Pilbara, Mount Bruce in the distance
🌎 Time Zones of the Americas: Friday 13 May @ 4pm PDT / 7pm EDT / 8pm BRT
🌏 Time Zones of AustralAsia: Saturday 14 May @ 7am CST / 9am AEST / 10am NZST
Check your time Zone here: https://xrb.link/P9yh64z007h
Australia is home to an incredible array of unique wildlife. Over 30 million years of geographical isolation have created life forms found nowhere else on Earth. But Australia also has the worst mammal extinction rate globally and has lost countless plants, insects, birds, reptiles, marine life, and other beings. Loss of species is a significant threat to biodiversity, and biodiversity is critical to ecosystem resilience and, in the face of an accelerating climate crisis, to the viability of the whole biosphere. Scientists warn we are witnessing Earth’s sixth mass extinction event, the only one caused by a single species – humans.
Climate change, unrestrained land clearing, aquifer depletion, and toxic contamination of water and soil endanger native species across the Australian continent. Hotter temperatures, prolonged droughts, intense fires, frequent extreme weather, large-scale habitat destruction, and rising sea levels are changing the Australian landscape faster than our native flora and fauna can adapt.
But who will speak for our threatened species? How can we hear the cries for help from the high alpine mosses to the animals of the coastal forests and the central plains, from the birds and fish and crustaceans of our dying inland rivers and wetlands to the threatened life of our reefs and kelp forests?
Christie and Frieda invite you to join us to feel into the magnificent variety of life on this Australian continent, from genes to ecosystems. Let us give voice to the trees and grasses and herbivores, the feathered, furred, and scaled. Note: We invite people living in Australia and those who wish to sit with us in solidarity as we open our hearts to the cries of the Earth in this our home.
Kookaburra, Echidna and Manta Ray
Each of us – every being – is an integral part of the greater web of life. Nature is not ‘separate’ from us; we are nature. The manufactured lines of division humanity has built have caused a severance of our sense of our intrinsic place within the web of life and negatively impacted our ideas of belonging.
Yet we long for that feeling of connection – the sense of belongingness, to feel at home and held within the cycles of life. We long to awaken to our place in the world. Through practices that expand our awareness to the vibrancy of life around us, we can build those relationships with the natural world that support our wholeness.
What is the Council of All Beings?
"The Council of All Beings is a communal ritual in which participants step aside from their human identity and speak on behalf of another life-form. A simple structure for spontaneous expression, it aims to heighten awareness of our interdependence in the living body of Earth, and to strengthen our commitment to defend it. The ritual serves to help us acknowledge and give voice to the suffering of our world. It also serves, in equal measure, to help us experience the beauty and power of our interconnectedness with all life." – Joanna Macy
Kakadu Wetlands
A practice of empathy and connection, the Council of All Beings, supports the shift from an egocentric to an ecocentric perspective.
During the Council, beings come forth to speak of their concerns and the challenges they face, and to be witnessed and received by the humans. Through sharing, recognition and acknowledgement of the suffering caused by the human species, all beings begin to experience a deep empathy for each other and a broader awareness of our inner-connectedness and interdependence grows. As the beings share messages of their unique gifts, the humans begin to gain fresh perspectives on ways to act on behalf of life.
Key Potential Takeaways for Participants:
Listen and converse with the natural world.
Practice deep listening, empathy, and mirroring.
Develop a greater awareness of the web of life, and the interconnection of all beings.
Step out of your personal identities and into the truth and wisdom of another being.
Gain insights into your own longing for connection to the gifts available in nature.
Identify and release painful emotions that hinder connection with Soul.
This (3 hour) workshop will be limited to 20 participants. Reserve your spot today.
Councils are co-held as a collaboration between:
🌀 Frieda Nixdorf, Soul Aligned Purpose Mentor, Guide and Work That Reconnects Facilitator
🌀 Christie Wilson, Clinical Psychotherapist, Climate Activist and Convergent Facilitator
Wombat, Crimson Rosella, Red Crabs
In order to make this series accessible to those with less access to financial resources and those on the front lines, we are offering this series at a sliding scale of $30–$50 USD / $40–$65 AUD. Please note where you align and pay accordingly.
Please consider your needs and ours, any amount given will support Frieda and Christie’s sustainability and connect with Frieda regarding your intentions. Or simply contribute via PayPal at paypal.me/FriedaNixdorf or via Venmo at Frieda-Nixdorf.
Victoria River