Three levels of Way of Council offerings/trainings​

 

“Communication leads to community, that is, to understanding, intimacy and mutual valuing” -

Rollo May
 

Council is a practice that can nurture personal, professional and family lives. It offers a way of communicating that encourages attentive listening and heart-felt compassionate speaking. Circle practice recognizes that each voice needs to be heard, every person has a gift, each of us has a story to share. As we make room for this circular wisdom unexpected insights arise, healing and understanding can happen. Each person’s voice contributes to the whole truth.

 

Three levels of Way of Council offerings/trainings, each grounded in my lived experience and carrying the depth and spirit that I share here. These levels can speak to participants wherever they are on their journey — from tentative first steps, to Circle facilitators, to those ready to embody and transmit the practice more fully.

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Way of Council – Level One: Listening from the Heart

Theme: Entering the Circle

 

Focus:
An introduction to the Way of Council as a practice of deep listening, heart-centred speaking, and shared presence. This level is for those who are new or relatively new to Council. Emphasis is placed on the intentions of Council, the role of the talking piece, the guidelines and creating a safe container. Participants begin to experience the subtle shift that happens when we listen without needing to fix, judge, or respond.

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Participants will learn to:

• Understand and honour the roots, history and intentions of Council

• Learn the guidelines, meaning of circle, talking piece and story

• Use the talking piece with presence and clarity

• Listen beyond words — with the heart and body

• Begin to notice their inner dialogue and move beyond it

• Speak authentically from personal experience

Outcomes:

• A felt experience of being heard and seen.

• A foundation for personal reflection and opening to the ‘Spirit of Enquiry’

• Tools to begin integrating Council into personal life and relationships

 

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Way of Council – Level Two: Tending the Circle

Theme: Becoming a Keeper of Council

 

Focus:
This level is for those who have sat in multiple Councils and feel called to deepen their practice and or opening Council circles for others - not as a leader or authority, but as a tender of space, one who listens for the ‘field’ and soul of the circle and learns to read the Council rhythm. Emphasis is on deepening the guidelines. We explore Council as ceremony, and the many forms and intentions of Council including group dynamics, and begin to work with challenging emotions and polarities.

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Participants will learn to:

• Set a safe container and hold boundaries with grace

• Track the emotional and energetic field of a circle

• Sit with strong emotions, silence, and discomfort

• Deepen the art of story, witnessing, timing, and other forms - fish bowl, spiral & dyad

• Listen for what lies beneath words (the collective field, the land, the unseen)

• Begin to open your own circles with more comfort and ease, presence, clarity, and humility

Outcomes:

• Beginning confidence in initiating Councils circles

• Deeper trust in the mystery and wisdom of the circle

• A more grounded ability to set a safe container and bear witness 

 

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Way of Council – Level Three: Embodying Council

Theme: Living the Way

 

Focus:
This is the maturation of Council practice — no longer simply something we do, but something we are. The emphasis is on embodiment, transmission, and soul-tending. This level invites those who have lived and breathed Council in an apprenticeship with some years practice, now living the deeper teachings of listening, presence, and peace-making. It includes the inner psychological work of facing one’s own edges, shadows, and vulnerability as energy for transformation. One who is committed to a spiritual practice and path. Participants explore Council not only as a relational tool but as a spiritual path.

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Participants will Learn to:

• Walk as Council — bringing the practice into all areas of life

• Hold collective trauma and ancestral story with care

• Deepen their intuitive listening — to self, others, and the world

• Serve as a mirror, a witness and possible soul-guide within the circle – in response to challenging situations and the shadow

• Relate to Council as mystery, as medicine, and as a way of being

Outcomes:

• More fully integration and understanding of the Way of Council

• An embodied presence that transmits the practice

• Capacity to sit with diversity, polarisation and opposition and cultivate Council in community 

• Developing and opening a culture of gratitude and love​​

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“We have all known the long loneliness, and we have found that the answer is community” - Dorothy Day​

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People drawn to my Councils include therapists, caregivers, educators, and those navigating pain, trauma, or profound life transitions. My aspiration is to support authentic connection, awaken the sense of inner worth, and help others remember their place in the living web of life.

 

 

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