World Mental Health Day

This is today, so why not take some time to check in on your own mental health and see how you’re doing? In aid of this, I went along to the Festival of Now in Rundle Park yesterday where the weather was absolutely gorgeous.

The festival celebrates mental health and well being in South Australia by bringing the community together through a range of activities and a reminder of the services available to them. So the Mental Health Coalition of South Australia was joined by Centacare, Mental Illness Fellowship South Australia (MIFSA), who also provided some fab beats, Headspace and Uniting Communities for people to talk about their sexuality and gender identity. And there was face painting, juggling, cooking, a magician, animals, art, planting and of course, the Mindshare Poetry Awards.

This slot was hosted by Geoff Goodfellow and Melbourne-based poet Sandy Jeffs, both of whom shared some of their own work with a focus on mental health and the challenges it can pose (here you can read Sandy’s The Madwoman in this Poem). Alas, I was not fortunate enough to win an award despite having both a short and long poem shortlisted in the ‘Emerging Poet’ category. However, the wonderful Rachael Mead swept the board in the ‘Established Poet’ category, winning both the short and long poem award, so a huge congratulations to Rachael, who found out by me messaging her immediately after!

It was a good day, with a strong sense of community and togetherness to promote mental health wellness, because we should talk about this and openly share, no one should suffer alone.  So here’s to a mentally healthy day, and for every one that follows  🙂