Council of All Beings

What would happen if, for an evening, we stepped outside the human story?

Explore emotions about the environment and our relationship with the more-than-human world in an intimate group. We will gather around a fire and enter into a Council of Wisconsin’s Beings—a space to honor the animals, plants, waters, landscapes, and other living beings with whom we share this place.

Through guided reflection, embodied practice, ritual, and storytelling, participants will be invited to choose a being they feel connected to, affected by, or concerned for. We will spend time listening to what arises when we imagine the world from this being’s perspective.

Together, we will make space for the joys that come from our interconnectedness with the natural world: love, gratitude, wonder, beauty, belonging, and the relationships that remind us why these places and beings matter. We will also make space for the grief that comes with witnessing a changing world: species and habitats in decline, altered seasons, polluted air and water, disappearing landscapes, and the many losses, large and small, that accompany ecological disruption.

Participants will have an opportunity to shed, briefly, the role of “human” and enter into a different way of knowing. We will listen to one another as members of a larger community of life and consider what our more-than-human kin might ask of us, teach us, or remind us of. Together, we will share both the joy of what it means to be alive in relationship with a living world and the grief of what is being lost.

The Council of All Beings is a ritual practice developed by Joanna Macy and John Seed. This workshop draws from that tradition while adapting the practice to the beings, landscapes, and ecological realities of Wisconsin.

This workshop is intentionally designed for:

• Anyone carrying love, grief, fear, wonder, or concern for the natural world.
• People experiencing ecological grief or anxiety about environmental change.
• Anyone who feels a longing for deeper connection with the more-than-human world.
• Creatives, ritual-seekers, nature lovers, and those interested in embodied or contemplative practices.
• Anyone curious about exploring ecological grief through imagination, storytelling, community, and ritual.

Participants will leave with:

• A renewed sense of kinship with the living world and a deeper awareness of the relationships that connect us to Wisconsin’s plants, animals, waters, and landscapes.
• An embodied and imaginative practice for listening to the more-than-human world and considering our relationships from beyond a solely human perspective.
• The feeling of having one's joy, grief, love, and relationship with the living world witnessed and held within a thoughtful community.
• A greater capacity to make space for emotions about our environment without needing to fix, minimize, or move past it.
• A ritual experience rooted in the traditions of the Council of All Beings and adapted to the beings, landscapes, and ecological realities of Wisconsin.