Council is practiced around the world in a wide variety of communities, organizations and other settings.

The circle is a way in which community is made and remade and through which investments of initiatory knowledge are shared for strengthening social agreements and engagements.  Each person is considered the beginning and ends of the circle and holds the task of asking for the highest truth for the wellbeing of the community.  The Sacred Center is home, the place of belonging for Spirit.  Indaba.
~ Orland Bishop, Legacy Holder and Teacher of African Gnosis

Council in Business

Council can be described as the art of relationship.  And business, of course, in essence, is made up of many overlapping, interacting working relationships, including customers.  In this sense, Council and business are natural ‘bed fellows.’  Since Council emerged at the Ojai Foundation in the 1980’s, it’s been carried into corporations big and small, profit and non-profit, local and multi-national—from a Cadillac dealership to Xerox. Read more…

Council in Community

People today use the word community to mean so many different things from intentional communities, to an everyday “ordinary” town or village, to a community making up an organization, a place, or a race, to the community of all our relations. Given these wide definitions, it is best to say council as a practice has been shared and expressed in each and every kind of community since the 80’s and long before then in a mixture of ancient circle ways. Read more…

Council in Family and Intimate Relationship Settings

Over the years one of the most compelling and productive settings for council practice in the TOF tradition has been in the context of family and intimate relationship. In the early years of implementing council in schools, it was often the children, strongly taken with the practice and usually of middle and high school age, who brought council home and initiated family practice. Most families circled weekly with leadership rotating among the older children and parents. This natural evolution was supported by a number of “family trainings” on the Land, mostly in the 1990’s and early years of the new Millennium. Read more…

Council in Nature

More and more council carriers are integrating nature awareness into their pathways; more and more nature-based learning, relational education opportunities and wilderness programs, trainings, and therapies, incorporate council in their daily activities. The oldest ways of circle in earth-cherishing traditions rest in the council of all beings wherein the human voice is but one of many. Read more…

Council in Prison and  Restorative Justice

Council is embraced as an opportunity to engage in restorative work by listening deeply, bearing witness and speaking heartfully.  Council in prisons offers an opportunity to begin that restoration – and is also a rehearsal for the  work that is desperately needed in impacted communities.  Work with marginalized communities has been a focus of some of the earliest trainers of the council practice. Read more…

Council in Schools

Council – the practice of listening and speaking from the heart – has many applications in schools. As a relational practice, council is a powerful social and emotional learning strategy that promotes an environment of trust, respect, and understanding in the classroom and school. Council invites students to share stories from their lived experience that establish connections and appreciation of differences among students and between students, teachers, and other adults at the school. Read more..