The pages, along with black and white photographs, of each issue speak to the headlines without falling into the partisan shouting match trap. I could see holding a weekly or monthly video chat to talk about what we read here. Would you be interested?

The Power Of Story

People want to celebrate the things that symbolize generosity and goodness in their lives. To share that with others and have others understand that this means something to you — that’s an extraordinary act of communion.

For millennia humans have gathered in circles, warmed ourselves around a fire, and told our stories. Often there has been ritual involved, something that separates this practice from our frenetic daily lives and sets aside a time for speaking and listening from the heart.

As executive director of Center for Council in Los Angeles (centerforcouncil.org), Jared Seide has helped keep this tradition alive in crowded cities, inside classrooms and assisted-living facilities, and even within the thick walls of prisons. The method he uses is called Council: People sit in a circle. They set an intention to speak spontaneously and authentically, and to listen generously and without judgment. They use prompts to get the stories flowing. They pass around an object designated as the “talking piece” to indicate whose turn it is to address the group. Sometimes people bring in objects that are meaningful to them and talk about those.

It may sound simple, but Seide says it can be transformative in its ability to cultivate compassion and reduce defensiveness and aggression. He explains that when he teaches Council to a new group, it isn’t so much an act of learning for them as it is an act of remembering. This is what humans have always done; we have it in our DNA. Council might have been recognizable to Benjamin Franklin as what he witnessed at Iroquois “talking circles.” It resembles what people in Sierra Leone would call Fambul Tok (“family talk”) and what Quakers call Friends meetings. It incorporates aspects of Buddhist meditation gatherings and the Nonviolent Communication techniques developed in the civil-rights era. It is nothing new. Yet it is largely absent from modern life.

Seide was fascinated by storytelling from an early age. He became a child actor and studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London before earning his BA with a concentration in theater arts from Brown University in Rhode Island. After graduation he went to Hollywood and worked as an actor and screenwriter. He says he found “the commoditization of the story” to be a lucrative career, but ultimately an unsatisfying one.

He was introduced to Council when his daughter’s elementary school adopted the practice to address racial tensions. After seeing how Council helped his daughter find her voice and transformed the school into an “empathetic, cohesive community,” he became a student of the process. Seide studied Council intensely at the Ojai Foundation, a Southern California educational and retreat center established by medical anthropologist and Zen priest Joan Halifax, where indigenous teachers and contemplative wisdom traditions were celebrated over many years. Seide built up the foundation’s Council initiative, and in 2014 he became director of the spin-off organization Center for Council, which aims to bring the practice to a wider audience that doesn’t have access to private retreat centers. He is also a member of the Zen Center of Los Angeles, a graduate of the Buddhist chaplaincy program at the Upaya Institute in New Mexico, and has served as a “Spirit Holder” for the Zen Peacemakers.

What compelled me to sit down and talk with Seide was his work with people in difficult settings — specifically Hutus and Tutsis seeking restorative healing two decades after the genocide in Rwanda, and inmates and correctional officers in California’s prisons. One prisoner at Salinas Valley State Prison says that his Council training “allows me to reconnect with my innocence and vulnerability.”

I have used Council in my own work as an educator, sitting in heart-opening circles with squirrelly middle and high schoolers and white-knuckling it through circles with fellow educators who were not ready. I have even brought Council into my relationship with my husband and sons, who appreciate the space that opens up when we get out the talking pieces and listen deeply for a while. In Council no one is the authority, and each person in the circle is the expert of his or her own story. I have found it a powerful tool for building empathy and making sense of our lives.

This interview began years ago but got interrupted by the birth of my second child. We picked up the thread again more recently, and I learned how Seide has brought Council to law-enforcement and health-care professionals, to help them be more present in their high-pressure jobs. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic he is finding ways for people to maintain meaningful connections in a time of social distancing.

THE SUN INTERVIEW: Jared Seide On How Listening To Each Other Can Restore Our Humanity