Mission
To host an annual intergenerational gathering of folks teaching each other the skills, tangible and intangible, of our ancestors and our contemporaries while also nurturing the social resilience necessary to thrive as a community of diverse individuals empowered to care for ourselves, each other, and the land.
Vision
This annual event will be focused on the teaching of ancestral skills in a collaborative environment where curiosity, conversation, and connecting across culture and place are paramount. We aim to create a welcome space for the vibrant, diverse individuals that call this gathering home for these few winter days, a space where learning to make a basket, tan a hide, carve a spoon, or make fire by friction can open us up to the wild-dreaming-questioning spirit, in ourselves and each other, that motivates us toward positive social and ecological change. We endeavor to be an ever evolving and learning inter-generational gathering of people from varied backgrounds and ethnicities coming together, with care for each other and the land, to learn and create, connect and grieve, to celebrate and play.
Goals
- To honor and preserve the skills and knowledge of those who came before us
- To create the experience of an intergenerational village, living, working, learning, playing, celebrating and grieving together
- To teach practical skills that encourage folks to go back to their everyday community to use them, teach them, and continue to learn more
- To share foundational skills that help us to gain an appreciation of our ancestral roots and develop a deeper connection to the natural world and cultures outside of our own
- To welcome in folks new to earthskills with open arms and be a bridge into the larger earthskills community
- To weave together the teaching of practical, hands-on skills and the social discussion of that skills’ cultural and/or spiritual significance, current use, historical significance, and future role
- To foster connection among participants from all walks of life
- To question, examine and deconstruct harmful social hierarchies within the earthskills community
- To work closely with the stewards of the land and the local community wherever the gathering is hosted to ensure the gathering has a positive impact on that land and community
- To care for the marginalized among us with the aim to create a place where they can relax and be at ease, as much as possible, for a few days
- To honor those who came before by inviting elders to share their cultural wisdoms and respecting their perspectives.