Going Deeper with Way of Council
November 9th, 10th, 16th & 17th 2024
|Online, Zoom
Time & Location
November 9th, 10th, 16th & 17th 2024
Online, Zoom
About the event
Council is the practice of humans sitting together, in a circle, speaking truthfully, one at a time, and listening without interruption, and without judgement. In Council, we keep confidentiality, and we refrain from criticising, correcting, advising, or otherwise ‘fixing’ each other.
We are guided by four intentions:
To speak from the heart - sharing our experiences, our truth as we understand it in this moment, choosing authenticity over image.
To Listen from the heart - setting aside judgement and analysis, and centring presence, empathy, and being a witness to each other’s truth-telling.
To keep our speaking lean - respecting each other and the time available, we focus on the essence of what we want to share, leaving out the ‘padding’.
To be spontaneous - instead of rehearsing while others are sharing, we listen attentively, trusting that the right words will come when it’s our turn.
A facilitator, or two co-facilitators, serve the group by drawing our attention back to the four intentions and our shared agreements when we forget, and by offering questions to explore, and choosing suitable forms of Council for each situation.
The Council practice can be used as a powerful tool for enabling personal reflection, growth and healing. For groups or communities it can serve for vision-setting, decision making, or conflict exploring, mediation and reconciliation. And it can serve in our families and relationships.
Simple forms of Council have been practiced by many cultures around the world - perhaps for as long as humans have sat together around a fire - it is a universal human birth-right, and for most, a natural and intuitive way.
The Way of Council, a consistent method of using Council adapted to the needs of modern humans, was developed by a unique gathering of elders, teachers, scientists, philosophers, and spiritual leaders from many cultures, who came together at The Ojai Foundation (now the Topa Institute) in California in 1980. Since then it has been practiced, honed and refined in schools, in prisons, in businesses, in communities, and in families.
Formal trainings, and mentorships, combined with published resources enable all who wish to, to learn, practice and share the Way of Council wherever it will serve.
Each online workshop will run from 4pm until 9:15pm each day.
Apply through the True Circles website by clicking this link.