The full text of the Council of All Beings Workshop Manual, prepared by Eshana (Elizabeth Bragg, PhD) in January 1998 with updates through February 2001 by Ruth Rosenhek, published on John Seed’s Rainforest Information Centre site. Its stated aim: “to provide potential facilitators with enough material to facilitate a weekend length Council of All Beings with no previous experience or additional resources.” Reproduced in full here, section by section, so that individual practices already ported to this site — The Milling, The Cairn of Mourning — can link back to their original, complete context, and so nothing in the manual is lost to link-rot on the source site. As the manual itself says: “facilitators should by no means limit themselves to the processes outlined here” — different versions of this workshop exist all over the world, including the Work That Reconnects Network’s own page on the practice Macy and Seed developed together.

Getting Set Up

Ideal Venue

The more of the workshop which can be held outside, the better. Basically, the ideal venue includes comfortable outdoor areas for sitting and dancing in circles. When the workshop is large (more than 40 people), and some of the exercises are split into two groups, then more than one comfortable outdoor area is preferable. A large indoor area is also necessary for working at night and when the weather does not permit outdoor work. (Note that old farm-sheds, large tents and tarpaulins have all been used for this purpose.)

A venue which can accommodate all the participants to sleep both nights is also good. (If people have to leave the venue and fellow participants, the feelings and experiences of the workshop tend to dissipate, and it is more difficult to enliven the workshop the following day.) Providing space to camp outdoors is particularly appropriate, allowing greater connection with nature.

Direct access to a nearby wilderness or relatively natural place is another good quality for a venue, but not necessary (Council of All Beings workshops have been held inside shopping malls and university buildings with great success!). It is great, within a longer workshop format, to allow free time for people to explore a natural area.

Privacy is important because of the expression of deep emotions and other seemingly “strange” behaviour to outside observers. It is important that participants do not feel self-conscious in this way.

Publicity

Depending on how big you wish your workshop to be (we recommend between 10 and 60 participants), you might wish to print posters and/or fliers. The “new age” and “environmental activist” interface is where to aim publicity — environment groups/centres and new age shops/workshop-centres are good places to put posters. Mailing lists from previous workshops are also a good place to start. Try local papers, or a local radio interview. Word-of-mouth is most effective: when one person has participated and is enthusiastic, and tells someone else who is ready for the experience, this has a powerful effect.

Outreach. Try reaching groups of people other than the “hippies, witches and pagans” who have traditionally attended the Councils. Experiment with different ways of describing the workshop to different types of people, beginning with those closest to you.

The “traditional” Council gathers people with a shared intention from a range of geographical and sub-cultural locations — great for community-building, but the community naturally disbands after the workshop. An alternative is to work with ongoing groups (an environment group working on a specific issue; a women’s group; a school class; a university course). A shared experience of this depth will strengthen and empower an existing group, and its ongoing nature permits the continuation of those experiences.

Financial Arrangements

One of the benefits of holding Council of All Beings workshops is that substantial amounts of money can be raised for environmental projects, made possible by facilitators donating their time (or receiving only a small payment) and cheap venue rent. Be very transparent about how much money was raised, what expenses were, and where the profit is going — ideally announced before people leave.

Participants are usually expected to pay the full price (covering workshop costs plus the environmental project) unless arranged otherwise — we usually charge about US$80–100. When participants cannot pay, arrange a work-exchange (letter-writing, organising, gathering mask-making materials, cooking). We never turn people away for lack of money.

Costs can be reduced by the workshop preparing its own food — either participants bring a box of food cooked collectively, or work-exchangers buy and cook it, with a simple outside kitchen for large numbers.

Length and Format

Although the complete workshop can be done within a three-hour slot, the longer format is strongly recommended, even at the cost of fewer participants. The standard format runs from before dinner on Friday to late afternoon on Sunday:

Remember this is just one format. You can change things around as you see fit!

Facilitation

Facilitator Tips

Don’t worry. It doesn’t matter how nervous you are — the workshop will be a powerful and healing experience simply because people have gathered with the intention of healing the Earth and their relationship with it. You do not need to be an experienced facilitator, but make sure you have friends around to co-facilitate and help if you’ve forgotten anything. It’s okay to use notes.

All you need to know is that the experienced separation between people and the Earth is illusory, and you need to feel comfortable with people expressing strong emotions — knowing that nothing bad will happen if they feel anger or grief and share it.

Trust the process and the power of the circle. If the explanation is clear before each process, the group as a whole will help itself keep “on track.” It is far more empowering for participants to intervene and manage a process themselves than for the facilitator’s authority to be imposed.

Tune in to the group’s energy. Keep small processes ready to refocus the circle — songs and chants, smudging, breathing exercises, yoga, humming, passing a squeeze of hands. Build your own list with your co-facilitators and add to it after every workshop.

This energetic role requires a kind of split attention: some awareness on whether the group needs to be kept on track, or whether it’s time for a break — while still participating as fully as possible, both for your own healing and so you remain one of the participants rather than an “authority figure.”

Co-facilitation

Advantages: it supports the inexperienced facilitator; provides a training opportunity for less experienced co-facilitators; models the kind of cooperative relationship needed to heal our collective relationship with the Earth; and reduces the projection that “the facilitator” has all the answers. Good co-facilitation requires ongoing communication and tuning in throughout the workshop, not just splitting up tasks in advance.

Before the workshop, facilitators might ask each other:

  1. What do you want to have happen for the participants?
  2. What can you do to facilitate that?
  3. What do you want to have happen for yourself as facilitator?
  4. What can you do to facilitate that?
  5. What do you want for yourself as a person?
  6. What can you do to facilitate that?

Plan who takes primary responsibility for each process, written down for each facilitator. Hold a small ritual circle of facilitators immediately before the workshop, sharing feelings and intentions. Have regular check-ins between processes — don’t skip these because you’re in a hurry. During another facilitator’s introduction, pay full attention; this holds the group energy together and supports your co-facilitator.

Empowerment of new facilitators is as important a goal as providing the best experience for participants. A more experienced facilitator might need to stand back a little — sharing introductions even though they may be “best” at doing them — since it is the sincerity of facilitators and the strength of participants’ intention that makes the workshop work.

Introductory Processes

(See the full transcript of John’s introduction for the complete spoken version.)

Key points to include in the introduction: history of the Council of All Beings (deep ecology, ecological self, Joanna Macy’s despair and empowerment work, the combination that created this new workshop; the book Thinking Like a Mountain, translated into 8 languages); your own story of coming to facilitate; the importance of ritual and community; that you don’t need to be a skilled facilitator to lead Councils; and that this workshop should be the beginning of a series of events, not a one-off.

Research conducted by Eshana has shown that Councils have very powerful effects in creating ecological self, but that these effects are not retained over time — they need to be practiced, like regular festivals. The research also showed that environmental action doesn’t automatically follow from the feelings of connection alone; participants need to make concrete decisions to act and invest time in strategising, which is why the workshop ends with the Grounding exercises below. (This is the same durability finding cited in Eshana’s doctoral thesis discussed on the Praxis page.)

Defining characteristics every facilitator should know: (1) to use the name “Council of All Beings,” a large proportion of proceeds must go directly to environmental projects; (2) the intention is to heal the separation between people and the Earth — any processes can serve this.

A ritual opening can be a smudge of sweet-smelling smoke passed around the circle, or shamanic drum/rattle/didgeridoo — or a more elaborate circle honoring the four directions, welcoming ancestors, all species, the spirit of the place, the indigenous people of that place, and those left behind. Participants then introduce themselves in a sharing circle — not their social or economic identity, but their relationship with nature — followed by a simple name game (throwing a cushion across the circle, shouting names) to warm the group up.

Continues to: The Milling

Milling

(Full text already published as its own page: The Milling.)

The Milling is a series of partnered exercises for group bonding, focusing whole attention — heart, body, mind — on the workshop’s subject: our relationship with the rest of the natural world. Participants move around a defined space, finding a new partner at each of four or five “stops,” each with a different exercise: Sharing, the Hand Dance, Look Into These Eyes, the Hand Evolutionary Journey, and the Blind Walk.

Continues to: The Cairn of Mourning

Mourning

(Full text already published as its own page: The Cairn of Mourning; see also The Truth Mandala, the dominant form this stage now takes in current practice.)

The mourning must be introduced well — it must be clear that it is worthwhile and safe to move deeply into grief or anger at what is happening to the Earth. Key points: the despair and empowerment lineage; the nature of feelings and how our culture teaches us to suppress “bad” ones; that in a safe, loving atmosphere we are free to feel and express negative feelings, and this frees energy rather than costing it. Instructions: find an object representing something being lost, bring it to the center of the circle when moved to, genuinely grieve. Watch for participants bringing premature hope into the circle, or “sharings” turning into intellectual “discussion” — both are better addressed after the mourning circle closes. In the longer format, the Evolutionary Journey or the Cosmic Walk often follows.

Continues to: Council of All Beings

Council of All Beings

Introduction to the Council and Finding Our Allies

Briefly introduce the exercise: speaking for a non-human being in a sharing circle called the Council of All Beings. Key points: being a medium for wisdom to speak through is unusual in our culture but easy to remember (similar to following a partner’s hands in the Milling); any non-human being is welcome (animal, plant, or landscape feature); humans are deliberately excluded from the Council itself, since humans have talked enough and it is time for the voiceless to be heard; and how to find an ally, plus mask-making instructions.

Don’t create unrealistic expectations — allow for amazing shamanic experiences (the human self disappearing, the ally speaking through) while also framing it as legitimate “role play,” an exercise in moral imagination. Reassure people it’s fine to move in and out of their human selves during the Council, and that there’s no “doing it right.”

Finding an ally — suggestions include a solo vision quest walk through a natural area (often the most effective); shamanic drumming/sounds inducing a light altered state; or shamanic dancing, building from stillness through breath and movement until the ally’s spirit is invited in and danced. If nothing “chooses” a participant, they can simply choose an ally themselves.

Mask-making: cardboard, crayons/textas, glue, tape, stapler, scissors, string — done in a spirit of quiet, child-like creativity, reconnecting with the ally. Masks need a large mouth-hole so the wearer can be heard.

The Council of All Beings

Instructions: speak in the first person as your ally (“I am snake and I live close to the Earth…”); refer to humans as “they” or “the two-leggeds,” never addressing them directly; let the ally express itself in whatever movement or sound feels right.

Warm-ups that deepen the Council: a long silent walk with drum to another area; silent time reconnecting with the ally; practising speaking for the ally in pairs with eyes closed; or a creative movement meditation building energy from the ground up before moving silently into Council.

A ritual gateway — sweet-smelling smoke and sound — marks the transition each way: masks left outside, the ally invited in on entry. The primary facilitator’s being welcomes everyone and speaks first. Every Council is different; there’s no set agenda beyond the expression of non-human perspectives. If energy flags, questions to raise (in character) include what humans could do to stop harming other beings, and what gifts or teachings each creature might pass on. If a human character appears in the Council, the group usually finds a creative way to handle it (in one Chile Council, “Tool” was ritually rusted back into the earth by the circle). Closing follows the same ritual gateway as the opening, with creatures keeping their masks on until they pass back through it.

Ritual burning of the masks follows — a final release of each ally’s spirit, with thanks for the specific gifts brought. Some groups instead pass masks on to children’s groups or use them in direct actions rather than burning them.

Continues to: Grounding

Grounding

The final part of the workshop — the move back into everyday reality — matters as much as the rest, though it’s easy to under-run it because it feels less “extraordinary.” This is where the new perspective gained through the allies’ eyes gets fixed into strategies for concrete action.

Personal goals and strategies: a paired exercise adapted from Joanna Macy’s Despair and Personal Power in the Nuclear Age, sometimes called “If I was completely fearless…” — one partner asks, the other answers and the first records, moving through: what would you do to care for the Earth if fearless and fully empowered; what abilities do you bring; what do you need to learn or acquire; what obstacles will you put in your own way; how might you overcome them; and what you need to do within the next 12 months to move toward the goal. Each partner then reads the other’s answers back to them, before swapping roles.

Networking: a sharing circle where people describe their current environmental work, their new task, and what they need — the beginning of concrete collaboration. A participant list with contact details helps. The facilitator’s job here is to actively link people and projects together.

Feedback: a brief circle — “what was the worst thing and the best thing about the workshop for you?” — helps participants complete the process and helps facilitators improve.

Grounding advice for participants: pay attention to legs and feet, walk in nature, exercise; journal rather than trying to share everything with friends and family at once; eat grounding food (protein, root vegetables); garden, recycle, buy organic — keep the practical connection with the Earth alive.

Ritual closing: sometimes just a group hug is enough; sometimes a longer process — a group song, or a circle that breaks at one point so a leader can walk back along the inside of the circle, meeting each person’s eyes and hugging them.

After the workshop: co-facilitators should meet for a critical evaluation session and mutual appreciation — congratulate each other, and thank the Earth who supported you.