Wow, where did the year go? As I look out of my study window onto the mountainside, the copse of Aspen trees that cluster above a deep ravine cut by the fast-flowing stream are starting their slow burn: green into yellow, into gold, and eventually amber and then black, the last to fall.

As we turn with the season towards the West and into a more reflective time, I notice that my plans to hold 5 trainings and 2 workshops this year were a little over done: the 5^th training had to cancelled due to a lack of participants. An over-reach on my part,  ‘getting ahead of the medicine’ again (some lessons I learn slowly!).

What has been delivered this year though was delivered well, and landed well, so there’s satisfaction and contentment there…

“Things are pretty tough, aren’t they, in the human-made world of culture and our societies? Genocide, climate catastrophes, wars, the loss of other species and so many wild places. What a mess we’ve made. We seem to have allowed our worst, most damaged people to rule over us and to dictate what happens. And yet, it wasn’t always so – for hundreds of thousands of years we lived on Earth with the same wisdom and grace as the other beings. We gave and received in equal measure, we brought unique gifts and were blessed by the unique gifts of other, older, brother and sister species.

That gives me hope. Hope that we may one day, return to sanity, and with humility, once again take our place in the web of life, as it regrows and heals itself. Until then I intend to go on carrying this ancient-and-ever-new practice of Council to those who are waiting to remember it, always seeking more potent, more abundant ways of sharing the gift and enabling others to begin new circles in new places.”

“What if joy and pain are fundamentally tangled up with one another? Or even more to the point, what if joy is… also what emerges from how we care for each other through those things? What if joy, instead of a refuge or relief from heartbreak, is what effloresces from us as we help each other carry our heartbreaks?”

Going Deeper training with the men from The Male Journey.

It’s been a busy time!

Well, that’s another Introduction to the Way of Council course safely delivered!

Spring 2025 Newsletter