About
Weave Stories. Deepen Connection.
The Center for Story Weaving exists to help people reconnect through shared narrative. Story Weaving is a simple yet powerful community-building practice where participants create a collective story—each adding their own perceptions, images, and memories. Unlike traditional one-way storytelling, this approach invites many voices into a single narrative, helping people see themselves in each other’s experiences. The practice has been used in classrooms, retreats, support groups, families, workplaces, celebrations, memorials, and community gatherings of all kinds. Wherever people come together to reflect, heal, or celebrate, Story Weaving creates belonging.
Originally designed as a way for strangers to quickly deepen connection, Story Weaving now supports events with defined beginnings and endings—helping groups set intention at the start and harvest insight at the close. Its magic lies not just in the protocol, but in the atmosphere it creates: openness, nonjudgment, and creative freedom. Through this shared container, participants often experience clarity, catharsis, and a renewed sense of relational awareness.
About Ben Page
Ben Page is the creator of Story Weaving, a community-building practice rooted in deep listening, expressive writing, and the wisdom found in each other’s stories. Since 2020, he has facilitated Story Weaving with educators, writers, wellness practitioners, and communities across the world — developing it into a full certification course, now practiced by facilitators globally.
Ben is also the founder of Integral Forest Bathing and the author of three books: Healing Trees: A Pocket Guide to Forest Bathing, The Wild Garden, and The World In My Pocket. A Forest Therapy Guide since 2015, he served as Director of Training for the Association of Nature and Forest Therapy from 2017–2020, where he led curriculum and pedagogical design. His retreats and workshops weave together forest bathing, Story Weaving, and circle work into experiences that help people slow down, reconnect with the natural world, and find their way back to one another.
Ben traces his lineage of circle work and nature connection through the tutelage of Jack Zimmerman. His master’s thesis, An Exploration in Living Council, examines how openhearted listening can open the door to interbeing — and how that quality of presence can serve as a foundation for anti-bias education and peacebuilding in community.
His work has been featured in Women’s Health, USA Today, Good Morning America, The Washington Post, and WebMD. Ben is also a co-founder of The Open School, Southern California’s only free democratic school, grounded in the belief that children deserve dignity and personal autonomy as fundamental human rights. He holds a B.A. in Religious Studies from Carleton College and an M.A. in Human Development and Social Change from Pacific Oaks College.
Ben traces his lineage of nature connection practices and circle work facilitation through the tutelage of Jack Zimmerman. His masters thesis, ‘An Exploration in Living Council’ unpacks the ways in which openhearted listening can act as a gateway towards the phenomenon of interbeing and can serve as a cornerstone for anti-bias education and peace-building within community.
Since his practice began, Ben has been featured in publications such as Women’s Health, USA TODAY, Good Morning America, The Washington Post, and WebMD. Ben is also a co-founder of The Open School, Southern California’s only free democratic school. His work within the field of alternative education centers on the conviction that children deserve fundamental human rights of dignity and personal autonomy. Ben holds a B.A. in religious studies from Carleton College and an M.A. in human development and social change from Pacific Oaks College.
