Earlier this year I took a lamb butchering workshop at a local farm to deepen my connection to my food. At the end of the workshop, I was invited to come back to participate in the annual teaching of ‘earth skills’ at a gathering of like-minds known as the Ground Nut. What’s an earth-skill? It’s an ancestral skill, essential to being human, which helps us survive. Think hunting, tracking, fishing, bushcraft, growing and foraging for food…but also story-telling, skills for dealing with the menstrual cycle and post-partum phase, and making art with the help of natural materials.
The day opened with a circle of gratitude and awareness, a little call-and-repeat, and need-to-knows. Three activity blocks filled with a wide range of “classes” were offered to participants to deepen our knowledge of the land around us. Jake and I intentionally tried to choose different workshops to spread out our collection of the knowledge resource.
I learned how to weave a basket from bittersweet (a highly invasive vine that is abundant year-round and for which I would love to change my relationship and use it as a resource material), grow a food-forest, and construct a composite fish-hook from cedar, dogs bane, thorns, and tar. The long day in the sun and brush concluded with a pot luck and lamb-roast. My orzo salad with vegetables from the garden was gobbled up! We sampled wild greens and berries foraged earlier that day during other workshops as well as fresh-churned butter from the butter and cheese-making class! I tried for the first time an autumn olive and learned to identify it.
Honestly the day was completely exhausting and we were left essentially hungover by so much sun, but I certainly came away with a lot of new knowledge that can be applied to so many different essential creative projects. It’s a good time to feel very grateful for where we live and all that the land provides. We were asked to choose one really big thing that we were thankful for at the start of the day. Like really big. I chose photosynthesis. Plants turning sunlight into their food, my food, food for other animals is everything. Plants growing, dying, feeding the fungi, building soil….thanks, photosynthesis!
