Veranstaltungskalender

More detailed information to the events

“The Way of Council”

Council is an ancient form and modern practice whose roots are within the natural world, spanning diverse cultures and religions. Here we listen to the whole circle – the people, the place, the spirit in all, each with its own gift, story to share, piece of the whole. This practice elicits the experience of true community. How do we embrace differences, honor the young and old, and find our own voices, while opening to others and remembering all our relations? It seems more than ever an essential time, in our nation and around the world, to learn together how to listen deeply and live with open hearts and minds.

Council offers a way of communicating that encourages attentive listening, honest and compassionate expression. It makes room for new insights and understandings, wisdom in decision making, and healing. We see council, as a personal practice, a group process, and a life pathway, as essential for any individual whose work or service involves a group, staff, community, etc.

REQUIRED READING; The Way of Council by Virginia(Gigi) Coyle and Jack Zimmerman available thru Lost Borders Press, see website schooloflostborders.com.

For more information see websites: The School of Lost Borders, The Ojai Foundation, Center for Council Training, Upaya Zen Center

E-mail: gigicoyle@earthlink.net

Virginia "Gigi" Coyle
Council trainer, wilderness rites of passage guide and trainer, she is a co-author of The Box and The Way of Council. Gigi helped create and oversee the Ojai Foundation, an educational retreat sanctuary for youth and adults. She has worked extensively in the areas of citizen diplomacy, community development, permaculture and interspecies communication projects, such as directing the first release of dolphins back to the wild

 

The book: The Way of Council

By Jack Zimmerman with Virginia Coyle, Bramble Books: Las Vegas, 1996 308 pages

Step by step exploration of the dynamics of the ancient council process. Ways of maximizing interpersonal communication in groups, from the corporation board room to the high school classroom to the elders' council in wilderness rites. Gentle, sensitive, insightful, and practical. The reader is drawn into the dramas of real life group interaction. A must for those who participate in or facilitate groups. "The council process is the most effective tool I know to capture the true strength of a diverse work force.” (Chuck Winship, manager strategic programs, Xerox Corporation) “I am grateful for the care and depth with which Jack and Gigi speak about the important tradition of council in writing this book. We need to listen like the Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara, the compassionate being who hears not only what is said but also what has been left unsaid.” (Joan Halifax)

Flesh and Spirit

The Mystery of Intimate Relationship
An Experience in Council for Couples

Know the true nature of your beloved.
In his loving eyes
your every thought, word, and movement
is always, always, beautiful.
[Hafiz]

 

Eros informs almost every aspect of our lives in one way or another. It is expressed in the way we walk, talk, how we touch, and how we look into each other's eyes. It is the energy that is stirred within us while watching a beautiful sunset or the waves rolling in to shore, seeing a wild cat stretch or an eagle soaring high above. It is embodied in rhythm, movement and dance, and in making love. We come into this life as highly erotic, sensual beings at one with our bodies and filled with a life force that we embrace. However, our culture is suspicious of erotic feeling and power, so we often reject our primal erotic nature and push it deep into the shadows.

In our Flesh and Spirit Retreats we offer a nurturing environment for couples to explore relationship and what lies at the heart of their erotic nature. Practices are offered that help couples explore the growing edge in their partnerships.

No teacher is more powerful than intimate erotic relationship to awaken us from the slumber of self preoccupation. As love matures, an intimate connection can take on a life of its own beyond the conscious desires and personalities of the partners. The deepening mystery of intimacy invokes a new level of awareness more expansive than either partner can achieve alone. This 'Third Presence' evokes spirit in a way we only stumble onto now and then in the midst of ordinary conversation. It is experienced in many ways - as mentor, shaman, comforter, and a gateway to more ecstatic communion.

[There is no explicit nudity in the workshops.]

AFFILIATIONS / HISTORY

Jesse and Amber are affiliated with The Ojai Foundation in California. The Ojai Foundation, founded in 1979, is an educational organization. It is an experiential learning community with the goal of providing Council based programs and services to individuals, families, schools, non-profit organizations and corporations. TOF offers a progressive series of Council trainings, outreach and educational internships in the United States, Europe, Israel and South Africa.

They are members of the School of Lost Borders, an international collective promoting the growth of wilderness passage rites education and comprehensive training of Wilderness Guides.

They are also part of the Flesh & Spirit faculty offering relationship retreats. These trainings were initiated by Jack Zimmerman & Jaquelyn McCandless, authors of the book, Flesh and Spirit, the Mystery of Intimate Relationship. Workshops are offered in Hawaii, California, South Africa, and wherever an invitation is offered.

BIOGRAPHIES:

DAVID 'JESSE' JESSUP
Jesse was born in the United States and moved to South Africa with Amber in 2005. He has a degree in Psychology from San Diego State University, over 25 years of experience in community dynamics and management, and extensive training and experience in the facilitation of wilderness journeys and relationship retreats. His fascination with life and adventurous nature has led him around the world and deep into his heart. He has facilitated hundreds and participated in thousands of Councils on this journey, finding that the Way of Council threads through all that he does. Since meeting Amber in 1993 he has been committed to relationship as a spiritual path. Jesse has one daughter, Inanna.

AMBER McINTYRE
Amber is a 'well travelled' South African who has spent 10 years living in the United States with husband Jesse. While being part of the Leadership team and faculty at The Ojai Foundation in California she became a certified Council Trainer and has co-facilitated many Councils and trainings in a variety of environments. She has over 14 years experience in program design, administration and facilitation, and a strong commitment to offer nurturing environments for individuals to explore dynamic partnership and relationship with all of life. In partnership with Jesse she has guided many wilderness journeys and relationship retreats. She brings with her a rich and varied background in the business, hospitality, nutrition, complementary healing, hospice, and Feng Shui fields. She has a daughter, Michele and granddaughter, Charlotte.

Amber and Jesse thrive in dynamic partnership and are passionate about providing forums for growing awareness in a joyful, fun-filled way!

I hold Amber and Jesse in the highest regard. The presence, integrity and dedication that they bring to their teachings and journeys have life transforming effects for everyone involved.
[Denise Linn, International Healer, Lecturer, and Author]

 

More detailed information:

At it's very core is about Council for couples - listening and speaking from the heart - holding the space for another's heart and learning to become more aware of the spiritual aspect of the partnership that guides each one. It is the voice that asks us "What does this relationship need? How does it serve our world?" So the main tool is Dyadic Council which each couple gets to experience witnessed by a small group of couples.

Dyadic Council provides sacred space for sharing deep issues and feelings. The couples can then incorporate this practice into whatever they already do at home.

The idea is about creating a 'transcending relationship' - one in which each partner grows beyond their conditioning and patterns and is encouraged to be all that they can be. It's like 'loving each other free'. The weekend includes energy practices which help open the heart to each other as well as to become more aware of the subtle energy fields which we are made of.

We find that these practices enhance the erotic energy that may otherwise be blocked or ignored in the relationship through disagreements or boredom. They offer additional ways of playing with one's partner, of connecting with one's beloved, of honoring the Divine Man and the Divine Woman in each of us, opening us to a growing awareness that by coming into unity with another we are truly coming home to our true selves.

The weekend is about renewal - beginning again for those who want to go deeper. For those who are having problems, it is about learning a tool to communicate what is troubling them, while tapping into the synergy of the relationship and what the relationship wants, even at the risk of a separation. It would then be a 'conscious separation'.

Being witnessed ups the ante for the degree of authenticity, providing a forum not only for the couple, but for all relationships to be heard and healed. The main similarity between Dyadic Councils and other forms of Council is that the primary skill encouraged is one of devout listening. The main difference is that a response is often called for as well.

Being totally available in the support of another person's truth, to the point of being able to, without judgement, reflect that truth back to them when needed, and to also access one's own heart and, without reaction, to share that with another, are the two most transformative gifts we can give. Add to this an intention to go beyond what is known, to live the Mystery of Intimate Relationship, and we have a recipe that can transform the world.

The weekend includes Group councils, Gender councils, Dyadic council, meditation, dream-sharing, and energy practices.

Vision Quest: What for?

Life is filled with transitions, growth is characterized by change. Humans must pass from one life stage to another.

Starting from our birth, we are weaned from infancy and brought into the world of childhood. We pass from childhood into adolescence and into adulthood. If we marry, we leave the world of single adulthood behind. If we divorce, we return to the single state. We make our way through the adult passages, facing predictable crises at middle age and "retirement". With aging comes preparation for dying, and finally, the ultimate passage of death.

Moving to another town, changing or losing our job, becoming seriously ill, mourning the death of a loved one, all these things cause transition, bringing us into situations in which old structures no longer apply and a new structure, a new sense, hasn't yet appeared.

This is the nature of a growth-crisis. In all cultures and eras, such transitions were celebrated by rites of passage and ceremonies of initiation. Without these ceremonies, individuals could not have understood or interpreted their life experiences, nor could they have been capable of assuming the social responsibilities and privileges required by their changes in station.

Traditional life passage ceremonies are no longer part of mainstream culture in the western world. In the information-focused society of today, the wall between humans and their natural environment is growing, the basic social unit of the family is breaking down and individuals are expected to be efficient and fit. We often stumble painfully through our life passages like victims, a burden to others and ourselves.

This is why people often feel ashamed, suppressing the symptoms of their crises, and with them their deeper meaning and the opportunity to heal. This is where long-term crisis comes from.

The coping strategies we are usually taught are about consumption. Particularly when we are in a phase of transition, we often feel we need something, some medicine, a new book, a car, chocolate, or drugs.

Vision Quest, offers the chance to become empty instead. You must become empty and say goodbye to the old, in order to become open to the new, to what you don't yet know about yourself. Vision Quest is a way to ask Life, what it wants to do with you, instead of carrying on thinking, about what you want to do with it.