Firefly Gathering

Firefly Gathering

Wednesday, July 13

So as it turned out, more than half of Medicine Wheel decided to go to Firefly, a gathering in Western North Carolina for sharing "rewilding, primitive, homesteading, and sustainability skills." (Read more about Firefly here... http://www.fireflygathering.org/) The final head count from MW was six – Joe, Nathaniel, Coleman, Chynna, Patricia, and myself. As an instructor, Patricia needed to be at Camp Pinnacle on Wednesday night, so the whole group was ready to leave by 4pm, which was a real accomplishment!

The only snag that we hit while leaving was fitting into two vehicles the sheer volume of stuff that we were taking. Six people’s camping gear (tents, tarps, sleeping bags, pillows, pads, packs, etc.) plus food (three meals for four days) plus cooking gear (cast iron pot and skillet, plates and utensils, mixing bowl, cutting board, etc. etc. etc.)… That stuff takes up some serious space! After some people (ahem, Joe) had a tense discussion with certain other people (ahem, Patricia) about bringing more stuff than was necessary, we found a way to pack everything in and off we went.

When we got there, it took a while to find a comfortable place to camp. We ended up at the entrance to “loud camping,” which I was a little nervous about. I need sleep to function. (But, as it turned out, “loud” was just a euphemism for “relaxed rules.” I ended up having a good ol’ time every day and sleeping soundly every night.)

As we were setting up camp, the sky clouded over and we could hear thunder in the not-so-distant distance. I picked up the pace and was able to get the tent set up and our junk crammed inside just as it started raining. As I sat in the tent that I was going to share with Chynna for the next four days, crammed among our sleeping bags, pads, pillows, and packs, I couldn’t help but shout out, “ ‘Two-man’ tent, my ass.” To which Nathaniel unhelpfully responded, “Yup! Those things are hardly big enough for one ass. I’m glad you and Chynna are so close.” Great.

As it turned out, I got the last laugh, as it was rainy and/or cold – yes, cold in July – all four nights. Nathaniel froze in his lonely little hammock while Chynna and I were cozy in our sleeping bags in our “two-man” tent. Yes, I definitely have to give thanks and praise for the rain fly on that little tent, as it kept us warm and dry even though it rained through those couple of nights and all day on Friday! Having a warm, dry place to sleep really takes the misery out of camping in the cold and wet.

When the rain eased up, we found our way to the “primitive kitchen,” a tarp-sheltered, outdoor communal kitchen with a stone oven in the fire pit. Nathaniel and I got a fire started, which was excellent for warming up and drying out, and Chynna cooked some dinner. Others began to join us, and we all shared our food and a guitar. The music and the chill, pleasant vibe made it a really relaxed and enjoyable evening.

Thursday, July 14

It rained all night that night, but I stayed cozy warm in my tent. The only problem was that it was a little difficult to get up, being so comfy. When I finally pried myself out of bed, I headed up to the communal kitchen (distinct from the primitive kitchen), a tarp-sheltered area with tables and several camp stoves for people to share, to make breakfast. We fixed grits and fried eggs, Joe’s preferred breakfast from home, which we ended up eating for breakfast all weekend because it’s fast and easy.

After breakfast, we went to Opening Circle. First, the event coordinators filled everyone in on details such as site rules, the location of the first aide tent, and protocol for class sign-up. Then, we all joined in creating and holding an energetic space for learning and sharing throughout the weekend, which was pretty powerful for me.

My first class was a mushroom identification walk with Alan Muskat entitled “What the Fungus That?” What was really interesting about the class was that he didn’t focus at all on the details of mushroom identification, which I believe was probably the best way to go. The details of identification are so incredibly vast and detailed that it is really impossible to cover them with any satisfaction in a two-hour class.

Instead, Alan gave us the big picture, discussing the incredible networks of mycelia that live in the soil and essentially make life possible. It is incredible to think that the largest living organisms on the planet are the enormous mycelial mats that stretch for hundreds, even thousands, of acres in old growth forests. Also, the connections among the mycelial networks bear a striking resemblance to the human brain, and studies have shown that trees can communicate via these networks. For example, sometimes when a pest or disease attacks one tree in a forest that is rich with mycelial connections, other trees begin to produce hormones that protect themselves from that blight before it ever reaches them! Awesome!

Alan also highlighted the importance of spending time developing a relationship with mushrooms. He pointed out that, as the fruiting body of a network of mycelia, a mushroom is essentially the reproductive organ or the genitals of that organism, “… and you don’t just go around grabbing people’s genitals without getting to know them first.” That really resonated with me because as I become more connected with the Earth that sustains me, I am really realizing the importance of sharing my energy with and having a profound respect for those plants, animals, and fungi that support my existence.

Alan also strongly suggested joining one of the many communities of mushroom-hunters in the area to learn the details of mushroom identification, as learning out of a book is both incredibly difficult and lacking the essential element of community. Coming from an area where finding and participating in such a community is much easier said than done, I find myself deeply appreciating that so many people in this area have that knowledge and are excited to share it with others.

About the only “practical” or “concrete” advice that Alan gave with regards to identification was the suggestion to learn the “top five” (or six or so, it’s flexible) most common edible and poisonous varieties. He then sent us out to meet and gather mushrooms. When we brought our new acquaintances back to the circle, Alan pointed out the most common edibles (and non-edibles) and their identifying features.

The second class I took was with Tod Kershaw, who was teaching us how to start a fire with an Egyptian bow drill.

Basically, there are four pieces to a bow drill: the bow, the spindle, the fireboard, and the handhold. The bow spins the spindle (a stick tapered at both ends) in a depression on the fireboard (a narrow strip of soft wood) creating the friction that creates an ember. Holding the bow in your dominant hand and using the handhold (a rock with a small depression that allows the spindle to spin) in the opposite hand to press the spindle as hard as possible into the fireboard, you run the bow back and forth until the friction creates and ember. When you get that ember, you can use home-burned charcoal or a tinder bundle to then light your fire.

Now, the Egyptian bow drill differs from the conventional bow drill in the length of the cord and how that cord wraps around the spindle. Essentially, the Egyptian bow drill reduces strain on the cord and makes the movement of the bow smoother, keeping the spindle in the depression on the fireboard and getting your fire started more quickly and with less frustration (in theory).

Tod walked us through every step. He taught us how to make the bow and carve the spindle, fireboard, and handhold. He told us what wood makes a good spindle and fireboard – basswood is the most preferable, but most soft woods except pine will do. Then, as he was showing us the technique and posture that work well for him, Natalie Bogwalker dropped by. (Natalie, by the way, is the founder and general coordinator of Firefly Gathering, and one of the most awesome women that I have ever met.)

Natalie had some different, and in my experience more effective, advice on posture for the ladies. Whereas Tod encouraged keeping the back straight, Natalie reminded him that ladies have a much lower center of gravity and generally do not have the upper body strength that men have. Rather, a woman’s power lies in lower her body, and she showed us how to lean down and hold our bodies in such a way as to use that power most effectively. She was a really excellent teacher, asking if she could give me some advice rather than telling me what I was doing wrong. (In fact, I noticed that several people used that format for giving feedback, and I found that it made me much more receptive to what they had to say. I think I will try to incorporate that into how I relate with others.) So whereas I had been struggling to get an ember for a while using Tod’s method, very shortly after adopting Natalie’s stance and with a few minor adjustments, I made my first friction fire! What fun!

That night, after sharing dinner in the communal kitchen, I had an incredible, powerful experience dancing around the fire at the drum circle. Something about the thundering of the primal drumbeat transformed the dancers and the drummers from strangers into an intimately connected tribe and compelled me to join that magickal dance.

Friday, July 15

It poured down rain all day on Friday, and I must say that I was not prepared. It was just so hot and sunny when we left that I could not imagine needing a jacket… Fortunately for me, my tribe had my back and came up with a nice, heavy poncho that kept me warm and dry.

Friday morning, I took an introduction to beekeeping class. All I have to say about that (without rewriting several books on the amazing qualities of bees and their products) is that bees are astonishingly incredible critters and I am completely jazzed about sharing space and energy with them sometime in the very near future.

My highly attuned intuition had led me to sign up for a Dutch oven cooking class the previous evening, so in the afternoon I got to cozy up next to a campfire conveniently located right next to my camp and make peach cobbler. Although I wasn’t impressed with the recipe that the instructor used – canned and packaged junk food – I did learn tips on how to cook with a Dutch oven. For example, you generally want about one third of the heat on the bottom on the oven and two thirds on the lid. To get the oven to stay between 325 and 350 degrees, you take the diameter of the pot (usually 12 or 14 inches) and put that many plum-sized pieces of hot coals from the fire on the bottom and half again as many pieces on top of the lid. For even cooking, rotate the bottom a quarter-turn clockwise and the lid a quarter turn counter-clockwise every fifteen minutes. Overall, I got some good information and spent a nice comfy afternoon by the fire.

That night, Doug and Todd Elliott presented “Woodslore and Wildwoods Wisdom: Stories, Songs, and Lore,” which was hilariously entertaining. My favorite story was from Doug, about his experience raising a baby possum that that he had rescued… on his head. When he found her on the ground, he felt really bad for her and wanted to relieve her distress. As baby possums hold onto their mama’s backs until they are ready to strike out on their own, his first reaction was to put her on his head and let her nestle into his hair. She ended up staying there for another six weeks, he named her Blossom, and she became the family pet. The best quote from that story? “I won’t go into the details, but there is no limit to the things you can do with a possum on your head!”

Saturday, July 16

My morning class on Saturday was “WTSHTF: Disaster Planning” with Xavier Hawk, which just sounded interesting. (WTSHTF = when the shit hits the fan) I really enjoyed the lively discussion format (which, in Xavier’s words, “went all over the map”), and it made me think seriously about community resilience and planning for likely disaster scenarios.

I chose my afternoon class essentially because Natalie Bogwalker was teaching it, and she is awesome. The class was entitled, “Sewing Buckskin Skirts and Shirts,” which especially caught my attention because on the first day of the gathering, Natalie was wearing a buckskin dress, which honestly was quite possibly the sexiest garment I have ever seen.

However, circumstances surrounding the class made me really think about (and, honestly, I am still thinking about) my personal stance of the ethics of hide wearing. The class was located at the archery range, and I arrived early. Between classes, several people were participating in open target practice. However, the targets were not all the typical bull’s eye format; some of them were actually shaped like animals. For some reason, I just got a bad feeling about people shooting at things shaped like and representing living beings and trying for a “kill shot” when for most of them, it was for enjoyment, for sport.

As I analyzed that feeling, I wondered if I could personally take the life of another mammal. In The Fifth Sacred Thing, the main character talks about the hypocrisy of eating meat but being unable to stomach actually killing the animal that you are going to consume. I must admit that I whole-heartedly agree with that – if you are going to eat another being, whether it is plant or animal, you should have some sense of and respect for the sacrifice of that being for your own nourishment. I am not saying that one must necessarily harvest or kill everything that one eats, but I think it is a good practice to think about everything that it took, all the many energies and sacrifices that went into providing for your existence. Personally, I think for me to really experience that profound respect, I need to participate in that sacrifice at least once before I can consciously eat meat or wear hide. However, I am not sure I can handle that. Therefore, I am going to hold off on both of those counts until I figure out whether or not I can take the life of another animal to promote my existence.

Anyway, it was still a very interesting class. I found that I really could appreciate the class and the clothing that Natalie showed us because she personally hunted, skinned, and tanned every hide that she wore. Furthermore, she expressed and demonstrated that profound respect for those cycles of life, which in turn gave me a profound respect for her. Also, I have to admit that buckskin is incredibly sexy. I can personally attest to the ancient, primal connections there, because the people in buckskin were really, really attractive.

That evening, the Medicine Wheel crew decided to eat in the primitive kitchen, and I had what I can almost say was my peak experience for the weekend. When we got to the primitive kitchen, several groups were already cooking there. When we joined them, not only did they make room for us but they also offered us some of their food. People had been contributing food all day – mushrooms foraged from the forest, fish caught in the lake, wild greens, even roadkill raccoon and groundhog (both of which I tried… they were very flavorful if a bit tough) left over from a class on “critter processing.” (Freshly hit roadkill is no less sanitary to eat than game, and it is quite possibly the most ethical meat. The animals were not raised in confinement or for the sole purpose of being dinner someday, their death was the accidental result of car culture, and instead of becoming an unsightly and distasteful waste product, the unfortunate animal is becoming nourishment for people.) Anyway, everyone contributed what they had, and there was plenty for all. For me, that shared meal was a really moving experience of the power and beauty of community and the economy of the gift.

After that, I wandered over to the gym where there was some awesome fiddling and waltzing going on. I was feeling tired and I preferred to relax and watch, but it was really, really, REALLY entertaining to watch a bunch of anarcho-primitivist forest-hippies in all manners of dress waltzing to the fiddle and djembe! :D !!!

Sunday, July 17

Sunday morning, I intended to go to a class called “The Origin of Disease & Medicine, and Other Native American Legends,” but apparently it was unexpectedly cancelled or moved (I never did find out which). I wandered around and sat in for a minute on “Primitive Tattoo,” which was interesting but didn’t call to me.

I wandered back toward the campsite with the intention to get a jumpstart on tearing down camp and hauling gear to the car when I was drawn into a discussion on nonviolent communication, which rocked my world. While I do not feel called to pick favorites among the classes that I took, I think I might have gotten more personal growth out of just the second half of this class than any of the others.

The best summary I could give is this short intro from The Center for Nonviolent Communication's website:

"Nonviolent Communication (NVC) is based on the principles of nonviolence-- the natural state of compassion when no violence is present in the heart.

NVC begins by assuming that we are all compassionate by nature and that violent strategies—whether verbal or physical—are learned behaviors taught and supported by the prevailing culture. NVC also assumes that we all share the same, basic human needs, and that each of our actions are a strategy to meet one or more of these needs.

People who practice NVC have found greater authenticity in their communication, increased understanding, deepening connection and conflict resolution."

You can find more information about NVC at www.cnvc.org.

What I like most about NVC is that it isn’t about just changing the way we speak to other people in order to resolve interpersonal conflict. Nonviolent communication extends to the way that we think, about each other, the world, and ourselves. It involves how individuals communicate with themselves, and I have realized that some of my internal communications (what I say to and believe about myself) have actually been pretty violent exchanges. NVC requires a paradigm shift from a culture of violence and domination to a culture of mutual respect and cooperation, and it manifests that shift through our thoughts, words, and relationships.

The basic “format” of NVC is: nonjudgmental observation, feeling, need, request. For example, if I were to have a problem with one of my housemates not cleaning up their breakfast dishes, I would say, “Coleman, when I observe you leaving your dirty dishes in the sink, I feel irritated and frustrated, because I have a need for cleanliness and order. Would you be willing to take a few minutes to wash your dishes today?” That would be a particularly formulaic way to say it, but as you get more acquainted with the idea, the style becomes more natural (“Hey Coleman, when you leave your dishes in the sink, I feel irritated ’cause I really need the house to stay clean. Would you mind washing them real quick?”)

NVC generally encourages the use of action verbs (feel, need, want, believe, experience, etc.) rather than verbs of being (am, is, are, was, were) whenever practicable. We could get very esoteric (Who am I to say what anything exists as in this clumsy and fallible representation that we know as language?), but more practically, being verbs tend to involve judgment, which NVC tries to avoid. Instead of judging whether something is “right” or “wrong” or “good” or “bad,” NVC looks at actions as meeting or not meeting certain needs. For example, when Steven talks loudly on the phone late at night, it does not meet (or “is not in harmony with” – another common phrasing) Joe’s need for quiet in order to sleep. Steven is not bad or wrong, he is just doing something that prevents Joe from meeting his need for sleep and Steven can change that action when Joe knocks on his door and politely requests that he do so.

In my experience, I am finding that distinguishing a person’s actions (which may not be in harmony with needs that are “up” for me at certain times) from that person’s existence fundamentally changes how I relate to others. While I did already have an idea of that distinction, I only implemented it when I stopped to think about it. However, by practicing thinking and speaking in this new way, which is really practicing living in this new reality, I am profoundly improving how I relate to everyone (including myself) all the time.

NVC also holds that no one “makes” you feel a certain way. Actions elicit emotions based on whether or not they are in harmony with certain needs at certain times, and every individual is responsible for making sure that their own needs are met. Therefore, if someone is saying or doing something and I feel (say) angry as a response, my anger is not that other person’s responsibility. Rather, it is my responsibility to make sure that whatever need is up for me, which is causing me to feel angry, is met.

I find this simultaneously difficult to accept and incredibly empowering. It is difficult to accept that I have to take responsibility when obviously that other person is out of line and being a complete jerk. But, ya know, when I think about it, I would actually really prefer to approach such a situation from a position in which I am empowered to meet my needs. That feels so much better to me than leaving my emotional well being to the mercy of someone else’s actions.

For example… ::tries to think of a completely non-offensive hypothetical example:: … say Jane Smith calls me stupid and I feel bad about myself in response. Instead of being angry and resenting Jane, it is my responsibility to communicate my feelings and needs with her and make a reasonable request that she change her actions. I may need to negotiate a compromise with her, and if we are not able to resolve our differences, I may even need to seek mediation. But (except for some extreme examples) with this approach, I am empowered to meet my needs – in this case, my emotional need to not be called stupid.

Something that I feel is really fantastic is that most of Earthaven seems to have already naturalized NVC as an “official language” of sorts. I had gotten a vague idea about NVC from my Earthaven orientation, but I am able to see it in action very clearly now that I have experienced a more formal class. Whenever conflict arises, people here already automatically think and speak in terms of nonjudgmental observations, feelings, and needs that are up for the different individuals involved. Instead of making angry demands, people tend to make polite, reasonable requests. Amazingly enough, people most often respect those requests or are willing negotiate for a mutually acceptable compromise. I have also noticed that many people here have gotten really efficient at observing, addressing, and diffusing situations that might cause conflict before the situation even develops into a problem. When I observe that taking place, I feel really impressed, because I have a need for peace and harmony that is being met.

Anyway, the class was fantastic in a paradigm-shifting sort of way.

That afternoon I made a rivercane flute with an instructor named White Eagle. It was an interesting class, and I can now play an instrument that I made myself. (Somewhere in there, I ended up buying a knife, thinking that I would need it for that class. I did not, but it has ended up being an incredibly useful thing to have around and I am making a habit of having it on me at all times. I also found a knife the second day of the gathering and turned it in to the lost and found. When it hadn’t been claimed two days later, after closing circle and when most people had left, I went ahead and claimed it for myself.)

I felt a little sad during closing circle. I wish that I could have gathered up that community and all the positive energy surrounding the gathering and brought it home with me. L

We got packed up and on the way without any trouble. Nathaniel decided to stay an extra day, because he had business in Asheville and could catch a ride with a friend, so having one less person and that much less gear (along with having eaten all the food) made it much easier to get everything to fit in the cars.

On the way home, we decided that since we were already out, we should stop at the grocery store to pick up some essentials. As we were going inside, Chynna and Patricia made some really amusing observations…

Chynna: Joe can’t find a shirt, Coleman is barefoot, Molly’s packing two knives, and I look like I just crawled out of a swamp.

Patricia: They go feral on ya so fast…