WHY WE GATHER
Historically, gatherings revolved around sacred occasions, the changing of the seasons, birth and death. Life was precarious—a single harvest could determine the fate of your family for another year. Reaping it meant relying on the help of neighbors… and returning it in kind. Survival necessitated community.
For thousands of years, our ancestors gathered in ritual to pray, to celebrate, to mourn the loss of life, to mark the seasons. While modern culture has largely eliminated those structures from the calendar—and commercialized the ones that remain—gathering continues to be essential to the human experience. Restoring those traditions is a step toward mending the loneliness epidemic our country now faces.
This is an invitation to a new way of gathering.
I hope you will join me.
DANA AINSWORTH
FOUNDER
Every Sunday, for as long as I can remember, my grandfather prepared a huge pot of pasta sauce and assembled the family. I missed that tradition terribly when I moved away. To compensate, I found myself gathering friends and strangers around makeshift tables wherever I happened to be. In India, plates were set over a discarded door while sauce simmered on a camp stove. In Costa Rica, card tables were draped with sarongs while my friends tried out the newest recipe taught by the Frenchman up the hill. Those moments have come to define my life.
In 2021, I simultaneously launched Wonder Table, took a job as the Event Manager for a statewide book festival, and began a doctoral degree in Education. I thought my future was in academia, but after spending four years witnessing the powerful effects of gathering, I was smitten. I now believe the most profound impact I can have on the world around me is to build an accessible practice of gathering, one that mirrors the rhythms by which we used to mark our lives.
CONTACT
Tell me what you’re gathering for.