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The beings who attended: Soil, Giant Panda, Golden Eagle, Bee, Slow worm, Mice, Blue Whale, Spirit of the Forest, Fox, Oak, Faerie, Moose, Bald Eagle.

Moose didn't speak in the Council but did express its feelings non-verbally and often seemed distressed. Panda was particularly aware of Moose crying a lot during his first speech.

Everything below is verbatim, though inevitably some of what was said was missed. Explanatory comments and our impressions of what has been missed are in square brackets. Several people have provided background information on the experience - see the linked names above.

Soil:
Strength that gives you life. You know not your soil. You know not the earth.

Panda:
You take away our lives. You put us on display. We need our privacy. We need lots of space to live our lives. We can't just mate with who you put us with. How would you like that? We want our homes back. Our homes and food. Not to be seen as entertainment. We're not here for you.

There are so few of us.

Golden Eagle:
How many do you have to destroy to understand that without us you are nothing? How many do you have to destroy? We are all sacred.

Soil:
Poison us. You bury your waste. No more. We will feed you no more.

Golden Eagle:
You stupid people. You hunted us 'til extinction then hold us up as trophies.

Panda:
How can you do what you have done to us and say you love us?

Soil:
Begone from us human!

Bee:
I care not. I will fly from the iron gates.

Panda:
You could learn so much from us if you see us and not yourselves reflected through us.

Slow worm:
People think I'm a snake, but I'm a lizard without legs.

Do not fear us. Enjoy us. Celebrate your and our diversity. Love with us. Be with us.

Panda:
We are just asking for what we need.

Soil:
We are your richness. You give us waste in return. We are your depth. We are you.

Bee:
I offer you a cacophony of sound, scent, flower.

Panda:
I don't doubt some of you want to listen.

Golden Eagle:
Why do you send steel birds of destruction in the sky?

Panda:
It's when you take too much even when you don't need it. Just because you have the means to do it. Worst of all is when you think we are part of what you need - you need us but not the way you act upon that.

Bee:
I shall fly beyond the iron gate - Human beings are not humble - Making it possible to fly beyond the iron gate - They must be humble about flowers, grain, all - I will fly beyond the iron gate. I must not go there.

[Bees' main concern here is GM crops.]

Mice:
Rubbish - Rubbish - Rubbish everywhere. Too much to eat. Too much, too much - Waste. Stupid cars, houses, we poo in your food.

Rubbish is your doom less you master it will master you.

Panda:
What is this word 'scavenge'? We scavenge because you have taken our habitats away. Human term. Some of us can't scavenge. We die. No food. We can't exist in such small confines.

[Panda added that "some of us have specialist diets", though at that point he wasn't just speaking for his own species.]

Bald Eagle:
Poison water.

Bee:
Poison seeds.

Mice:
Where are water? Only empty gutters.

Spirit of the Forest:
Hear me. There is nothing that is separate from here. Ocean - your blood in ocean. We are not separate. We are in everything. We are in your care. There is no greater beauty than yourself for it is the ground the consciousness that is here now.

Bald Eagle:
Forgive me mouse for eating you. Blessings.

Mice:
We don't care - blessings - it is our place. We are millions. You are few and gone.

Panda:
Only ones who've done this can undo.

'Beg'.

Bee:
You shall not beg.

Panda:
We love life.

[This was said very sadly in the context of their near-extinction.]

Blue Whale:
I've come a long way to be here. Deep ocean, ancient. More ancient than you will ever know. Bodies large. Egos small. We are not fighters. We never argue. We roam the oceans and have done for millions of years during ice ages and hot dry spells. We are still here. Our populations now dropping. I am lucky to still be here to speak for those who are not.

My advice is to listen to everything around you except each other. Listen to wind, rain, birds, other creatures. Stop listening to each other. Start listening to everything else.

Spirit of the Forest:
Speak true. Stop listening to your nonsense and reach into ours. Be whole again with us or you will perish and only the scorched earth will be left.

Oak:
Bored of doom and gloom with you. You know the shit you do. Plant. Every one of you plant - Sneak into gardens and plant.

Soil:
Gardens! gardens...!

[This was spoken with deep contempt, with the implication that gardens are like putting soil in cages.]

Oak:
Plant along the roadsides. Let trees and plants grow up in your concrete cities. How simple! You have arms. You have destructive things to dig into the earth. Plant everywhere.

[Oak commented to Soil that gardens were okay as at least they were a connection to nature].

Soil:
Feed the worms. Feed the earth. Give the nourishment back to us. Not your poison. Feed oak, feed...

Fox:
None of you get out enough - not enough of you spend time in the wild - lost your touch with the wild - it's not wild your madness is for electric. Whatever you do to us we will survive. Wildness is not dancing. Take your friends and energies - I don't care. I charge you to call to the wild. The more you connect the more you will save.

Panda:
I don't know what you can do to those who are not native to this land. Planting a tree is good, but can you got to China to plant bamboo? The problem is human, but you need to find a human answer to this, however ironic this sounds.

Soil:
I don't understand humans. You need to connect again.

Panda, leaving:
Thank-you for listening. It's good to know someone cares.

Whale:
I have to go back to the ocean now. Suffocating. Experiencing too much in land, drying up.

Soil:
As you poison the earth, you poison yourselves. I'm spent.

Faerie:
We could offer a solution. We need more gates from our land to yours so we can bring enchantment. See beauty and enchantment and all would work hard to keep it and everyone would be happy. Open more gates and let us through.

Golden Eagle:
Time was when you knew we spoke to you - So we did! - And all of the years of death and destruction and losing more of the beings of this world. It didn't seem you cared. But if you listened and knew you were honoured when we spoke, then we would speak again. You destroy all in your path but would have relationship with you but always we would be ready to forgive even though you have grieved us mightily.

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