Celebrate the Winter Solstice with Cattail Basket Weaving & Community Potluck

Celebrate the Winter Solstice with Cattail Basket Weaving & Community Potluck

Who:

Our Wild Origin: Austin Roberts & Iraiah Waak

When:

️December 12th

1:30 pm - 6:00 pm

Where:

Red Crags at Smokebrush Farm

302 El Paso Boulevard, Manitou Springs, CO

Cost:

$40 for a basket or hat

Itinerary:

1:30 - 2:30 Start Weaving Your Cattail Basket Base 

2:30 - 2:45 Break for Tea & Nature Sit Spot

2:45 - 4:00 - Weave the Walls of Your Basket 

4:00 - 5:00 Community Potluck

5:00 - 6:00 Finish Weaving & Wrap Up Projects

Description:

Join Our Wild Origin for a Winter Solstice Celebration! Come learn ancestral living skills in our cattail weaving class! We will offer two basket bases: the checkerboard or the wheel. If you’d like to start making a hat, you will braid a rope 8 times your body length. If you do not finish your project you will be sent home with the supplies and knowledge needed.

Observe the natural world as we share a locally wildcrafted tea while centering ourselves in nourishment during our group sit spot, where you will be guided through deeper awareness of your senses. Together we will remember that we are an extension of nature, not an exception. 

Lastly, enter a refreshing community space as we honor the season’s change and the approaching holidays by communing over food with local lovers of land! Please bring a labeled dish to share; these will be placed on the Red Crags kitchen counter.

Note: Basketry offering will likely happen inside and outside, weather permitting. We realize that this class is at the start of winter, so if you are brave enough to be on the porch, bring fingerless gloves and other winter gear.

Bio:

Our Wild Origin facilitates land based educational experiences that are designed to empower community resilience by rekindling participants' inherent knowledge of EarthSkills. Co-teachers Austin and Iraiah have been partnering with Smokebrush Foundation since 2022. In 2025, they were awarded the Greenest Educator in Manitou Springs through the Climate Action Working Group (CAWG). They specialize in introducing folks to original technologies such as wilderness living skills, basketry, chemical-free hide tanning, plant ID, bird language, and animal tracking. Their mission is to foster deep listening with the Natural World and help create interactions that are rooted in reciprocity with the planet. During each class, their goal is to help you remember that attuning to the cycles and rhythms of the land is within reach if we can reclaim our ability to listen.

Media:

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/Ourwildorigin

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/earthskills_of_manitou?igsh=bDFibmljOWl6Zm5m&utm_source=qr