Episode #63 is a conversation with Marissa Percoco out of Barnardsville, NC.

Marissa (she/her) is an avid fermentation enthusiast who has spent the last 10 years exploring community and the wilds, as well as living deeply with various fermented cultures and local plants, and learning how it all comes together. Traveling through the wild places of Tennessee, Florida, the Southwest, California, Colorado, Arizona, Utah, Oregon, Washington, Hawaii and most everywhere in between with her four amazingly adventurous children, Marissa has gathered cultures from far and wide. Deeply rooted in the Earthskills movement and committed to co-creating a new culture within which we, our children and all beings thrive, they are now nesting in Barnardsville, NC, and she humbly offers her humorous experiences to you. She is also the Director of the Firefly Gathering.

In this conversation with Marissa, we talk about:

• rural Appalachia dynamics and gentrification in a valley outside of a hip city, Asheville, NC

• some stories of Marissa’s moving from the bay area of California to the rural south in the early 2000’s and what it was like initially, the culture shock

• shifting from years of nomadism to mainly tending one small place in community

• some of Marissa’s childhood experiences in California with chemically bonded parents and plant loving grandparents

• farming in west climates vs. arid climates

• tending tropical plants in a subtropical four season place, and pushing the edge of what is possible during rapid climate change

• the perspective gained from travel and having an awareness of the plants in those places

• Marissa’s time in the Gila wilderness doing walks and we geek on plants we found there

• the pros and cons of isolation living in wilderness areas, co-dependency, addiction and depression wrapped in idealism, and how can we contribute to society living ‘out there?’

• Marissa’s mead brewing practice on the road over the years, capturing place through brewing plants

• how facing the immediacy of death changes perspective

 

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