Council Circle practice at Leicester Unitarian Gathering

from Zang: I was invited to give an informal training evening for the "council circle" practice we do in the Zen Peacemakers, based on the Native American tradition of meeting in circles for making communal decisions and storytelling.

Eight people took part in the evening, arranged and hosted kindly by Rowan and Willow, organisers of the Leicester Unitarian gathering (one of the two Unitarian communities in Leicester). In the first half of the evening I gave an overview of the practice and the 'ground rules' for keeping it alive. I played a piece of Irish 'sean-nos' singing by Roisin Elsafty as an example of coming from the heart, and we read a short story by Erica Wagner together to enter into a storytelling spirit and listening to one another. Rowan read out a passage (I think by Thich Nhat Hanh) on the value of deep listening.

Then after a short break, Rowan and I co-facilitated a full council circle, which began with a poem by Carol Anne Duffy about bees...

Virgil’s Bees

Bless air's gift of sweetness, honey
from the bees, inspired by clover,
marigold, eucalyptus, thyme,
the hundred perfumes of the wind.
Bless the beekeeper

who chooses for her hives
a site near water, violet beds, no yew,
no echo. Let the light lilt, leak, green
or gold, pigment for queens,
and joy be inexplicable but there
in harmony of willowherb and stream,
of summer heat and breeze,
each bee's body
at its brilliant flower, lover-stunned,
strumming on fragrance, smitten.

For this,
let gardens grow, where beelines end,
sighing in roses, saffron blooms, buddleia;
where bees pray on their knees, sing, praise
in pear trees, plum trees; bees
are the batteries of orchards, gardens, guard them.

by Carol Ann Duffy