My first memory of "council" was at summer camp. I was seven. We were told that Sunday night was to be Council Fire. It was my favorite part of camp. We filed into the circle around the fire to the beat of a tom-tom, two lines of girls from the tallest to the shortest. We prayed to Great Spirit as the fire was lit and three older girls uttered sacred pledges as they lit red, white, and blue candles to love, health, and happiness. The director gave a talk, many girls received awards, and we sang together into the night sky.
Those moments in circle were magical for me and set the course of my life to work with groups. The kind of community that develops when people sit together in a circle over a period of time has become essential to my well-being. I now sit in many such circles-praying, singing, listening, making pledges, and striving to find ways of communicating at a soul level. For years I have pursued a question: what enables a community to develop soul connections with one another and keep those relationships flowing, loving, honest, current, and clear? And further, when things get rough or people get hurt, how do you heal the wounds, the slights, the misunderstandings, and the differences of opinion that inevitably arise in any group or relationship over time? In short, by what means do we fulfill that dream of living together well?
My life has been directed towards finding or creating the answers to these questions. I have been on many journeys with many groups exploring many different tools, techniques, and trainings. Today, almost a half-century later, I come back to the simplest of these: sitting together in council. I am continually awe-struck by the power and magic that happen when people listen and speak with one another using the simplest of guidelines as a structure.
Council is a very ancient tool for communicating with others, where each person's voice is heard, honored, and respected. Indigenous cultures, religious, social and government institutions, even kids on the playground use council. Every one of you reading this has been in some type of council. It seems so simple that we often take it for granted and miss its power. We don't recognize its magic. We all know how to sit in a circle and listen to others. Or do we?
When I first learned Council as a formal practice, from Gigi Coyle and Jack Zimmerman at the Ojai Foundation,[1] I didn't initially appreciate the subtle magic that would arise out of making the agreements and boundaries around council more conscious. I knew the mysteries of going around a circle and having everyone share. But why does lighting a candle and offering an intention before initiating a council change the nature of the conversation? And why does a talking piece make such a difference from just sharing around a circle? What is the result of limiting speaking to only the person holding the talking piece, allowing no comment or interruption from others? What I have discovered is that these simple structures make an incredible, if sometimes subtle difference. They allow the speaking to come from a different, deeper place. They create a temenos[2], a sacred space in which the soul feels safe to come forward. Something magical happens, a mystery that continues to reveal itself to me as I continue to practice council.
There are many reasons to call a council. A person may recognize a need to deepen, clarify, or resolve a relationship between individuals or in a group. Council can be used to gather information, to read the pulse of a group, or to make decisions. Everyone involved agrees to participate at a specific time and place. The topic can be chosen by the caller of the council or agreed upon by the participants. It helps to have a central altar or focus, which can be as simple as a flower or a candle. A dedication for the council, spoken out loud, with or without lighting a candle, sets the intention that orients the direction of the council's unfolding. A talking piece is chosen which can also be as simple as a rock, a stick, a shell or a flower, or some more elaborate sacred object that has meaning to the group. All participants agree only to speak when they hold the talking piece and not to make comments when others are speaking.
There are four basic guidelines for participating in council:
1) Listen from the heart
2) Speak from the heart.
3) Be spontaneous.
4) Be lean.
I put Listen from the heart first, for most of council and most of any real communication is about listening. The point is to listen fully to each person, staying present for what he or she is saying and not rehearsing what you are going to say. This has its own magic, for when you listen from your heart, it is like opening your arms and receiving the other person. They know it and feel it and something comes forward from them that wouldn't otherwise. They unfold as deeper, more thoughtful, and more concerned people in front of your eyes. When you listen from your heart, you hear what's going on underneath their words and it becomes increasingly difficult to judge them.
Speaking from the heart asks us to pause, slow down, breathe, and tune into our deeper self. We drop into our vulnerability and our truth, letting our souls do the talking and not just our heads or our reactions. Speaking from the heart could be a guideline for any utterance, at any time, anywhere. I use it as a mantra, continually reminding myself that my intention is to speak from my heart.
Being spontaneous is another way of saying, "you don't have to rehearse to be yourself." People are infinitely more interested in hearing our real, authentic feelings and thoughts than what we think we should say or have planned to say. Letting go of our "performers" and just being direct and honest with whatever comes up takes us into soul relationship with our listeners. We all long for places where we can just tell the truth without having to look good.
Being lean means saying what is essential, what needs to be said. Sometimes we need to say a lot, but we all have been in situations where someone in a circle loses consciousness of the others and rambles on and on. Less is often more. Lean is important whether we are in a dyadic council with our partner working on the issues of relationship or in a group sharing our responses to an event. It implies that you have listened to what else has been said and only need to say what has not been said. Your piece adds to a whole that emerges from everyone. One of the great mysteries of council is that the whole, when everyone has said their small piece, is infinitely more magical and beautiful than the sum of its parts might imply.
These four guidelines, coupled with offering a dedication to the council and insisting that only the person who has the talking piece can talk, create a sacred structure that transforms ordinary conversation into very different kind of dialogue which carries the quality of a soul communion. Suddenly one feels safe to speak the deeper truths. Everything is changed by these simple adjustments to our speaking with each other. It is amazing that something so simple could work so well.
Yet it does. I so trust the process of council that whenever I want to deepen the connection or open into a soul dialogue with someone or a group, I call for a council. This has taken me into some interesting situations and through some difficult territories, yet always the result is more understanding, more compassion, more love, and more connection with others. Ultimately, I come away from any council in awe of what fabulous, intricate, delicate beings we are and the power we have to learn and grow with and from one another.
I now open and close all workshops with a council. An opening council is almost always about where each individual is in their lives at the moment. I have come to learn that wherever it is, if you speak it, it will move and you will become more present and attuned to the whole. What unfolds through every one's participation is always richer, truer, and more beautiful than I could have imagined. Even when someone brings up very difficult material for the group to deal with, someone later in the council will offer a completely different perspective that resolves the issue. The knowledge that everyone will be heard allows each individual to relax and be present. Even when you yourself are carrying the difficult material, just getting to speak your few words moves your energy and you can get on with what's next.
An ending council helps integrate any group experience by allowing the learnings to be named. There is a satisfaction that comes from this naming that completes the energy of a group and lets it be released. In our Vision Fast work, where we take people out into the desert for 11-day wilderness quests[3], council is an essential part of incorporating the quest into daily life. Our being able to speak our stories makes them more real to us. Deep listening to another person's story helps us understand our own experiences more deeply. A particularly moving ending council found me in a wooded clearing near a Hill Tribe village in Northern Thailand, after a 24-hour solo in the forest. Buddhist monks, American seekers, and activists from all over the world spoke their experiences in council at the end of a ten-day bearing witness walk. Whatever the depth and beauty of our own journey, it was magnified exponentially with every other person's experience. A solidarity occurred across racial, ethnic, religious, national, and gender lines that remains to this day one of my most inspiring examples of hope for the human race.
Another inspiration of hope is arising out of a Los Angeles pilot project that introduced council in a middle school eleven years ago. Based on a nineteen year old program begun at Crossroads School, council is proving effective in creating respectful and honoring communication amongst kids from diverse and often hostile backgrounds. There are now well over 3000 elementary, middle, and high school students experiencing council on a weekly basis throughout Los Angeles, with additional programs well underway in Boulder, Colorado and other cities.[4] Imagine being in the seventh grade and learning to speak to your peers about what was really concerning you in your life?
My most profound council experience happened last October at the first meeting of the International Wilderness Guides Council, held in Germany. In the center of a circle of 120 guides from all over the world, dedicated to restoring wilderness rites of passage, we held country councils. Ten people from each country would address the questions: What is the greatest challenge in being from your country and what are your greatest resources? The Germans went first, then the South Africans, followed by the Americans. The passion and power of each person's struggle with pride and shame, frustration and inspiration, insecurity and determination linked all of us at a heart level that completely transcended any national boundaries.
I so long for the kind of soul connections that come through council that I like to call a council to deepen all kinds of events. The results always astound me. For Christmas one year, we did a council with my husband's family. The ages ranged from 85 to 5, with numerous mid-lifers and a smattering of teenagers. I never would have imagined the thoughtfulness and perception of the teenagers nor the five-year-old's immediate grasp of what we were doing. She let the stick pass by her several times. Then when it was her turn again, she held it strongly and uttered the most profound sentence of the evening: "I think we should all just love each other and be nice." To bring in this New Year we invited our friends over for a party that ended with a council. This has been a challenging year for all of us and to speak of that along with our hopes and intentions for the New Year brought our whole community together.
With friends, I've found council to be the tool that course corrects our relationships and clears up all the niggly stuff that over time separates people. When we had a couple live with us for several months, council helped us remember that we loved one another, as well as our greater purpose for being together. Hearing where the other person was coming from immediately evaporated the unexpressed hurts and secret judgments. After a recent vacation with another couple, I called a council to acknowledge what impacted us on our very rich journey together. Something essential is incomplete without this pause to reflect, to listen and speak from the heart.
By far the most important use of council for me has been in my personal relationship with my husband. We are together a lot. We live, work, and travel together. We have a lot of long deep conversations in the car. But nothing touches sitting opposite each other, lighting a candle, and passing the talking stick back and forth. It changes what we talk about, what we can talk about, and certainly how we talk about it. If I am listening and speaking from the heart, I have to treat him with respect and care. I simply can't look him in the eye, open my heart, and then be mean. I have to say whatever I say, however difficult it is to say it, in a way that honors him. I am quickened into my best self, the one who can be angry and still be compassionate, the one who can see what is going on without bludgeoning him with it, the one who can take a breath, let go a little of the control, and trust in the power of speaking the truth. Council is an essential practice for any couple dedicated to conscious loving relationship.[5]
The most personally challenging councils are those I've called when I am having difficulty with another person. If I know that the issues are particularly complex and/or I have a lot of emotion around the issues and know that I am not clear, I will call a Witness Council, asking one or more other people whom we each respect, trust, and love to witness the exchange. While obviously more powerful face-to-face, I've done these councils with breakthrough results over the phone and even on e-mail. The council is still dedicated, either spoken or in writing, and I still light a candle when I write, or we all light our own candle when we talk over the phone.
The purpose of the council is to come to truth and resolution or to realize that resolution is not yet possible. I never know what the resolution will be, but I trust that there is one if we all agree to the rules of council. Agreement is key. Calling for the council itself is the beginning of naming that there is a conflict and that there is an intention to resolve it in a sacred way. Half of the work is already done. Having an agreed upon witness who will then hold the council, witness the conversation, and make observation comments where appropriate does most of the rest. It is difficult to lie, steal, cheat, exaggerate, project, or blame when someone you respect is witnessing your conversation with someone you love with whom you are in conflict The very structure ensures that you hear the other side and have compassion for it.
The results of these Witness Councils in our groups have been phenomenal. Individuals have healed old wounds, come into new fruitful relationships with people they previously have had difficulty with, and cleared those unexpressed feelings and missing conversations that so stultify a group energy field. It has become our primary tool for maintaining good relationships within our groups.
The magic happens by sitting opposite each other, lighting a candle and dedicating the council, looking in each other's eyes, and passing the talking stick back and forth or to the witness. Listen from the heart. Speak from the heart. Be spontaneous. Be lean. Watch and feel what happens as you speak and listen. Cry, yell, tell the truth, but always treat the other with respect and honor. If you have someone in your life willing to sit in council with you, you have a friend with whom you can work through anything.
And is that not the point? Aren't we searching for ways to keep our communications and communities clean and strong and thriving? Our relationships are not ever going to be perfect. We are not static beings. Stuff will come up. The world is changing rapidly around us and we are all struggling to find our authentic response. Other people will always push the buttons of our own unresolved internal material. Council provides an ongoing sacred structure to talk through what we are experiencing in a way that allows us to remain loving, kind and truthful companions on the journey. I encourage you to call your own council.
[1] See The Way of Council by Jack Zimmerman and Virginia Coyle, Bramble Books, 1996.
[2] Temenos is a Greek work that means the boundary line of the temple. In an ancient temple, when you passed through the gates in the temenos wall, you were inside the sacred precinct. It is a term also used in depth psychology to describe the safe setting a therapist creates by establishing a regular place and time for appointments, which allows the deeper psyche to express itself.
[3] For more information, contact the Naos Foundation, www.naosfoundation.org and click on Vision Fast. [4] Contact the Center for Council Training at the Ojai Foundation, Ojai, CA.
[5] For a deeper exploration of how to use council in a couple's relationship, see Flesh and Spirit by Jack Zimmerman and Jaquelyn McCandless, Bramble Books, 1998.
Lynnaea Lumbard, Ph.D. has been a workshop leader in transformational psychology for over thirty years. In 1986, she co-founded Temenos Associates, a national seminar company. More recently, she and her husband, Rick Paine, formed Naos Foundation ( www.naosfoundation.org), which offers training programs in the sacred arts. They also guide Wilderness Quests in the Utah Canyonlands. For more information contact [email protected] .
©2003 Talking Leaves
Spring 2003
Volume 13, Number 1
Communication & Eco-Culture