Council of All Beings (Seed, Macy)

1. Introduction

Version followed: the Council of All Beings as the Work That Reconnects (WTR) Network publishes it from Chapter 8 of Joanna Macy and Molly Brown, Coming Back to Life (2nd ed., 2014), supplemented by John Seed's own accounts (Seed 2006; johnseed.net) and the Extinction Rebellion UK Rebel Toolkit adaptation. The 1988 book Thinking Like a Mountain: Toward a Council of All Beings (Macy with Seed, Fleming and Naess) is the originating text; its workshop chapters are not reproduced here and details attributed only to it are marked [uncertain: not verified].

The Council of All Beings is not a psychotherapy. It is a group ritual from deep ecology, developed by John Seed and Joanna Macy from about 1985, first run as a weekend workshop with around forty people in rural New South Wales outside Sydney, growing out of the "despair and empowerment" workshops the Interhelp network had run since 1979 [source: johnseed.net; Seed 2006]. Participants let a non-human life-form "choose" them, make a simple mask, and then, in character, speak in council for that being: about what is befalling it, while a few people sit unmasked as "humans" and listen, and finally offering gifts to the humans [source: WTR Council page]. Seed frames it as one of three experiential processes (despair and empowerment, deep time or evolutionary remembering, and the Council itself) meant to widen identity beyond the human towards what Arne Naess called the ecological self [source: Seed 2006].

Core idea of change, as its authors hold it: pain for the world arises from interconnection and should be felt rather than suppressed or treated as personal pathology; feeling it and identifying with other beings shifts a person from a separate self to a wider "ecological self", which in turn releases clarity and the will to act [source: WTR Core Assumptions; Seed 2006]. These are the authors' philosophical and spiritual premises (attributed, not empirical findings).

Evidence status in one line: an evaluation of Council workshops (Bragg 1996, Journal of Environmental Psychology) is reported by Seed as finding that ecological identity scores rose after a workshop but faded within six months except among people who kept practising; no controlled clinical trials of the Council as a mental-health intervention are known [source: Seed 2006; Bragg 1996 abstract] [uncertain: primary results not verified].

What the psychotherapist does with it: (a) deliver or co-facilitate it only where trained in WTR practice; (b) prepare and debrief a client who attends a Council run by WTR facilitators; (c) adapt single elements (speaking as another being, the gifts round) inside therapy, with attribution [synthesis]; (d) work with the meaning of eco-grief and ecological identity in the client's life [synthesis].

2. Framework

The Council is a one-off or short-series group process, not a course of sessions. Formats published: from one hour to a full weekend [source: WTR Council page]; an online series of six consecutive Sunday mornings run in 2022 with Seed among seven facilitators [source: johnseed.net]; online Councils with cameras and names changed to the being [source: WTR Council page]. WTR workshops more broadly run from two-hour introductions to one- and two-day workshops and intensives of up to 10 days [source: WTR overview]. No session counts for therapy use are published.

Wider sequence (WTR Spiral, within which the Council usually sits) [source: WTR overview; WTR Weaving Wisdom series page]:

1. Coming from Gratitude: grounding and appreciation.
2. Honouring Our Pain for the World: grief, fear, anger and emptiness about the world expressed and witnessed (e.g. Truth Mandala).
3. Seeing with New (Ancient) Eyes: widened identity, deep time, the Council.
4. Going Forth: concrete next steps. The stages flow into one another and the Spiral is meant to be repeated.

Seed's three processes [source: Seed 2006]: despair and empowerment (circling together to mourn lost species and landscapes); deep time, evolutionary remembering and the Cosmic Walk (recalling the planet's long history); the Council of All Beings (speaking from other creatures' perspectives). Whether the 1988 book follows the same structure is [uncertain: not verified].

Council sequence [source: WTR Council page; Rebel Toolkit]:

Variants: no masks (stick-on labels with a drawn symbol, practice skipped); a one-hour version in foursomes, eyes closed, each speaking in turn on three parts (life as this being, harms it faces, strengths it offers) and then sharing what emerged [source: WTR Council page].

3. Guiding principles

• The Earth as alive and the self as wider than the individual (WTR core assumptions 1–2, attributed): hold these as the practice's premises; invite, do not require, clients to share them.
• Pain for the world is a sign of connection, not pathology (assumption 3): do not reflexively diagnose eco-grief; assess separately whether there is a clinical disorder [synthesis on assessment].
• Feeling, not only knowing (assumption 4): leave room for emotion before moving to ideas or plans.
• Reconnection leads to action (assumptions 5–6): close with gifts and next steps, not only grief.
• Collective liberation (assumption 7, added by the WTR Anti-Oppression Resource Group, October 2024): attend to oppression and power in the room and in whose losses are named.
• Voluntariness: participation in any part is never required and no one is pressured to enter [source: Truth Mandala page]; apply the same to masks, movement and the human-listening seat [synthesis].
• Confidentiality: agreed at the start [source: Rebel Toolkit]; in the Truth Mandala words are not referred to afterwards, even by the speaker [source: Truth Mandala page].
• Witness, do not rescue: the refrain "We hear you" and avoidance of excessive comforting, which can signal someone to shut down [source: WTR Council page; Truth Mandala page].
• Appearances mislead: quiet or awkward participants may be deeply affected [source: WTR Council page]; check in with everyone at debrief.
• Each Council is unique: follow the group's flow rather than a script [source: WTR Council page].
• Respect for traditions not your own: for invocations or ritual elements from another tradition, seek guidance from its practitioners [source: WTR Council page]; never use closed Indigenous ceremony [synthesis].
• Attribution: the work is "open source" but must be credited to its sources [source: WTR overview; WTR Council page].
• Facilitator competence: study the materials, take part with several facilitators and keep up ongoing practice before leading [source: WTR overview]. No formal certifying body for Council facilitators is known [uncertain: not verified].
• Participating facilitator: take part honestly while monitoring the whole group [source: Truth Mandala page, applied to the Council] [synthesis].
• Integration time: intense work needs rest, journalling and a gentle activity before people part [source: Truth Mandala page].
• Role clarity: a therapist who also facilitates must manage dual roles; the APA Ethics Code Standard 3.05 (Multiple Relationships) applies to running a Council with one's own therapy clients [source: APA Ethics Code] [synthesis on application].

[source for section: WTR Council page; WTR Core Assumptions; WTR overview; Truth Mandala page; Rebel Toolkit; Seed 2006; johnseed.net]

4. Intervention inventory

The published Council and its companion WTR practices supply the group steps below (items 3–17); therapist-side procedures for preparation, adaptation and integration are added and marked [synthesis] (items 1–2 and 18–21).

4.1 Assessing fit and preparing a client to attend [synthesis]

• Purpose: decide whether a client should attend a Council, and with what support.
• Steps: (1) Ask what draws them and what they expect. (2) Explain the process in outline: being chosen by a being, masks, speaking in character, grief, the human-listening seat, gifts, releasing the being. (3) Screen for acute crisis, recent bereavement, active suicidal thinking, psychosis or dissociation risk with role-taking and masks, trauma linked to animals, places or environmental disaster, and mask or face-covering distress. (4) For outdoor elements, discuss weather, terrain, allergies, ticks, hydration and accessibility qualitatively and point to the organisers' own safety arrangements. (5) Check who the facilitators are (WTR facilitator directory, experience, what support they offer during and after). (6) Agree a debrief session.
• Example language (illustrative): "It's a group ritual, not therapy. People often feel a lot. You can sit out any part. What would you need to feel safe enough to try it?"
• Watch for: idealisation ("this will fix my anxiety"); a client attending to placate a partner or group; strong fear of losing themselves in role. Working: the client can name what they will do if overwhelmed.

4.2 Informed consent and contracting when the therapist facilitates [synthesis]

• Purpose: clarify roles, confidentiality and limits when a therapist runs or co-runs a Council.
• Steps: (1) State that this is a WTR group practice, credited to its sources, not a clinical treatment. (2) Explain limits of group confidentiality. (3) For therapy clients in the group, discuss dual roles (APA Standard 3.05) and how material will be handled in later sessions. (4) Outdoors: agree who may see the group, weather plans, travel, and a no-touch default with consent asked before any touch (embracing, back-to-back sitting). (5) Confirm insurance covers group and outdoor work.
• Example language (illustrative): "Here I'm a co-facilitator, not your therapist. If something comes up, we can take it into our session next week, only if you want to."
• Watch for: clients deferring to you as an authority in role; others in the group learning someone is your client. Working: roles are explicit and no one feels obliged to attend.

4.3 Welcome, agreements and landing round

• Purpose: build a container before intense work [source: Rebel Toolkit].
• Steps: (1) Welcome all parts of each participant. (2) Agree confidentiality, consent and compassion. (3) Brief round: name plus one gratitude or one concern. (4) Outline the practice; mention the season or a local story [source: Rebel Toolkit].
• Example language (illustrative): "Say your name, and one thing you're grateful for or one thing you're carrying about the world today."
• Watch for: people overriding the consent agreement out of enthusiasm. Working: people speak briefly and the tone settles.

4.4 Gratitude opening (Spiral stage 1)

• Purpose: ground the group so that pain can be faced [source: WTR overview].
• Steps: invite brief appreciation of the place, the living world or what sustains each person; keep it short and sincere.
• Example language (illustrative): "Before we go anywhere hard, let's notice what we love and what holds us."
• Watch for: forced positivity in grieving participants; allow "gratitude is hard today". Working: breathing slows, people look up.

4.5 Optional invocation

• Purpose: open the ritual space [source: WTR Council page].
• Steps: the guide may call on the Beings of the Three Times (past, present, future generations) and the Four Directions, or use chanting; for any practice from a tradition not your own (the WTR page names smudging), seek guidance from its practitioners first [source: WTR Council page]. Omit with secular or uneasy groups [synthesis].
• Example language (illustrative): "If you are comfortable with it, we will open with a short moment of acknowledging those who came before, those alive now and those still to come. You can simply sit quietly."
• Watch for: religious discomfort, or borrowing ceremony without permission. Working: the group understands it as an opening, not a creed.

4.6 Mourning: Truth Mandala (honouring pain, Spiral stage 2)

• Purpose: whole-group ritual for owning and honouring pain for the world, often done before the Council [source: Truth Mandala page; Seed 2006 on mourning as the first process].
• Steps (outline) [source: Truth Mandala page]: the group sits in a close circle with four quadrants, each holding a symbolic object for fear, sorrow, anger and emptiness, and a centre for whatever fits nowhere else; the deeper side of each feeling is named as the authors frame it. After an opening, people enter one at a time, only if they choose, to hold an object and speak, and witnesses acknowledge each speaker; the guidelines include brevity, no cross-talk and confidentiality. A closing honours what was spoken. Published guidance: about 90 minutes plus set-up, groups of roughly 12–100 (comfortable at 20–40), mid-day with a break after; in psychiatric settings substitute softer objects; people should already have acknowledged their pain (e.g. with Open Sentences) beforehand. Run it from the Network's published instructions, not this outline.
• Example language (illustrative): "No one has to come in. If you do, a few words are enough. We'll answer each of you with 'I hear you.'"
• Watch for: rescuing gestures, monologues, anger escalating into waving the stick, someone shaking or dissociating; after, fatigue. Working: brief, direct speech, people staying in their seats through others' pain.

4.7 Mourning: the Bestiary

• Purpose: collective grief for vanished and vanishing species, from Macy's 1981 poem "Bestiary", itself from a shared grief exercise [source: WTR Bestiary journal page].
• Steps: the published 2023 version was a video montage of people reading a shortened version of the poem in many languages, followed by a guided response and a group "mandala of grief" [source: WTR Bestiary journal page]. Live-reading formats (names read aloud, responses) are [uncertain: not verified]. In therapy, read or listen to it with the client, then explore what it stirred [synthesis].
• Example language (illustrative): "Let's just let the names land, and notice which ones stay with you."
• Watch for: numbing, or grief that connects to a personal loss; follow that thread. Working: tears or quiet rather than intellectualising.

4.8 Remembering: deep time and evolutionary remembering

• Purpose: widen identity through the planet's long history; Seed names deep time, evolutionary remembering and the Cosmic Walk as the second process [source: Seed 2006].
• Steps (as one published guided version runs it): lying or sitting, noticing the spine as inherited from fish-like ancestors; noticing the saltiness of tears and blood as an echo of the sea; reflecting on how human expansion has pushed other species back; sensing ancestors behind and future generations ahead; asking what one's life might offer [source: One Earth Sangha Evolutionary Remembering]. The version in the 1988 book is not reproduced here [uncertain: not verified].
• Example language (illustrative): "Feel your spine, very old, shared with creatures who swam long before us."
• Watch for: body-focused guidance unsettling people with trauma; offer eyes open, seated, permission to stop. Working: softening, curiosity, a sense of belonging.

4.9 Being chosen by a life-form

• Purpose: let each person take up a non-human perspective [source: WTR Council page; Rebel Toolkit].
• Steps: (1) Time alone, indoors or walking or sitting in nature (longer outdoors). (2) Relax and go with the first impulse: an animal, plant, landform or other being. (3) Visualise it from all angles. (4) Ask its permission to enter its body and how it wishes to be represented. (5) Return at the agreed signal [source: WTR Council page]. Outdoors, agree boundaries, a return signal and pairs or check-ins for anyone at risk [synthesis].
• Example language (illustrative): "Don't choose. Let something come to you, a creature, a plant, a river, whatever arrives first. Then ask it if you may speak for it."
• Watch for: someone "chosen" by a being linked to trauma (e.g. a dog after a bite); offer the option to let another being come [synthesis]. Working: people return with a clear image.

4.10 Mask-making

• Purpose: give the being a form and help the speaker step out of a human identity [source: WTR Council page].
• Steps (outline): each person makes a simple mask for their being, in silence, as the WTR page describes [source: WTR Council page]. Offer a hand-held mask or label for anyone uneasy with face covering [synthesis].
• Example language (illustrative): "No skill needed. Let your being guide your hands, and leave space to see and speak."
• Watch for: perfectionism, comparison, gathering protected or toxic plants outdoors [synthesis]. Working: absorption and quiet.

4.11 Embodiment and speaking practice (optional)

• Purpose: settle into the being before the council [source: WTR Council page; Rebel Toolkit].
• Steps: (1) Eyes closed, move as the life-form; the Rebel Toolkit prompts attention to space, skin, senses, movement and sound. (2) In threes or fours, each speaks as the being for 3–5 minutes about its physical nature and way of life, leaving its present plight for the council [source: WTR Council page]. Offer eyes-open movement and seated options [synthesis].
• Example language (illustrative): "How does your being move? What does it sense? Let a sound come if it wants to."
• Watch for: self-consciousness, falls with eyes closed, people with mobility limits excluded. Working: speech shifts to first person as the being.

4.12 Gathering in Council and introductions

• Purpose: open the council in character [source: WTR Council page; Rebel Toolkit].
• Steps: (1) Summon the beings by drum or animal call; they enter masked. (2) The guide, speaking as their own being, opens the council and asks what is befalling the Earth and their lives. (3) Each being briefly introduces itself before any longer statement [source: WTR Council page].
• Example language (illustrative): "I am Heron. I speak for the shallow waters."
• Watch for: giggling or freezing; a gentle, serious frame from the guide usually holds it [synthesis]. Working: voices drop into role.

4.13 Testimonies

• Purpose: let each being voice what is happening to it.
• Steps: (1) Beings speak at random, not in turn. (2) After each, the council answers "We hear you". (3) Around a dozen testimonies before the next stage [source: WTR Council page].
• Example language (illustrative, a being's testimony): "My rivers are thick with silt. My young cannot find the gravel they need."
• Watch for: lectures or statistics instead of felt speech; a personal story breaking through (allow it, follow up after). Working: emotion in voices, silence between speakers.

4.14 Humans listen

• Purpose: let humans hear the testimonies as the species causing harm [source: WTR Council page].
• Steps: (1) The guide observes that one species is causing much of this suffering. (2) Five or six people put down their masks and sit back to back in the centre, listening silently. (3) Others rotate in so all take a turn [source: WTR Council page; Rebel Toolkit].
• Example language (illustrative, guide): "Humans, come to the centre. You don't need to answer. Just listen."
• Watch for: shame and self-attack, especially in people with depression or trauma; ask consent before back-to-back contact and offer side-by-side seating [synthesis]. Working: listeners report hearing rather than defending.

4.15 Gifts

• Purpose: turn from grief to resource; each being offers the humans a strength its life-form embodies [source: WTR Council page].
• Steps: (1) The guide asks what gifts the beings can offer. (2) Each offers one; humans may simply say "Thank you" [source: WTR Council page].
• Example language (illustrative, a being): "I am Oak. I give you patience and deep roots."
• Watch for: gifts that sound like scolding; humans brushing gifts aside. Working: people remember and repeat their gift at debrief.

4.16 Closing, releasing the being and de-masking

• Purpose: end the ritual and return people to their human identity [source: WTR Council page; Rebel Toolkit].
• Steps: (1) End with silence, embracing and sounding together, or drumming and dancing (embrace only with consent [synthesis]). (2) Each thanks the life-form and releases it. (3) Hands and foreheads on the ground to return the energy to the earth. (4) Masks burned respectfully, composted or kept. (5) Seed and Macy sometimes suggest keeping something of the being's identity and putting on one's own face to re-enter the world [source: WTR Council page]. Add a brief out-of-role check: name, today's date, one plan for the evening [synthesis].
• Example language (illustrative): "Thank your being. Tell it you are letting it go. Now feel the ground and come back as yourself."
• Watch for: anyone still in role, spacey or distressed; do not let them leave alone [synthesis]. Working: people use their own names and look around.

4.17 Published variations: no masks, one hour, online

• Purpose: fit the Council to limited time, setting or online groups [source: WTR Council page].
• Steps: no masks: stick-on labels with a drawn figure or symbol, skip practice. One hour: foursomes, eyes closed, each speaks for about ten minutes covering life as this being, the harms it faces, and its strengths for humans, then share what emerged. Large group: one published version split forty people into three delegations, each taking one part. Clay figures with a brief guided meditation have also been used. Online: participants arrive muted with cameras off, rename themselves as the being, then turn cameras on [source: WTR Council page].
• Example language (illustrative): "When you're ready, change your screen name to your being and turn your camera on."
• Watch for: online, people dropping out with no follow-up; get phone contacts first [synthesis]. Working: role-taking still happens in the shorter form.

4.18 Individual-therapy adaptation: speaking as another being [synthesis]

• Purpose: bring the Council's perspective-taking into one-to-one work with a client troubled by ecological loss; credit it to Seed and Macy.
• Steps: (1) Invite the client to let a being come to mind. (2) Optionally sketch or hold an object. (3) The client speaks as the being about its life, then its harms, then a gift for the client, mirroring the one-hour structure. (4) Therapist witnesses, reflects briefly, and does not interpret during role. (5) Release the being, then talk as yourselves. The client is the author; never assign a being.
• Example language (illustrative): "If that forest could speak to you, what would it say? And what might it offer you?"
• Watch for: role-play deepening dissociation; clients with psychotic symptoms; using the being to voice self-blame. Working: the client finds both grief and a resource.

4.19 Debriefing after a Council [synthesis]

• Purpose: integrate the experience and catch delayed distress (the published guidance stresses rest and integration after intense work [source: Truth Mandala page]).
• Steps: (1) Ask what happened, which being came, what it said, what gift. (2) Ask what was hardest, including the humans' seat. (3) Check sleep, mood and any intrusive images. (4) Link to the client's own story: losses, places, animals. (5) Note any change in ecological identity, knowing that it may fade without ongoing practice [source: Seed 2006].
• Example language (illustrative): "Which being chose you, and what do you make of that now?"
• Watch for: elation then crash; guilt from the humans' seat. Working: the client can hold grief and agency together.

4.20 Going Forth and sustaining practice

• Purpose: carry change beyond the workshop. Seed proposes an ongoing community meeting at solstices, equinoxes or full moons, or online, because effects fade otherwise [source: Seed 2006]; the WTR Spiral ends in Going Forth: a target, a plan, action steps [source: WTR overview].
• Steps: (1) Help the client choose one small, specific step. (2) Explore local WTR or nature-connection groups (WTR facilitator directory). (3) Review in later sessions. Climate-grief groups (e.g. Climate Psychology Alliance, Good Grief Network) can be explored as their organisers describe them [uncertain: not verified].
• Example language (illustrative): "What is one thing, this month, that would honour the gift you were given?"
• Watch for: grandiose plans and burnout; activism driven by guilt. Working: steady, sustainable action.

4.21 Working with eco-grief and meaning in therapy [synthesis]

• Purpose: hold the client's grief for the world as meaningful while assessing clinical need.
• Steps: (1) Validate it as WTR frames it, as arising from connection (attributed). (2) Assess separately for depression, anxiety disorder, prolonged grief or suicidal thinking with standard practice. (3) Where it centres on a loss of faith or a spiritual crisis, consider the "Religious or Spiritual Problem" (Z65.8 [source: ICD-10-CM Z65.8]; DSM-5-TR wording [uncertain]) and the Cultural Formulation Interview's spirituality, religion and moral traditions module. (4) Explore what the client's being and gift mean in their life.
• Example language (illustrative): "This sorrow sounds like love for the world. Let's also check how it's affecting your sleep and your hope."
• Watch for: hopelessness that becomes suicidal; the therapist's own eco-anxiety. Working: the client feels less alone and more able to act.

5. Handling problems

The published sources give little guidance on difficulties beyond voluntariness, confidentiality, not over-comforting, attention to quiet participants and integration time [source: WTR Council page; Truth Mandala page]. Responses below are [synthesis] unless tagged.

• No being comes. Reassure that a simple image is enough; offer something from the immediate surroundings, or a label instead of a mask; allow the person to witness instead [synthesis; label option: source WTR Council page].
• Embarrassment, giggling, "this is silly". Name it lightly, keep the frame serious, let people stay as listeners; remember that quiet or awkward participants may still be deeply affected [source: WTR Council page].
• Overwhelm or flooding in testimonies or the humans' seat. A co-facilitator quietly offers to step out with the person; grounding (feet on the floor, naming surroundings); return only if they wish. Avoid hugging or soothing in the circle, which may shut the person down [source: Truth Mandala page on over-comforting]; support happens beside the circle, not instead of it.
• Dissociation or difficulty leaving role. Remove the mask, use the person's name, orient to time and place, give water, keep them in company until clear; follow up the next day. Screen out or prepare people with a history of psychosis or severe dissociation beforehand (4.1).
• Guilt, shame and self-attack as "a human". In debrief, separate responsibility from self-condemnation; recall the gifts round and the Going Forth stage [source: WTR overview].
• Despair or suicidal thinking. Assess risk with standard practice; agree a safety plan; give crisis contacts: 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline (US) and Samaritans 116 123 (UK and Ireland).
• Grief that is really personal. A being or loss may connect to a bereavement, abuse or a place of trauma. Do not process it in the circle; offer individual follow-up.
• Animal or place trauma. Someone chosen by a feared or traumatising being can let another being come; outdoors, plan routes away from triggers.
• Cultural appropriation concerns. Seed describes the Council as "cultural reclamation" and compares it with a Hopi ceremony he witnessed [source: Seed 2006]; others may see borrowed elements differently. Use no closed Indigenous ceremony, seek guidance from a tradition's practitioners for any borrowed element [source: WTR Council page], and invite Indigenous participants to say what feels respectful rather than asking them to teach.
• Religious or secular objections. Drop invocations, smudging and "energy" language; present the being-speaking as imagination and perspective-taking; let people hold the premises (a living Earth, the ecological self) as metaphor or belief.
• Accessibility. Seated or lying alternatives to movement, tables for objects (published for elderly participants in the Truth Mandala [source: Truth Mandala page]), large-print or verbal prompts, step-free outdoor sites, interpreters; speaking in one's first language is allowed in the Truth Mandala [source: Truth Mandala page].
• Outdoor problems. Weather, terrain, allergies, ticks and hydration handled qualitatively with a weather plan and an indoor fallback; people may be seen by the public, so agree in advance what is said and done in view; follow the host organisation's safety guidance. No water-based elements without the organisers' own water-safety arrangements (cold-water shock, hypothermia and drowning risk; see X 196 and national lifesaving bodies).
• Online problems. Camera fatigue, people vanishing mid-council; collect phone contacts, have a co-host to message anyone who leaves, and a short live check-out.
• Effects fading. Reported by Seed from Bragg's evaluation [source: Seed 2006]; build in ongoing practice or group membership (4.20).
• Therapist as facilitator with own clients. Multiple-relationship risks under APA Standard 3.05: clients may perform for you or feel exposed; prefer referral to independent WTR facilitators, or make roles explicit and give an opt-out with no effect on therapy.
• Therapist's own eco-grief. Seek supervision and your own WTR or peer practice, so that your feelings do not lead the client's.
• Competence and insurance. No certifying body for Council facilitators is known [uncertain: not verified]; WTR recommends study, participation with several facilitators and ongoing practice [source: WTR overview]. Check that professional indemnity covers group ritual and outdoor work.

Sources

Web pages:

• Council of All Beings (Practices), Work That Reconnects Network
• The Work That Reconnects: overview and Spiral, Work That Reconnects Network
• Core Assumptions of the Work That Reconnects
• Truth Mandala (Practices), Work That Reconnects Network
• Thinking Like a Mountain: Toward a Council of All Beings (resource page), Work That Reconnects Network
• Creating the Bestiary for the Gaian Gathering, Work That Reconnects Journal
• Weaving Wisdom in Dark Times: 5-Week Series Full Spiral, Work That Reconnects Network
• Council of All Beings, Rebel Toolkit (Extinction Rebellion UK)
• Deep Ecology letter, John Seed, JohnSeed.Net
• Seed, J. (2006). The Ecological Self. The Trumpeter, 22(2), 96–102
• Towards Ecological Self: Deep Ecology meets Constructionist Self-Theory (abstract record), Mandala Sources, University of Virginia
• Evolutionary Remembering, One Earth Sangha
• ICD-10-CM Z65.8, Other specified problems related to psychosocial circumstances (includes 'Religious or spiritual problem')
• APA Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct

Books and papers cited:

• Macy, J., Seed, J., Fleming, P., & Naess, A. (1988). Thinking Like a Mountain: Toward a Council of All Beings (publisher listed via New Society Publishers link) [uncertain: publisher not verified].
• Macy, J., & Brown, M. Y. (2014). Coming Back to Life (2nd ed.), Chapters 4, 7 and 8 (as cited by the WTR Network pages).
• Bragg, E. (1996). Towards ecological self: deep ecology meets constructionist self-theory. Journal of Environmental Psychology, pp. 93–108 [uncertain: volume and DOI not verified].