If you’ve ever yearned to escape modern life, even for a short while, or you’re curious about how things used to be done … a long, long time ago … consider spending up to four days at the Firefly Gathering.
It’s a four-day event that offers workshops and classes about what its organizers call earth skills: bee keeping; bird calls; beer-and-mead making; wild medicine, plant, and herb identification walks; fire building; hide tanning; tracking; soap making; wilderness awareness and much, much more.
“Our event strives to facilitate ways that we as modern humans can live in harmony with one another as a healthy and integral part of the web of life, and [it] offer skills that are low tech, accessible, and help provide for basic life needs,” says Erin Fahey. She notes a strong focus on connecting with the outdoors, as well as the chance to learn old-fashioned skills from the experts, in skills as varied as permaculture and blacksmithing. There are learning opportunities for adults and children, evening entertainment and on-site camping. And fees are based on a sliding scale. (See “Wild and Free,” June 18, 2008, Xpress.)
But hurry: The event, held at the old Coggins farm west of Asheville, starts Thursday, July 9.
For more info, visit our website at www.fireflygathering.org or call 206-661-6550. (Photo courtesy Lucas Floglia Photography.)
— MVW
