Rosalind Holloway, Staff Writer

Neo-soul music floated across Cira Green Saturday afternoon as festivalgoers moved between food vendors, wellness practitioners and live performances with the Philadelphia skyline in the background. Erykah Badu was playing when I arrived, followed by Jill Scott, and almost immediately the atmosphere felt different from what someone might expect from a traditional health and wellness event.

After my ticket was scanned and I received my wristband, I was welcomed and free to explore. My first stop was for fresh fruit and water, but it did not take long to realize that Root 2 Fruit was offering much more than something to eat or another Saturday festival.

Presented by Forbidden Fruit, the free, all-ages Root 2 Fruit Festival took place on Sept. 12 at Sunset Social Cira Green. Yoga, massages, meditation, plant-based food, music, arts and crafts, dance and live performances all shared the same space. On paper, those activities might seem unrelated. At Root 2 Fruit, they came together around a much broader idea of what it means to take care of yourself.

For Stones Jones, Co-Founder of Forbidden Fruit, that combination was intentional.

Jones described the concept as “creative wellness,” explaining that creativity and wellness are connected and that the festival was designed to give both rooms to exist together. Just as important to Jones was making these experiences accessible to people who might not ordinarily have access to different wellness practitioners and services.

That accessibility could be seen throughout the festival. People could participate as much or as little as they wanted. Some listened to live music. Others practiced yoga, explored vendors, ate, created art, or waited for a massage. Children and adults shared the same space.

For Mariah of Little Yoga Squad, wellness begins with something as simple as caring for yourself. Her organization brings yoga and mindfulness activities to children and families through preschools, libraries, recreation centers and other community spaces.

“I knew that taking care of myself would allow me to help take care of others,” Mariah said. “And if I take care of others, then they can take care of others. And now we are building community.”

She also emphasized the importance of the way people speak to themselves.

“I think it’s important to say positive things to yourself because even if you aren’t feeling that way now, it will become you,” she said. “It will become you.”

Of everything I experienced at the festival, however, the sound bowls surprised me the most.

After interviewing meditation DJ Carly Simone, I had the opportunity to play three different sound bowls. Each produced a different sound and vibration, but the medium bowl stood out.

As I played it, I suddenly felt emotional, almost as though I wanted to cry. I explained what I was feeling to Simone, and only afterward did she explain the meanings she associates with each bowl in her practice. She associated the large bowl with the sacral chakra, the medium bowl with the heart chakra, and the small bowl with the third eye.

The bowl that had made me emotional was the one she associated with the heart.

Whether someone approaches sound bowls from a spiritual perspective, as a form of meditation, or simply out of curiosity, the experience connected with something Simone had told me during our conversation.

“I just want people to not feel separated from healing,” Simone said.

She added that she wants people to “give themselves permission to heal anywhere.”

Food offered another interpretation of wellness at Root 2 Fruit. Aura, a manager at Nourish Plant-Based Café & Juice Bar, said this was the restaurant’s second time participating in the festival.

Nourish offered plant-based versions of familiar comfort foods, including vegan fried chicken made in-house from enoki mushrooms, mac and cheese, kale salad, wraps, desserts and natural juices.

“There’s just so many options that people don’t know about besides…the animal-based products,” Aura said.

I went for the sweeter side of the menu, trying a cinnamon roll and strawberry-pineapple drink. Beyond what was on my own plate, Nourish demonstrated how plant-based eating can still include familiar flavors and comfort foods.

Perhaps one of the clearest examples of the festival’s broader message came from Abdul, an attendee who regularly works out and goes to the gym. He arrived expecting Root 2 Fruit to be considerably more fitness focused. Instead, his day included massages, meditation, vegan soul food and activities with his daughter, including face painting and arts and crafts.

His answer when I asked what he was leaving with was that he had not expected to sum up much of what I had observed throughout the afternoon.

“I came here thinking that I was going to, you know, be in like a gym-type, workout-type atmosphere,” Abdul said. “But the fact that this was actually more focused—it wasn’t just focused on the body, but it was focused on the mind as well—really gave me a different outlook on how I feel about health and wellness as a whole.”

His experience was not far from my own.

Root 2 Fruit did not try to give everyone one definition of wellness. Instead, it created a space where a child doing yoga, someone waiting for a massage, a person enjoying a plant-based meal, an artist performing onstage and a woman unexpectedly becoming emotional over the vibration of a sound bowl could all be participating in wellness in their own way.

I arrived expecting to cover a health and wellness festival. I left with a broader understanding of what wellness could actually look like.