Between yearly gatherings, firekeepers continue meeting on a regular basis, exploring what we call thematic strands. Since we are a global group, those gatherings typically happen online. This post offers insights into the process we followed in a gathering of the kinship strand, indicating possible avenues for collective digital practices more aligned with radically shared aliveness.
To make room for depth of conversation and honour the richness of our thematic strands, our online gatherings may themselves unfold over the course of multiple days, as a series of connected moments, each with a different purpose and focus. Together, those separate calls form a coherent arc resembling the ones we aim to follow in our in-person meetings. The one described here unfolded over the course of 3 days, with opening and closing rituals, ample breaks, and dedicated sessions of practice sharing and sense-making.
Although we meet online – and because we meet online – our gatherings start with an embodied connection to the four elements (Water, Earth, Fire, Air), as a way to remember from the beginning that we exist through broader relationships with the more-than-human.
In this instance, our gathering began with an invitation to root ourselves in the mountains, feeling into their stability and steadfast calm. Through visualisation and embodied sensing, we connected to that which endures over long arcs of time. Then, each of us lit a small flame as a sign of joining and intentionally opening our Firekeepers gathering, as part of the wider World Ethic Forum Firekeeper Circle. The glow of the fire became our center. We felt its warmth ripple across our geographically distributed circle. Our conspiracy was called into awareness, as were our waterbodies (our physical bodies being made up of roughly 70% of water). We sipped water together, slowly, allowing the fluid element to move through our systems, to remind us of connection, flow and the cycles of water that bind us even through distance.
Through this opening ritual, even across geographies and bandwidths, we entered into shared presence: grounded in earth, moving with water, held by the quiet breath of dedication as a circle of Firekeepers.
After connecting with this embodied field, on the following day, each of the participants was invited to share stories and practices of kinship with our circle over a series of calls.
Jolanda opened a window into her one-year journey, taking 35 farmers through an exploration of Hofindividualität: the individuality of their farm itself, perceived as a living being. Together with Nicolas and others, she accompanies this circle of farmers as they listen deeply to their farms and reflect through journaling on e.g. what form or character their particular place carries, and what gift they might in turn grant back to it. The practice they co-initiated through the project Hofindiviudalität is a practice of dialogue with the more-than-human, of reciprocity between those who cultivate and the land that nourishes.
Andrea and Theo brought forth the living story of Erdfest: an unfolding celebration that they have practised for the last seven years, honouring both the Earth as a supportive and fertile ground for us, and the Earth as a being. Rooted in the local community, Erdfest invites rituals and gatherings that emerge from place, each one a co-creation between humans and the more-than-human world. Over the years, it has grown beyond its birthplace, spreading through Germany, across Europe, and into distant lands: an evolving tradition that lives through those who gather in its spirit.
Lucia guided us toward water, more specifically to the river Zenne that winds through Brussels and parts of Belgium. This river was once buried and declared dead in 2008. Now, it is slowly being remembered. Through a transdisciplinary artistic intervention entwined with ecological grief and water rituals, she and the ongoing collaborators are interweaving an embodied Preamble for the recognition of the rights of this river: re-entering in relationship with the river, mourning what has been lost while opening space for renewal. Her work shows how art can become ceremonial and legitimate in the movement for the rights of nature and how deeply listening to a river can transform our ways of belonging. A singing ritual with the river, attuning to its beings, sparked a flame in our hearts.
Alexander and Rama invited us into Home for Humanity, a vision that is also stewarded in Germany by Andrea and many others living across continents. Through education, art, and conscious community, Home for Humanity cultivates a sense of Earth as our shared home, where diversity is honoured as a breakthrough towards a collective act of care. It was humbling to feel how this initiative, too, resonates with the core impulse of kinship: learning to dwell together, in reciprocity, on a planet we all depend upon.
Ivo shared his experience with a food cooperative, where a practice of deep listening became both method and ethic. In his retelling, listening is not a task to accomplish but a space of shared unfolding, allowing relationships to mature slowly and respectfully.
After this collective sharing, we engaged in a group conversation akin to a form of weaving, where threads of practice, story, and presence cross and hold one another. What emerged was not a program or outcome, but a texture, a sense of relational grounding that belongs to the Kinship Strand. This phase unfolded at the end of the second day, after hearing from the various practices, and resumed on the following morning, with a night in between to assist in further metabolising.
To mark the close of our gathering, we lit a candle once more, and spent a moment feeling its warmth. As our digital hearth dimmed, we felt the lingering warmth of what had been shared, like a pulse of belonging travelling beyond the screen. We parted with gratitude, carrying new questions, images, and resonances. And we looked ahead to our next meeting, when we will gather in Nairobi — in presence, in practice, as firekeepers and kin, to continue tending this living web of care.