WOMEN’S COUNCIL

A ceremonial gathering for women ready to question, listen, imagine, contribute and be brave.

What if the world were run by heart-centred humans?

For some time now, I have felt a growing call to be of service — not only to the women who walk through the doors of Peace Heal Love Wellbeing Centre, but to our wider communities and, in whatever small way I can, to the world around us.

I keep coming back to one question:

What can we do?

Women’s Council has been born from that question.

This is not another Women’s Circle.

While Circle offers us a place to soften, connect, be witnessed and rest in the safety of sisterhood, Council asks us to step a little further.

From safe space into brave space.

Women’s Council is a ceremonial gathering, opened and held with intention within Peace Heal Love Wellbeing Centre. It is a strong and conscious container, with clear agreements that allow us to have honest, respectful and sometimes challenging conversations.

Because if we want to imagine a different world, we have to be willing to ask different questions.

We will bring questions to the Council.

Big questions.
Difficult questions.
Questions that may challenge what we believe, how we live and what we have been taught to accept.

We will explore the things that matter — our communities, our families, our children, our relationship with the Earth, the systems we live within and the kind of world we are creating for those who come after us.

But this isn't a space simply to talk about what is wrong.

It is a space to ask:

What could we do differently?

What would a world shaped by compassion look like?

How would we care for one another?

What might change if we placed connection before competition?

How would our communities look if they were built around belonging?

What wisdom do women hold that the world needs right now?

And perhaps most importantly:

What can I offer?

What do we want from Women’s Council?

When we asked what we wanted Women’s Council to become, the answers felt powerful, honest and deeply aligned.

We want tribe.

We want connection.

We want a place where we can be seen and challenged, where we can grow as a community, raise each other up and remember that there is only so much we can do alone.

We want to stand arm in arm.

We want a place where women can speak freely and where it is finally time to be heard.

To hear women’s voices and perspectives without needing permission.

No shushing.

No making ourselves smaller.

No constantly questioning whether we are allowed to have an opinion.

We want to begin letting go of the self-criticism that so often stops us before we have even spoken.

We want to express our opinions and listen to other perspectives.

To receive guidance.

To be challenged.

To challenge one another with love.

To have real conversations — including the ones that take us into uncomfortable places.

We want space for anger.

Space for the parts of women that have so often been labelled too much: too loud, too emotional, too bossy.

Perhaps sometimes what has been called bossiness is leadership.

Perhaps anger can be information.

Perhaps the very parts of ourselves we have been encouraged to suppress are some of the parts we now need to reclaim.

We want to come back to self — beneath expectation, conditioning and the identities placed upon us — and remember ourselves as the natural beings we are.

We want to explore identity too: femininity, masculinity, the roles we have inherited and the ideas we have absorbed about who we are supposed to be.

We want visionaries.

Women who are prepared to imagine something different.

Women who can dream, question and then begin turning those dreams into goals and plans.

Because Council cannot only be about talking.

We want to make a difference.

We want change.

As Council grows, we will begin asking not only what matters to us?, but:

What are we going to do about it?

What can we change within ourselves?

What can we change in our communities?

Where can our voices, our skills, our energy and our collective power actually make a difference?

Sometimes that may mean action.

Sometimes service.

Sometimes speaking up.

Sometimes simply refusing to stay silent.

We also want Council to become an anchor in an ever-changing world.

A place we can return to when life feels noisy, disconnected or uncertain.

Somewhere we can gather, listen, speak, question, learn and remember that we belong to something beyond ourselves.

There is something deeply sacred in that.

Women have gathered together for generations — to listen, witness, decide, grieve, celebrate, guide and create.

Perhaps Council is also an opportunity to reclaim a little of that ancient knowing in a way that belongs to us now.

This isn't about having all the answers.

It isn't about convincing others to think as we do, finding someone to blame or reaching one single conclusion.

It is about listening.

It is about questioning.

It is about sharing our lived experiences and perspectives.

It is about being willing to sit with difference.

And it is about allowing ideas to emerge from the collective wisdom of the women gathered.

So I invite you to come with whatever is calling you.

Do you have a question you need to ask?

Or do you have an answer you want to offer?

Perhaps you have an idea for how we could do things differently.

Perhaps something in the world has been sitting heavily on your heart.

Perhaps you don't know the answer, but you know there must be another way.

Bring it.

Bring your questions.
Bring your wisdom.
Bring your lived experience.
Bring your ideas.
Bring your anger.
Bring your hope.
Bring your vision.

And most importantly, bring your heart.

Because imagine, just for a moment, what might happen if the world were run by heart-centred humans.

Perhaps we don't have to wait for the world to change.

Perhaps we begin by gathering.

How it will work

The Questions & The Sacred Waters

At the beginning of Council, we will name the questions we are bringing into the space.

Rather than simply speaking our questions, we will place them into the sacred waters.

Each woman will be invited to take a leaf and, with intention, place it into the water as she offers her question to the Council.

The waters become a vessel for our collective questions — holding what we are wondering, what we are seeking, what we are concerned about and what we are dreaming into being.

We may find that one question holds the whole evening.

We may find ourselves moving through many questions.

There is no predetermined number that must be answered.

We will be guided by the community.

Together, we will feel into which question is calling to be explored, which one needs more time and when it is time to move on.

The Council itself will guide us.

Our intention is not to force answers, but to listen deeply, explore possibilities and offer what wisdom, experience and ideas we each carry.

Perhaps the answer does not always come from the woman sitting beside us.

Perhaps it emerges through the collective.

Perhaps something is said that opens a door within us.

Perhaps the question stays with us long after we leave.

And sometimes, perhaps, a conversation will become more than a conversation.

An idea may become a plan.

A plan may become action.

A concern may become service.

A shared longing may become something we choose to build together.

Because Council is not only a place to ask what could change.

It is a place to ask whether we are willing to become part of that change.

Closing the Council

At the close of our gathering, we will take the sacred waters and gift them back to the Earth and then we will move and dance together.

We offer our questions to our beloved Mother Earth and to the great mystery of the Cosmos, trusting that the answers may come in ways and in timing beyond what we can see or understand in this moment.

The question is released.

We listen.

We remain open.

And we trust that what needs to be revealed will find its way to us.

We don't yet know exactly what Women’s Council will become.

And perhaps that is part of its magic.

This is not something already formed and being handed to women.

We are creating it together.

A tribe.
A voice.
A place for truth.
A place for challenge.
A place for real conversation.
A place to speak freely.
A place to be heard.
A place for anger, strength and leadership.
A place for visionaries.
A place to turn ideas into goals and plans.
A place to come back to ourselves.
A place to raise each other up.
A place to stand arm in arm.
A place from which we can create change.

And perhaps beneath all of it sits the deepest invitation of Council:

Be the longing we seek in the world.

This is a WOMEN’S ONLY space. If you identify as a woman and are over 18 years old, you are welcome. x

Our Council Agreements

This Council is held within a strong container of respect, compassion and personal responsibility.

These agreements are the foundations we begin with, but they are not fixed in stone. The Women’s Council is a living space, and as we gather, learn and grow together, our agreements may evolve too.

You are warmly invited to bring forward suggestions, thoughts or additions to these agreements within Council. We will listen to what the community needs and allow the wisdom of the women gathered to help shape and strengthen the container we create together.

The Crystal

As in our Women’s Circles, we will use the crystal to hold the space for each woman’s voice.

When you are holding the crystal, you have the space to speak without interruption. We listen deeply and allow you to finish your thoughts, feelings, questions or ideas without comment or response.

When you have finished speaking, you place the crystal back down.

Only then does the space open for the next woman to speak.

The crystal is a reminder that every voice matters and that we do not need to compete for space to be heard.

Respect is our foundation

We may have very different opinions, beliefs and experiences. We are here to ask questions, explore ideas and sometimes challenge one another’s thinking — but always with respect.

Disagreement is welcome. Disrespect is not.

No violence, aggression or abuse

There is no place in this Council for violence, threats, intimidation, bullying, aggressive behaviour, abusive language or personal attacks.

You are welcome to bring anger, frustration and difficult emotions into the space. These emotions are human and have a place here. What is not acceptable is using them to harm, threaten or abuse another person.

We remain responsible for how we express ourselves.

Speak from the heart

We speak from our own experience and take responsibility for our words.

We listen to understand rather than simply waiting for our turn to respond.

We allow ourselves to be challenged without making the other person wrong for having a different perspective.

The brave space

This is both a safe space and a brave space.

Brave space means we may hear things that challenge us. We may disagree. We may ask uncomfortable questions. We may discover that our own thinking needs to shift.

We do not have to agree with one another.

We do have to respect one another.

Holding the boundary

The integrity of this Council matters.

If someone is unable to act within these agreements and cannot return to a place of respect and heart-centred communication, they will be asked to leave the Council.

This is not about punishment or judgement. It is about protecting the space and the women within it.

By entering Council, we agree to honour these boundaries and to help create a space where women can speak honestly, listen deeply, question boldly and imagine a different world together.

And as we continue to meet, we will keep asking ourselves:

What does this Council need from us now?

The answer may change.

And we are willing to change with it.