Dear John,

In June Alan and Elze facilitated a one-day Council of all Beings for a group of parents and teachers of the primary school of Alan¹s kids. This day was meant as a preparation for a Council for the pupils of this school, in September.
We thought you might like to read our experiences, so here¹s a (brief) report.

Council of all Beings for parents and teachers
Alan took the initiative to organize a Council of all Beings at the school of his children. The idea is that the Council will be part of the school camps in September. He asked Elze to team up with him. Because (as we thought) experience speaks louder than words we wanted to give parents and teachers the opportunity to take part in a Council before helping at the school camps.
So one sunny Saturday in June we set off on our bikes with a group of about twenty parents and teachers. Alan had found a beautiful spot near a country house in the woods, which we were allowed to use.

One thing we learned from this day: it does not work to do a Council with people who do not choose to attend. Yes, John, you warned us, but what did we know of the difference between choosing and really choosing? We found that some participants didn¹t have any idea of what to expect (mistake in communication between school and participants) and were shocked when we started off by appealing to their connectedness with nature.

Another thing we learned was that although we introduced the day as an adult program and not as The Thing we were planning to do with the pupils, many participants couldn't cope with that. They kept saying that this or that exercise was not appropriate for children, how it wouldn't work etc. As the day went on we changed the program, talked and talked again with the group, but the right energy was not there. A pity.

The program we prepared consisted of telling Ecostories (in small groups), Ecomilling, the reading of the Bestiary, The Timeline of Light, Gaia Meditation, Mask Making in silence and The Council of all Beings.In the end we skipped the 'deeper' parts because the participants didn't feel comfortable with them and were literally afraid of getting involved. As was tot be expected the Council didn't work very well. Some people would lie back in the grass and some even refused to represent a being. Every time a being would speak of his concerns others would jump in to smoothen away these thoughts or emotions. As you can imagine we had a rather hard time keeping the process going.

After the Council Elze and I talked and let the participants give feedback. Surprisingly many said they'd like to do 'something' with the pupils, but had doubts about 'confronting' kids with things like environmental problems. As if kids live their lives in a vacuum. On the whole, we were shocked to find and realize most people have so much fear in them and are so afraid of their own emotions. Talking it over later we came to appreciate even more the long journey we have made, enabling us
to be with our fears and emotions (thank you Gail !).

As Elze so simply put it: it's the 'zap-generation' when they don't like the picture (i.c. the emotion), people switch ('zap') to another. Don't hurt me, don't touch me, please !!!
Surprisingly, the school decided to go on with the project. The one very enthusiastic teacher at school (very spiritual guy) is now in charge of setting up a program for the school camps. At this moment we have a rough outline, comprising three stages. One is a period of a few weeks at school, during which the kids do all sorts of small projects on nature (f.i. finding out what's edible, drawing a tree's viewpoint), water, energy, a survey of their environment. Then next, the program at the camp and as a third a follow-up at school, again with some projects, but mostly information, ready for use if anyone whishes to take some action.

Also, an exhibition of work and the masks is foreseen. At camp we have an afternoon and evening plus one whole day. We already have many ideas that we'll have to choose from. One major thing we came up with: in 'Indian' fashion we will let the kids choose a name from nature ('Big Oak, Grey Fox,...) and from there find themselves an ally in nature. This name is 'borrowed' from nature, so we will end the camp/council by letting them all return their names to nature (campfire). Other things we will most certainly do is the TimeLine of Light, eco-stories (with acting and/or art), enacting food-chains and life-cycles. To finish this good news for the time being: the school got a rather substantial grant
from the local government to set this up!

We've got plans to take the Council further, perhaps as an open workshop or in combination with other workshops.

Love,

Alan Lentz and Elze Boshart


Elze Boshart
Woord & Daad
Okkernootstraat 48
2555 ZH Den Haag
The Netherlands
T +31 70 325 16 15
M 06 511 85 745
 elze@woord-en-daad.nl
 http://www.woord-en-daad.nl