The Firefly Gathering: July 9-12

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

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About Margaret Williams
Editor Margaret Williams first wrote for Xpress in 1994. An Alabama native, she has lived in Western North Carolina since 1987 and completed her Masters of Liberal Arts & Sciences from UNC-Asheville in 2016. Follow me @mvwilliams

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