By Dr Demeter (Emily Samuels-Ballantyne)
At Magical Farm Tasmania, our work is as much about cultivating conviviality and community as it is about cultivating soil and soul. The farm is a living philosophy, a regenerative lifestyle experiment where community, ecology, and imagination intertwine.
Each Thursday, our landcare group gathers to restore and tend the land. Volunteers learn about regenerative farming, herbal wisdom, and biodynamic rhythms, farming in sync with the cosmos. We explore the sevenfold patterns that shape life: seven days of the week, seven chakras, seven inner planets, and seven biodynamic plants that correspond with them.
From this ecosystem grew YoFence, a practice that unites the sword and the soul, fencing and yoga. Inspired by Eastern Body, Western Mind, YoFence invites courage, conviction, and connection. The sword represents clarity and boundaries; yoga, holistic union. Together they form a living metaphor for what our world needs in 2026: a way to move beyond binaries and commodification toward authentic connection, to people, place, and planet.
In early 2026, I’ll be offering a seven-day YoFence immersion (January 1 – 7 at Urdara, Hobart), a transformative beginning to the year. Participants will explore embodied regeneration through movement, mindfulness, and nature-based ritual. It will be fun, creative, and deeply grounding.
For those who can’t join the full retreat, you’re warmly invited to participate in our Thursday Landcare days, meet our community, and experience how we are farming the future in festivity, food, and friendship.
This work also flows into the Regen Era Design Studio, our policy and design initiative rooted in the soil. We imagine new ways of shaping governance and the food system so they align with the living principles of nature itself.
YoFence has become my way of transmuting grief of a broken world into creative leadership. Like mycelium, this vision spreads quietly underground, connecting hearts, ideas, and places into one living web. To join the January 2026 immersion or volunteer with the landcare group, visit: www.magicalfarm.org/bookings