What is a typical day at MMF like?

No day is “typical”, but they do have a pattern to them: 3 meals, 2 circles, workshops, playshops, entertainment (such as: movies, book reading, fund raiser auction, dancing, know-talent show etc).

Festival is what you make it; want to do a yoga workshop? – put it on the activity board.

Meals:

All meals provided by Festival are vegetarian.

Breakfast is when and how YOU make it; generally cereal, fruit, coffee, juice, or you can cook yourself pancakes or eggs with vegetables and cheese, etc. [figure anytime between 6:00 and 10:00ish]

Lunch: community service volunteers will start preparing lunch around 10:30-11 am- figure lunch will be ~1pm ish, followed by some cleanup after lunch.

Dinner prep will be around 4pm or so (depends on complexity of the meals) with dinner somewhere around 6-7pm followed by a clean up shift.

Circles:

There are usually two “main” Circles each day, one before lunch and one before dinner.

While there is need for some housekeeping and general business activities, (including announcing upcoming events), this is also a good time to get to know each other. There will be a Circle facilitator who will try to guide the circle (think herding cats). We generally start by going around the Circle saying our name and where we are from. Usually we also have been given a question to answer as well (example: what flower do we most resemble and why or such). Some Circles are more in depth (from the Heart) and give more of a chance to be open and give one a chance to share issues. While this may seem scary to some- it is also part of what makes Festival so important to many of us.

Usually a couple of days during festival there may be opportunities for other Circles (smaller and more intimate) at other times to deal with more “focused” issues. These will be announced as upcoming events and also placed on the activity board. There may be rituals for those who wish to organize them.

Other activities:

With each group of individuals we never know from year to year exactly what events the guys may host, generally we have:

• A fund-raiser auction. Please feel free to bring items to donate that would be of interest to the group. Some examples have been: books, movies, clothes, ritual items, plants, paintings, tools, toys, crafts etc.
• The Know-Talent Show. Singing, lip-syncing/dancing, jokes/stories, poetry reading, instrumentals or whatever talent you wish to showcase.
• An evening dance or two.
• A dress-up dinner to give the guys a chance to dress up in costumes—elegant to silly (or not).

Other interesting activities and workshops are organized by attendees. In the past these have included things like:

• Book reading by community writers
• Yoga lessons
• Workshops on just about anything, including health and AIDS
• Massage workshops
• A pecker pulling party (think about that- yes it is)
• Stargazing through telescopes
• How to make a fuck machine
• Fun at the beach
• Rituals (usually of the pagan /earth-centered variety)
• Intro to dungeon
• Mud or lube wrestling
• Drum circles (with dancing around the fire-pit)
• Bonfire
• Sunday morning Church of the wrestling singlet
• Sweat lodge

During the length of Festival, we have exclusive use of the entire camp. The only people you will be interfacing with are other members of the Midwest Men’s Festival and perhaps the caretaker (who does not identify as a man). The caretaker is seldom seen unless there is a maintenance need or they are invited to clarify a question about Gaea or Earth Rising.