Gathering Info
Thursday, August 14th - Sunday, August 17th, 2008
Santa Cruz, CA
Welcome to Fire Family Gathering! We invite you to join us, the Family of Fire, on a journey of transformation and growth. For four amazing days and three other-worldly nights we will soar with the Phoenix Reborn as we weave a powerful web of community. Come, experience the Fire Circle as the beating heart of a living community.
Fire Family is an annual gathering of like-minded individuals, being held this year among the Redwoods in the beautiful Santa Cruz, California mountains. Together we create a sacred place for deep play. The heart center of the gathering is the all-night intentional Fire Circles where people of many paths join together in Sacred Space. With ash on our skin, smoke in our hair, and flames in our eyes, our rhythms, songs and chants ring from the redwoods.
Fire Family Gathering is safe and sacred container for celebration, magic, transformation, ecstatic dance, and heartfelt drumming. An exciting blend of many traditions, Fire Family Gathering has its roots in a style of fire circle celebration that evolved over the last two decades at magical drum and dance events held in the Northeast U.S. There is no dogma or theology to our gathering; folks of all faiths and traditions are welcome at the Fire.
While the heart of Fire Family Gathering lies in the three midnight-to-dawn Sacred Fire Circles, Fire Family Gathering days are reserved for napping, chatting, and snacking. Spend an afternoon at one of our hands-on workshops, where you have the opportunity to study and share in small groups with some of the finest teachers in the worlds of drumming, dance and magickal arts. Or spend a day at the village square, wandering the colorful booths of the merchants, laughing around the warming fire, and witnessing the impromptu community performances of the bardic stage.
Fire Family Gathering offers you a sacred space to:
- drum
- dance
- sing
- share your heartsong
- focus your vision
- develop your leadership
- step fully into your power
- awake to your infinite potential
- play with your Fire Tribe
- celebrate and be celebrated!
Together we will fuel our passions, sharing ways to carry our sparks and flames into our home communities. With compassion, we support and encourage each other to be fully in our own power.
We are committed to being a family-friendly gathering and welcome your children. Fire Family Gathering is a drug- and alcohol-free event.
Fire Family Organization
Photo policy
I.
No photography in sacred space.
We define sacred space at this gathering for the purposes of this policy as anywhere ritual is taking place, and/or where people are doing work or workshops where they are attempting to find or are experiencing a state of vulnerability or trance.
These spaces include
- the fire circle from a half hour before ritual until an hour after ritual is closed
- talking stick or feather ceremonies
- instances in which anyone is having energy work done, shadow work, etc.
Any of the above places, there will be no photography permitted by anyone.
Determination of whether workshops are "sacred space" under this definition is at the discretion of the teacher.
II.
Outside of sacred space, photography is allowed with permission. In the case of candid shots, the photographer is to show the photo to the subject(s) and get permission before displaying it. Photographers are expected to delete any photo at the request of any one of its subjects. Explicit additional permission is required from all subjects before any photo is posted or published.