Come back with me into a story we all share, a story whose rhythm beats in us still. The story belongs to each of us and to all of us, like the beat of [a] drum, like the heartbeat of our living universe. — Joanna Macy, in Thinking Like a Mountain

This workshop completes the ritual begun in Workshop 6, an adaptation of the ritual A Council of All Beings, presented by Joanna Macy, John Seed, Pat Fleming, and Arne Naess in the 1988 book Thinking Like a Mountain: Toward a Council for All Beings.

Note: Only do this Opening and Activity 1 if Workshops 6 was done at a previous meeting. If you are providing Workshops 6 and 7 as a single, longer workshop, add the time allotted for this Opening and Activity 1, Reconnecting, to Activity 3, Council Among the Trees.

Goals

This workshop will:

• Foster a deep connection between participants and trees by completing a ritual
• Reinforce the concept of interdependence as expressed in the seventh Unitarian Universalist Principle, "Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part"
• Affirm that stewardship of the earth is an explicit act of faith.

Learning Objectives

Participants will:

• Experience a spiritual connection with each other and the web of life
• Empower one another to take action to protect trees and the web of life
• Build on their understanding of and respect for trees through multiple modes of learning, including movement, meditation, and ritual
• Experience multigenerational learning.