Length: 2 days
Times: Saturday 9am-5pm, Sunday 9am-4pm 
Cost: $ 235 + GST
Course Code: PAFS2071
Please Register By: Saturday, March 6, 2010

We cannot change the world by a new plan, project, or idea. We cannot even change other people by our convictions, stories, advice and proposals, but we can offer a space where people are encouraged to disarm themselves, lay aside their occupations and preoccupations and listen with attention and care to the voices speaking in their own centre.  - Henri Nouwen

The ancient council practice of sitting in a circle, speaking and listening from the heart can enrich any relationship - at home, in school, in the workplace, in community. Council is widely used in public and private schools, business organizations and communities around the world. This is a lively weekend for educators, therapists, business people, couples and others to enable you to integrate council into your personal and professional lives. Together we will explore open, heartfelt expression and attentive listening gateways to deeper communication, intercultural understanding and the non-violent exploration of conflict. Council inspires a non-hierarchical form of deep communication that reveals a group’s vision and purpose. By matching an intention of open hearted acceptance with full and authentic speaking, we move toward the possibility of true community and a wholeness of spirit.

NOTE: This program will be held at O.U.R. Ecovillage, 1565 Baldy Mountain Road, Shawnigan Lake The Way of Council trainings are also available in California through the Ojai Foundation. See www.theojaifoundation.org

Facilitators: Lori Austein is an educator, lawyer and mediator, as well as a trainer and facilitator of the Council process. After spending five years working with the Council program at Palms Middle School in Los Angeles, the last two as co-coordinator, Lori is very experienced in the uses of council in education. She has led student rites of passage retreats at the Ojai Foundation and has cofacilitated both Council and Council for Educators trainings. Lori is a member of the Leadership Circle of the Ojai Foundation’s Center for Council Training. She is currently introducing Council to Vancouver Island, her new home. Devoted to increasing the use of Council, she eagerly strives to live in The Way of Council.

Hilary Leighton’s early deep and vivid resonance of living processes and universal patterns in wild nature rooted in her a belief that all teaching is an act of love and remembering – this infuses her writing, teaching and learning She is a natural educator, a perennial learner, a tireless advocate for well-being and a wild poet at heart! Hilary holds a MEd, Curriculum and Instruction from SFU, has studied Ecopsychology (EP) at Naropa University, and is completing a three year program in Integrated Body Psychotherapy Practitioner Training, and not least of all embarking on a doctoral program in EP. She is a certified Laughter Yoga Leader, a certified Myers-Briggs facilitator, and although she spends most of her days imagining and designing ways to bring pedagogical spaces of possibility as the Director of Continuing Studies at Royal Roads University, Hilary derives the most satisfaction from the generosity of teaching and encouraging others out on the land.