There is a sacred pact between animals and humans running deep into our ancestral past. Red Ochre paint stains cave walls in haunting animal-human-spirit images, crafted 17,000 years ago in the Lascaux cavern complex of France. 

Humans have always depended on animal death for our survival, from the earliest mammoth hunts, to the later domestication and slaughter - animal meat, blood, bone, skin and spirit have imbued us humans with the magic of Earth.  

Because of this complete dependency, our ancestors understood animals as kin and their death by our hands as a sacred act, requiring ritual process, and the outpouring of grief and praise through song, eloquence and beauty-making as essential reciprocity to guard this kinship.

In 2023, 92.2 Billion animals were killed by humans; likely less than .1 percent with the honor required of such a spiritual energetic debt.  And we wonder why the Earth is crying out through climate change and other meta-crisis.

We depend on animal death each day, and yet so few of us are in relationship with this death process.  The spiritual energetic debt haunts us much like the hungry ghosts of our ancestors, ungrieved, and unfed, who lurk in the echoes of our own colonization and displacement.

Yet, is there perhaps a link between the sacred act of animal slaughter and our own ancestral kinship, or re-membering ourselves in the living, breathing, dying, rebirthing fabric of Earth? 

In this 3-day weekend, we will step boldly, gently, and ritually through the communal ritual practice of animal slaughter, leaning on old stories, old crafts, and the threadbare yet still there memory in our own blood and bones of how to tend death in a manner that feeds our lives, and all life.

This weekend will be hands-on, as we slaughter, butcher, prepare, eat and then use as many parts of the animal as possible to make ancestral handcrafts such as rattles, bags, tanned-hides, and other magickal materia. 

The weekend will begin with reconnecting to our own ancestors, a practice which will be continually tended and fed throughout the weekend through story, offering and song and craft.

Each participant will come away from the weekend with the knowledge and practice of an honorable animal slaughter and butcher, a handcraft from the animal, and the restitched memory of how to practice kinship through death and culture tending.

IMPORTANT INFO
This is a 3 night/ 3 day long weekend. The weekend begins on Thursday evening with dinner and goes through mid-afternoon on Sunday.  The days will be FULL.

• We will be hosted on a dear friend’s land on Vashon Island, Washington and we will have a wall-tent with wood stove for communal sleeping, as well as personal camping options.

• Every day a ranch-to-table lunch and dinner will be cooked up for the class using animals we’ve killed, fresh organic vegetables from our garden, and other organic staples (a great opportunity to learn our favorite recipes, tips, and tricks!)

• There will be some preparatory reading and practice to complete before arrival.

What to Bring:

• - A sharp knife - We use Victorinox 6 inch boning knife and 6 inch lamb skinner for everything we do.  Or you can bring one that you feel connected to.  If you are bringing a used knife, make sure it’s sharp!

• - Bedding

• - Be prepared for colder weather i.e. sleeping bag, extra layers, hats. (We will provide wood for heating.)

• -Breakfast items and drinks