community blog
Delaney’s First Aid Tips & Pack List for Firefly Gathering
Get insights on how to stay hydrated, dry, and in frolicking-form at the Gathering with our First Aid and Safety Coordinator, Delaney Rae.
Sun Down Gatherings: A Call to Community
At Firefly, evening fires honor the connection to our human ancestors in community-centered circles to integrate and embody what we experienced that day. Learn more about the importance of our evenings together below!
Firefly Gathering 2022 Annual Report
Read our 2022 Annual Community Report to learn about Firefly’s work, including our Programs and Offerings, Goals, Overall Income and Expenses, and more.
Love in Preservation: Get to Know DeLesslin “Roo” George-Warren
Meet DeLesslin “Roo” George-Warren, a queer artist, researcher, and organizer from the Catawba Indian Nation joining us for his 4th year as an instructor this summer. Learn more about Roo’s path the teaching, and more about his offerings below.
Reconnection and Intentional Spaces with Jae Ortiz
Learn more about Jae Ortiz’s offerings at Firefly, and how intentional spaces like the Neighborhood build community resilience and reconnection in our pathways forward.
A Day in the Life at Firefly Gathering
Whether its your first time or your fifteenth, this slice-of-life will help orient you to a week off the grid with us and get a few things on your preliminary pack list!
Creating a Better World: Q & A with Artist Lily Harlin
“Creativity and imagination go hand in hand, and without the cultivation of both, how can we begin to imagine a better world?
Youth Village and Nature Connection at Firefly Gathering
Building relationships with nature early on can make a huge difference in your child’s journey to getting to know themselves deeply, and in reclaiming their birthright: the ability to be in nature with ease. In this spirit, youth at Firefly are fully immersed in the goodness of nature at Youth Village during class time for adults and teens.
Earthskills are Riveting: Q & A with Metal Work Instructor Gray Taylor
“I see Earthskills as a way for people to regain the grounding effects of being in nature, to hear again the sounds of birds, frogs and laughter; to use their hands to craft things from the natural world as all of our ancestors once survived upon…that is the village that we all seek to build, and Earthskills Gatherings are one way to feel that calling.”
A Few of Our Favorites: Homebrews from Around the World
Meet a few of our favorite homebrews from around the world with our resident brew chef and fermentation enthusiast, Marissa Percoco.
An Equinox Prayer
Although we live on an amazingly generous planet, we are inundated with messages of scarcity, greed and domination. At this time in our human experience, many feel a dire call for change.
Learning to Thrive: Survival & Outdoor Living Skills with Jason Drevenak
Meet instructor Jason Drevanak, joining us for his 8th year at the Gathering this summer. Inspired by the joy of figuring out how our ancestors learned to thrive in their perspective environments, Jason is here to share survival and outdoor living skills for beginners and experts alike!
Wild Edible Plants: A Few of Firefly’s Springtime Favorites
Spring is the perfect time for clearing our livers of winter’s heavier foods and hibernating energies. We’ve gathered for your enjoyment and exploration a list of some of our favorite wild edible plants to get you started!
Earthskills for Everybody: Firefly Gathering’s Equity Fund, Committee, and Growth
With exciting expansions in our Equity Committee, Equity Fund, and plans for what this work looks like at the Annual Gathering itself, we invite you to read more about our current equity work and how to support these efforts.
Making Bone Tools: Craft and Kinship with Instructor Josh Barnwell
“As people who value life and feel the weight of responsibility for every life taken to continue our own, learning how to utilize every part we can of these animal bodies draws us deeper into ties of kinship with the more than human world.”
Communication, Equity, and Inclusion for Community : Firefly Gathering Instructor Makeda Meeks
“As long as white supremacy goes unchecked in our cultural communication and educational systems, the dream of community will evade us.”
Finding Love; Finding Freedom
Every morning we have the opportunity to bravely face a new day and choose love. Despite the obstacles, we can work to remain filled with that mysterious love that wells up from deep within and fills every part of us. This is the love that heals and changes the world.
The Sacred Ritual of Everyday Tasks: An Interview with Emileigh Zola
“What a miracle all aspects of life are if we are able to just slow down and look through the eyes of a child. There is so much to be joyful for – so much to delight in. When I teach classes, I set the container by creating these moments for pause and reflection. I ask my students to create an intention that they can weave into their broom that will help to anchor them in presence as they sweep every day.”
Hide Fever: Instructor Feature with Rain Hall
“We are countering waste culture and consumerism by using the often discarded deer hides to make something beautiful, with our own hands, that was not bought in a store or mass produced. When we are learning, sharing and using these hide sewing skills, we are re-learning connection to the wilderness, the earth and that which provides and sustains us.” – Rain Hall
Winter Solstice: Musings On the Underworld, Being a Humanimal, and the Sacredness of Celebration From Our Director
Firefly’s Director Marissa Percoco dives deep into the ideas of voluntary simplicity, and of emphasizing the animal in humanimal in daily life, to sew into your own musings for the year to come.
Finding Solace: An Interview with Jessica Kaufman
“When all feels chaotic around me and inside me, I seek solace in my quiet time single-tasking on a craft that requires me to do nothing but the same movement over and over, building something that didn’t exist before.” – Jessica Kaufman
The Wild World of Willows: Natural History, Ecology and more!
As a community, let’s intertwine our root masses of relationships so that soil and soul can stay in place, in the same way that willows prevent stream erosion. Let’s collectively create flexible stems and skills that help us weave baskets of inclusivity and resilience. And may we cultivate adaptability so that we are able to re-root even if we’re torn away by the floodwaters and lost for some time…
Mushroom Foraging in Fall – Firefly’s Favorite Five Fungi
Our favorite mycelial friends are back in action, and we’ve put together our top 5 favorite fall mushrooms in the Southern Appalachians, with ID tips, how to cook them and where to find them.
Living Relationally: An Exploration with Nastassja Noell
How do we live relationally when we are surrounded by polarization; when fulfilling our basic needs of food, water, and shelter are often in direct opposition to our intention to live with integrity and cause no harm? Explore the new publications from Firefly’s Registration Coordinator and resident lichenologist, Nastassja Noell, which explore what humans might learn from fungus about living relationally.
Why Covid Test? A Response from the Director
As our experience with Covid-19 continues to unfold and change, we feel called to speak to why The Firefly Gathering has chosen to require covid testing to come to our annual gathering in June.
