POET — COACH — GROUP PROCESS FACILITATOR
I am grateful to work in places like this, called The Big House, in the Noosa Hinterland in Queensland.
It is beautiful on the inside and on the outside.
Just as it is with the people that gathered for The Circle Way.
Just as it is with cohosts Amanda Fenton, and Penny Hamilton.
Circle organizes us. It creates pattern. It reveals the beauty that already is. And inspires it’s expression in work and life.
I learn this over and over again.
I’m grateful for that.
Last year I got to teach and host The Circle Way Practicum in Northern New South Wales, Australia. I hosted with Amanda Fenton and Penny Hamilton, both wonderful and skilled people. The participants were fantastic — very committed to learning and connection. I’ve stayed in touch with a few of them in the way that you can’t not do when you’ve been in deep practice together. It’s fun for me to remember the bird sounds of the rain forest and to feel a gratitude for far travels and big journey.
During the practicum, I remember a participant asking, “What is your favorite component of The Circle Way?” The question is a reference to some key structural aspects of circle intended to provide a steering wheel to help correct what goes awry in many contemporary meetings and gatherings. 
The question was asked in a playful way — like inviting response to what was your favorite vacation ever? My response to such questions is usually a delighted smile, to be asked. And it usually has some, “well, in this moment of reflection, here is one of my favorites….”
If I were responding to this question now, from my learning of the last two months in particular, I’d have to say that my “favorite” component is the guardian, and even further, using bells or a singing bowl as a way of inviting shared responsibility (one of the three principles). In The Circle Way tradition, the role of guardian is to help keep the circle on it’s intended purpose. This is a great thing. The guardian most often sits across from the person hosting the circle. I often say as a caution that the guardian doesn’t police the circle. The guardian is full participant, but gives extra attention to the energetic quality of the circle — is it on track, are we getting tired, are we getting to speedy, is it time for restrooms.
My favorite thing with guardian lately, has been two aspects. First, naming the practice of ringing the bells twice (or another agreed device). The first ring is to pause the action and dialogue that is happening. The second ring is to resume action and dialogue, but before that resumption, to share a sentence about why the bell was rung. Perhaps it was to slow down. Or, to hear what is being spoken. Or ringing the bells just to pause.
The second favorite aspect with guardian is naming that anyone in the circle can ask the guardian to ring the bell. The guardian may be the person holding the bells or has them resting in front of them, but anyone in the circle can ask the guardian to ring them, and then follow the same protocol of pausing, resuming, and sharing what was the reason to ring them.
I have often said that the circle is not about the bells. It’s true that you can circle without bells or a similar signal. I’ve said that what matters is the spirit of being in circle. Both of those orientations remain true for me. However, it’s become much more clear to me that this experience of sharing responsibility for the well-being of the group is transformational. That simple practice moves the circle from “yours to ours” or from “someone’s to all of ours.” It’s coupled with a group agreement to pause from time to time, and to have the full group tend to that agreement of tending to the full group. It’s one of those expressions of leader in every chair.
Learning together, this will always matter. Like it did in Northern New South Wales last year. Sometimes it’s the little things that make such a big difference. Shared responsibility and leadership are tremendous values. Good words. The role of guardian and utilizing the bells to pause is practice, is todo, that brings the words of shared responsibility to vibrant life.
I’m glad to be teaching this again in two months, back to Australia with Penny and Amanda, a bit further north in the Sunshine Coast area.
Come? To ring the bells in learning and connection and cultivation of essential practices of shared leadership.
Though The Circle Way Advanced Practicum that I’m cohosting with Amanda Fenton is nine months away, I find myself thinking about it much. It’s running in the background and foreground for me, like a song that I’m enjoying and is stuck in me. I find myself humming the tune of the practicum yet to be. Humming it into some choices of form.
That leads me to some reflections on circle this morning. It remains the tool beneath tools for me. It remains the way of being that has most altered my life and authenticity of interaction.
Living as circle is a way of being. It brings us into a requisite vibration such that we can now be in relationship to the heartbeat not mine, but ours. To the thinking and feeling not mine, but ours. To the grander scale not mine, but ours. To the inspired and tangible action not isolated, but integrated.
It’s as if we arrive to circle with our backyard simple stream, only to have it transformed, even for a moment, to the mighty Mississippi. We arrive with crevice created from an overnight storm, yet gain access to the wonder of the Grand Canyon. We come with dripping faucet, yet flow with others, for a moment, to the majesty and drenching quality of Victoria Falls.
Circle is the ultimate amplifier.
Humming, yes. Perhaps some of you will join us in December to evolve the practice, each other, and even the core of our personal being.
The last four weeks I’ve been co-teaching with Amanda Fenton an online class about The Circle Way. Twenty-eight people participated from nine countries. It’s been learning filled and delightful in relationship.
Yesterday’s class, the last in the four part series, was designed around people’s questions and interests — “what do you still want to give more attention to?”
Though it wasn’t a question asked directly, I found myself reflecting on why circle works (a question that is beneath many questions). “The circle working” is the desire that most people have, everything from crossed fingers to unwavering commitment. They want and need a more collaborative and thoughtful way of connecting and working together.
I came up with this clarity that I offered to the classes:
Circle works because people are hungry for it. They may not know it, but what they are famished for is hope, awareness, and awakeness. When they can experience that and apply it to their context of work or community, it is life-changing.
What feels important to me in this is recognizing that most people aren’t that interested in being sold on a process. They are not looking for another “thing” (even though mechanized society has so often taught looking for “things”). The grand aha of it, so often, is that through the structure, the invitation, and the most simple questions to engage, people taste an increased honesty and vitality, that is sadly rare in contemporary organizational structure.
That’s the moment. When famished transposes to fulfilled. Even just for a moment.
What a delight to offer this class, and to strengthen use and practice of circle with these good people.