see the difference in sapwood. The younger red pine has a large area of sapwood that over time will harden and die into heartwood until it reaches an age where like the Red oak it has a majority of heartwood and a small essential ring of sapwood to transport nutrients and sap. Just like how the young red pine is still a tree, functioning and beautiful. We are still humans functioning and beautiful no matter what stage of growth physical or spiritual we are currently in.
Our Role
The role set for Sapwood Projects is one of integrity, kindness and creativity. However we do believe that no individual, group, business or event is perfect. We are all navigating our dreams and values in unison the best we can. Our only role is to show that we can strive to do our best, that with each event, gathering or workshop we improve on the last and put all of you; Patrons, Musicians, workshop holders and performers first. Because without you, we are only the the figment of our imagination. You, the individual bring sapwood to life, we provide nutrient rich soil, water and sunlight and plant a seed sending sap to our newly formed life, as the event blossoms into flowers before our eyes.
We run events. Small gatherings of workshops, bushwalking and live music. Our role is to facilitate a space, one that provides enjoyment, creativity and connection. We host local performers and connect them with the ideal location and time to provide the best platform for their art to reach you. We provide workshops that allow you to let go and relearn skills both internally and externally. We are just the sapwood connecting artists of all kinds to you and one day we will harden, die and move into heartwood and our time to be the providing space for events will end. But right now, we welcome you to Sapwood Projects and hope to meet dancing, playing, creating or connecting at one of our events.
With Love and Gratitude.
Vahid.
Desert inspiration
Central Australia – A Journey of Learning
“The more you know, the less you need.” – Australian Aboriginal saying
Australia is an old country. Far more pregnant with culture and variety in landscapes than many of us realise. Recently we completed a trip through NSW, QLD, NT and SA, passing through Munga Thirri (5 days of 1000 sand dunes), visiting Uluru and many other Aboriginal lands. As you travel weeks on end on straight roads of vast flatness chasing a sunset into the cosmos. Your first thought is “look at the nothingness before us”. But to a curious eye it is revealed what lays before you, a land carefully sculpted over millennia, changing seas to mountains and mountains to seas. A land more equipped at art than the worlds most prestigious artist and a land so fragile in its beauty that we forget what each plant, animal and stone has to endure each day to survive.
Each town more remote than the next, yet the elements of life, love, happiness, kindness… They seem to almost increase the further you travel into the nothingness. It’s too hard to explain outback living and I’m sure our quick trip didn’t allow us to grasp the full extent of what it really meant to live out there. Our more populated society could really learn a lot from the extensive outback.
The Desert is patient, it waits for the right moment to use energy, not wasting a drop. We were lucky enough to catch the end of a 3 year drought, to us the desert looked less like a desert compared to many parts of NSW we traveled through. A vast sea of dull green rippled its way to the horizon with dots of desert flowers splattering the sides of stand dunes. How lucky we were.
Munga Thirri, the worlds longest parallel sand dunes. A land that was home to many hundreds of local aboriginal people from the Wangkangurru (or Nharla) lands. This for me trumped the rest of our trip, here I am writing a blog about our trip around QLD and NT but I feel most of what is flowing is from my experience of the desert crossing. The trip really inspired me to achieve my goals for coming years but also to make sure I travel more parts of our vast continent.
The quote that inspired this post “The more you know, the less you need”, really complimented my experiences on the trip. I know I want to run events, but do I need them? I know large events create chaos and many more struggles so why not only focus my energy on small micro events. I’m finding more and more that what Sapwood is will change, but for now I would like to achieve my dream of running at least one event in the space. Of course there are many more obvious interpretations of this quote, we know we don’t need a huge house, vast varieties of foods grown or manufactured over seas, or even a car with air-conditioning, or many other of the modern luxuries we are sold. Try and experience every aspect of life even the hard ones with love and joy, as from these you will gain further understanding in what you really need.
Driving a 1990 ex military land rover for 7500kms in 4 weeks gives you a perspective not gained from many vehicles. Besides the anxiety of not knowing if a mechanical issue will arise at any moment, sitting on 80km per hour with no aircon and blue tooth earmuffs to dull the truck motor that has only 1mm of aluminum separating the cab and motor. You start to find you slow down, from the anxiety comes much needed car check overs before leaving for the day, the lack of aircon means you can enter and exit the car without your body going into shock, ready for a hike or an explore. The 6 hours of driving at 80kms per hour allows you to take in the beauty around you, to stop in time for crossing animals and free yourself from a time schedule needing to be met. We started to realize we needed less, Less gadgets, toys or food, less books, paints or clothes. As there was everything we needed right around us. We don’t need plans every night for entertainment, we don’t need to fit 5 different hobbies into each day with work and downtime being the last thing on our minds.
We don’t need events, gatherings or festival jammed packed with the bright new 3d mapped stage and speaker stacks that blow your pants off. We need connection, listening and sharing. It does not matter where you are, what you are doing. Every spot is special, every location or activity deserves gratitude and presence. Don’t go chasing, everything you need is right in front of you.
With Gratitude,
Vahid.
A Festival is Born
Dreaming – Overcoming – Creating
“Not he who has much is rich, but he who gives much.”
Erich fromm
Do you ever look at places, things or people and see a grand vision in play. A piece of land as a venue for an event, a band that fits a setting perfectly or even just how someone has weaved sticks together to make an arch and it just sparks a fire within you overflowing you with creative motivation. Enough so that in an instance you could quit your job and invest your life into the path you see unraveling in your mind?
I’d like to dive a little into how Bulga Beats Festival came about and what was going through my mind at different stages of building an alternative festival from the ground up. But please note, BBF is not my creation. I had guidance, support, leaders and friends who along this journey poured their heart, soul and money to make this event a reality. The event is forever in their debt as without that small group of driven people, none of it would have happened. And for me, my dreams of running a festival would never have been reached.
Lets set the scene a little in a very brief way: I grew up totally off-grid in a time not that long ago but at a time where teachers wouldn’t believe me and said it was impossible to live without mains power… With a Folk musician as a father we would listen to him practicing while going to sleep and curl up around camp fires while Irish jigs gallop away in the distance. My teenage dreams of being an AFL star ended when I quit my time with the Sydney Swans. This decision was made after a year of getting a taste for the industry playing with the Swans Reserves. I quit Sport, I quit Uni and I surfed for a few months, after which I moved home. This is when I found my drive to start a festival in our little town of Bulga. With no experience and not much of an understanding for what I was taking on, but knowing within myself that I love live music and making people happy. I set out to start a festival at 19. Firstly, I knew this was too big to tackle alone and I had heard that the local Progress Association was looking into attracting more youth to the area. I attended a meeting and proposed the idea, from there we formed a small committee and spent a few months brainstorming what this festival was going to look like.
At this time Bulga and the Progress Association were coming to the end of a 7 year battle against the nearby mining giant. When sacred Wonnarua Bora grounds, Burial sites, habitat for endangered swift parrot and a legal document saying the mine cannot come any closer to Bulga isn’t enough… It’s understandable that the community was divided, worn out and depressed. With this new drive for a community event we set out to create a festival for community building, tourism and as a celebration / protest to our spirits being broken.
We had support from all over the country, and over the first two years we had signed guitars and artworks from people like; John Butler, Peter Garret, and even had Actor Michael Caton attend the festival. After the first two years, as a committee we realised that it was time to evolve the event. It’s purpose had changed, It now needed to become more of an “attraction” rather than a protest. We changed how the festival ran a little and it was at this time that Sapwood Projects took over management of the event.
It’s a hard task to run an event while trying to incorporate all the values, ideas and dreams you want for it. Like everything there are always sacrifices, financially and of control. The financial support from the founders allowed this event to achieve its current success, but building a long term festival comes with financial hardships, losses and struggles. We are not in this for money, but costs need to be covered and slowly we are building a system that allows all walks of life to attend while supporting our performers the best we can.
After cancelling 2020 – 2022 due to Covid, we are looking to relaunch the festival in 2023. Aiming to keep the same feeling we have built over the years we also look to change how the festival operates. We are looking into meal times and eating together, different ways of offering food to be more communal, healthy and homely. Bulga Beats is my passion project, a hobby more than an income, a love more than a why. I want to create spaces for people to come and enjoy, to feel how I felt as a child listening to folk musicians around a camp fire. It brings me so much joy to offer this space and I hope it will continue to run for many years, growing and changing.
Bulga Beats Festival is still very young, we aim to support local artists and performers while bringing a small homely feeling to a festival built on community. Community isn’t always connected, joyful or without struggles and this is why we are a community festival. We will work through our struggles, highs and lows together, connected and understanding!
With gratitude
Vahid,
Director: Sapwood Projects.
Sapwood Projects 