TITLE: Timber! Outdoor Music Festival: The Wilderwomen Take Carnation

When opportunity knocks, you can either ignore the sound and stay indoors…or if you’re a Wilderwoman, you fling the door open and walk enthusiastically out into the world. We were presented with the incredible opportunity to teach yoga at Timber! Outdoor Music Festival last weekend and it is an event we will forever hold close to our hearts.

From the artists to the activities to the sponsors, this festival has an identity that is unapologetically Pacific-Northwest. We arrived early Friday morning to fields of brightly-colored tents nestled into Tolt-MacDonald Park in Carnation, WA. Kevin met us by the main stage and carted us across the wooden suspension bridge to the meadow. We ogled the yurts* on the more secluded side of the river and got to know one another on the shaded drive along the riverside. We chatted about the genesis of Timber! and the family that arrives for the festival every year. This is Timber!’s fifth year and, while the festival sold out, it did a fantastic job of maintaining a small, family feel.

We arrived at a meadow surrounded by trees with lots of morning sunlight. While we waited for our students to arrive, we chatted about the serendipity of the weekend and the Wilderwomen community. As students started to trickle in, we got to know who Timber! was made of and what they were looking forward to about the weekend. We heard a lot about the fun music Thursday evening and a few of the bands people were looking forward to seeing. Some of the most-anticipated adventures on the docket were kayaking, paddleboarding, Bob Ross painting, and stargazing.

We started classes with 50 beautiful human beings, flowing to the sound of the wind in the trees and the birds chirping. We created the intention of intentional interaction in our community for the weekend. After class, we chatted with lots of women who were interested in getting involved with Wilderwomen, from retreats to meet-ups to the possibility of traveling meet-ups in various cities. We marched back across the bridge with new friends, snagged a green juice and some quinoa-spinach-fried-egg-goodness from the Coalesce Juicery food truck, and planned our weekend to catch as much of the festival as possible. We set up our tent Friday evening, met our incredible neighbors who saved our life with a headlamp and an air compressor (#campinglife), and committed ourselves to lots of sleep to ready ourselves for the weekend.

On Saturday morning we greeted the day at our campsite with coffee, eggs, and sausage and readied ourselves to walk to the meadow for morning yoga. We started with a kids yoga class (our hearts are still melting from the experience) where the kids taught US what they knew about yoga, and we taught them a little bit of history and a little bit of breath to ground our practice. The adults trickled in for their class a half-hour later, where we created the intention of self-care for 60 open and present people. We connected with students after class about the different styles and studios in and around Seattle, the Wilderwomen community, the concept of presence for human beings, and reconnected with friends and students from the previous day. After touching base at camp, we spent the rest of Saturday swimming in and floating the river, watching the artists picnic-style at the main stage, beating the heat with Snoqualmie salted caramel ice cream and Caffe Vita iced coffees, headbanging to Car Seat Headrest and Naked Giants**, and tucking in after a long day of new adventures.

When we woke up with the sun on Sunday morning, it felt too soon to leave our Timber! friends. We took our time making coffee and breakfast and packing up camp. As we reached the end of our packing pile, we watched the family 5k run take off with lots of smiling adults and children. On the way out, we planned a jump in the water at Alki with our neighbors, thanked the wonderful staff, and rolled out with our windows down, sunglasses on, and smiles plastered on our faces. Thank you, Timber! for being a thing of PNW dreams. We will see you again soon!

A huge, heartfelt thank you to the women of Yoga Wild, a community-inclusive yoga business creating classes in the wilds of Tacoma. 

*For more information on Tolt-MacDonald park, maps, and booking information. go here!

**For the official 2018 Timber! playlist on Spotify, go here!