Mead Moon & Wild Folk People: Reclaiming Joy at the Edge of the Map

There’s a certain kind of magic that lives outside the algorithms.

You won’t find it in self-help books or therapy worksheets. It lives in stories told around campfires. In folk songs that make your chest ache in the best way. In people who show up as they are—muddy boots, open hearts, and all.

And under July’s Mead Moon, that’s exactly where I’m headed: to a gathering of wild hearts, truth-tellers, and beautiful misfits called Wild Folk People. A celebration of music, storytelling, and human connection, woven together by the inimitable Beans on Toast and the launch of his new book by the same name.

The Mead Moon is all about honey and union. Joy and embodiment. Ritual and remembering. And for me, this summer, it’s landing exactly where it needs to—right at the intersection of song, soul, and something older than words.

What the Mead Moon Teaches Us

July’s full moon has many names—Buck Moon, Thunder Moon but Mead Moon is my favourite.

It harks back to Celtic and Anglo-Saxon traditions, where midsummer was a time of fermentation, fertility, and community. Honey wine (mead) was brewed and shared to bless unions, welcome abundance, and honour joy. Not the performative kind. Not the toxic positivity kind. The earthy, embodied, real kind.

And that’s what therapy too often forgets, joy is also part of the healing. So is music. So is movement. So is losing yourself in laughter or lyrics or late-night conversations with people you’ve only just met but somehow already know.

Wild Folk People: A Gathering of the Unpolished & Alive

There’s something about the way Beans on Toast tells stories that hits differently. It’s not polished or perfect—it’s true. His songs and now his book, Wild Folk People, capture the heart of a counterculture that has been quietly building beneath the noise of capitalism, burnout, and disconnection.

The party this July is more than a book launch. It’s a call to gather. To remember that healing doesn’t just happen in silence—it also happens when we dance barefoot under a full moon with people who remind us who we are.

It’s community without credentials. It’s therapy without the clipboard.

Rewilding the Self (Again and Again)

You’ve heard me talk about rewilding. It’s not an aesthetic, it’s a reclamation.

Rewilding is about remembering the parts of us that existed before we became efficient, digestible, and strategic. It’s about trusting joy. Trusting art. Trusting your gut when it says this is what I need, even if it makes no sense on paper.

So much of modern life is lived in our heads. The Mead Moon and gatherings like Wild Folk People invite us back into the body. Into rhythm. Into belonging that doesn’t require you to be anything other than alive.

Field Notes for You:

Sometimes healing sounds like laughter, not insight. You’re allowed to follow joy without justifying it. There’s medicine in people who meet you where you are, with no agenda but presence

If you’re craving connection beyond the screen or looking for a different kind of healing, maybe it’s not another strategy you need. Maybe it’s a song. Story. Moonlight. Or remembering, for a moment, that you belong to something wilder than your to-do list.

I’ll be out there under the Mead Moon this July. Dancing, probably crying, definitely laughing. Come say hi if you see me.

And if you’re not quite ready for the fields and folk songs—therapy is still a damn good place to begin.

Book a free call or read more of my reflections on rewilding, authenticity, and how healing often starts with coming back to the body.

With warmth and wildness, Sarah x

BACP & NCPS Accredited Psychotherapist

Rewild your mind. Come home to yourself.

www.sarahhopton.com