How Council Found Me – and Why I’m Glad it Did

Casting my mind back to 2008, I recall I was outwardly successful but inwardly restless and hungry for something I couldn’t find in my career or in mainstream society: authenticity.

A friend returned from a mysterious overseas experience he referred to as “the Rites”, glowing with life, energy, and a kind of grounded knowing. I decided that I wanted some. So, when these ‘Rites’* finally came to the UK I signed up.

I found myself sitting on a folding wooden chair in a huge tent, looking around at 68 other men, making one vast circle. An Elder stood, holding a large piece of wood shaped like a giant carob pod. He said, “When the talking piece comes to you, say your name, and what it was that brought you here, to this moment”. The carob pod moved round the circle, we listened to each other’s nervous but surprisingly honest answers. The carob reached me, and I spoke my truth into the circle, hearing my own voice sound strange in this large, potent, attentive space. ‘Council’ had found me.

Over the next 5 days I sat in circle several times each day, sometimes in the great circle with 68 brothers, sometimes in my ‘home group’ of just 8 men. We learned to speak from the heart, and to listen from the heart. The talking piece was passed, hearts opened, and we travelled together into deeper and deeper truth.

I had longed for authenticity and here it was in spades, in me and in my companions. There were rituals, there was solo time in wild nature, there was healing, and challenge, and growth. I emerged an initiated man.

On the last day of the Rites there was a mention of ‘local groups’ – and I instantly knew that I wanted this magical, mysterious stuff to stay part of my life, so I asked an elder: “where is my nearest local group, I want to join”. The answer came back “Oh there isn’t one in Scotland yet – but you could start one”.

After a couple of months of “But I don’t feel ready!” I surrendered to the inevitable and found a venue, picked out a spot in a circle of trees with a firepit, and sent out an email saying something like “This probably sounds crazy but I’m a man who believes men need spaces to be heard, to be real, without judgement so I’m starting a group. We’ll meet outdoors round a fire, using a practice called Council: we speak one at a time, we speak from the heart, about our own stuff, and we listen from the heart, no judging, no fixing. If that appeals to you, please show up at 7pm next Saturday at this place.”

5 guys turned up. We sat in the circle round the fire, complete strangers. I picked up the talking piece (a large round stone from a river) and spoke raw, risky stuff about what was going on for me in my life. I passed the stone to the next man and stared hard into the fire, holding my breath. After what felt like an age (but was probably 10 or 20 seconds) the guy spoke. He went just as deep, took the same risk of vulnerability in front of strangers, trusting the container, the process… trusting the fire and the darkness. And so it went on until the last man, in closing his sharing, said something like: “This is the only place I can say these things.”. I knew we had begun something important, something needed.

All these years later, that men’s circle still meets every month, around the firepit, in the circle of trees. I moved to another part of the country 7 years ago, so other men stepped up to facilitate and serve the group – and once I’d settled in, I started another circle where I live now.

Since that first encounter with Council, in the big tent, I have read books about Council, I have taken many trainings in Council, and I have facilitated circles in prisons, with charities and non-profits, with a jury, with men’s groups, with mixed groups, with women’s groups (yes, I’ve been designated a ‘temporary sister’ for one evening only).

I’ve held Council as part of a year-long gender reconciliation program, I’ve held it at home, at a kid’s camp… and always Council is teaching me, always asking me to deepen, and to trust, always asking me to hold my breath and wait for the beauty, the magic, the transformation to happen. Courage – discomfort – breakthrough, that seems to be the pattern.

Over the years I have walked the path as an apprentice to Council, and to those who have gone before, mentors and elders, eventually becoming a Recognised Facilitator and then a Recognised Trainer in the Way of Council~.

In time I gave up the day job, committing fully to Council-based work and living. Now I train others to facilitate, to hold that first circle with strangers and hold their breath – lots of prison chaplains, some psychotherapists, conflict mediators, non-profit leaders, women’s group leaders, teachers, life coaches, men’s group leaders.

I keep on facilitating Councils too, because that’s where I learn the most, and where I can go on figuring out how to be human, how to be this human, and how to deal with the ebb and flow of my own life.

During the pandemic and the lockdowns I discovered that, with some effort, care, and technical know-how, it was possible to hold meaningful Council circles even on Zoom - ?and 2 days ago I facilitated my 542nd online Council, with people from 3 different countries, and 2 continents.

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We live in divided and divisive times. We swim in a sea of spin and falsehoods. ‘Othering’ is the default position, the knee-jerk reaction of our culture. Council is a powerful antidote.

If you’d like to know more please get in touch, I’m always happy to have a chat.

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Dave Bingham, Recognised Trainer and Facilitator in the Way of Council

[email protected]?? --? www.truecircles.com/

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*The Men’s Rites of Passage – see Men's Rites (malejourney.org.uk)

~Way of Council hub - Ways of Council - the power of listening