Women-led animal slaughter workshop.

Please note that the format of this class will differ slightly than the other animal workshops, in order to provide a low tuition for locals. We will kill and process animals in groups, rather than individually. We will provide meat from the kills for lunch and dinner, but students will be responsible for providing the bulk of their own meals (with a potluck style Friday night feast!).

Here at the Meatriarchy we spend a lot of time wondering about our relationship to animals, food, life, and the art of killing. We believe that it is not enough to kill "efficiently" and "process" the animal well. Instead, we explore how we can weave our lives to the mysteries of generosity, reciprocity, relationality, and humility. We attempt to be students of our gratitude, our joys, our indebtedness, and our griefs.

We will work to harvest these animals with grace, compassion, sorrow, and love. To give thanks for their lives and the lives of their ancestors. To respect the enormous gifts they give by learning how to tend to them in fullness and in beauty. And to learn how to nourish and sustain the health of their families.

This is a workshop for those yearning for a more magickal, spirited, mysterious, and mycelial approach to animal slaughter. It is ancestrally informed and animistic in principle, with ceremony, song, and storytelling sewn into the fabric of the class.

Let us learn how to be present and attentive to the thresholds.

This is a full hoof-to-table class, but extends far beyond the reaches of most conventional approaches to butchering. The workshop will teach the practical basics of how to tend to, catch, kill, gut, skin, butcher, grind, wrap, cure, and preserve all of your animal. We specialize in gourmet preparations of the offal, to encourage folks to eat quite literally everything.

We emphasize off grid techniques using minimal equipment to keep animal processing accessible to even the beginners.

This approach includes many other non-food uses of animal parts as well. We cover crafts of hides, bones, hooves, bladders, pericardiums, skulls, and more.

Each student will leave the class feeling confident in slaughtering and attending to all of the gifts of the animal.

Class includes:

• Three days of hands-on instruction with Harmony Cronin

• Meat from our kills cooked for 3 lunch and 2 dinners

• A canvas tent with wood stove will be provided for communal sleeping

• Tasty samples to take home as well

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 if camping

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

• Potluck style food to share at meals

Sliding scale $200.00-$700.00

• This price range provides an opportunity of 2-3 students per animal, which means that it is not guaranteed you will kill. Students will work to process the animal together for the duration of the class.

Reserve a spot by emailing us at gatheringwaysschool@gmail.com