4 THE CIRCLEWORK TRAINING MANUAL

CONTENTS

Welcome 6

Introduction 7

Who is Circlework For? 13

The Seven Pillars of Circlework 14

Guide to Icons 16

PART I: FOUNDATIONS 17

Twelve Intentions 19

32 Guidelines for Circlework Leaders and Participants 20

Clarifying the Intention 22

Defining the Structure 27

Ground Rules 31

Money Matters 33

Commitment 36

The Space 37

Music 40

Helpful Tools 41

Safety 44

Sacred Geometry 51

Tribal and Planetary Circles: Understanding the Differences 67

Embodiment 68

Working with Time 72

Circle Leaders Are Educators 74

Finding the Right Language 76

Listening 78

Self-Expression versus Containment 82

Improvising 87

Ritual 92

Beginnings and Endings 97

It’s Okay to Stumble 103

PART II: PRACTICES 107

Embodiment Practices

The Heart Greeting 109

Rattling the Bones 111

Freeform Dancing 115

Circle Dancing 118

Line and Spiral Dances 126

Practicing Double Awareness 127

Movement Meditation 131

Entering the Flow 132

Walking Meditation 134

Pushing Hands 135

Meditation on the Breath Wave 137

Listen to Your Voice 139

Smokeless Smudging 141

Water Blessing 142

Blessing Touch 143

Self Massage 149

Sacred Geometry Practices

Greeting the Four Directions 150

Embodying the Cross 154

THE CIRCLEWORK TRAINING MANUAL 5

Four Elements Movement Meditation 155

Belly Heart and Crown Meditation 159

Ten Ways to Strengthen Your Heaven-Earth Axis 161

How to Draw a Seven-Circuit Labyrinth 162

The Web of Blessings 165

Talking Practices

Check-Ins 172

Questions for Circles 175

Breaking Up in Small Groups 178

Meditation on the Divine Mother 181

Seeing with Sacred Eyes 183

Discussion 185

Storytelling 186

Guided Visualizations 191

Silent Times 192

Writing Practices

Writing Circles 195

I Am Writing 197

Letters to Our Future Selves 206

Letters to All Women 207

Visioning the Future 208

Meditations

Welcome to the Circle Meditation 211

Light Blessing Meditation 213

Mother Meditation 215

The Abode of the Great Heart 216

More Fun Practices

Creating a Circle of Stones 219

Creating a Blessing Bowl 221

Face Painting 223

Sacred Music and Dance Ritual 225

Praying for Each Other 226

Toning Ritual 227

PART III: CHALLENGES 229

Ten Circle Diseases 231

People Who Talk Too Much 233

Difficult People 235

Protecting Circle Boundaries 240

Resist the Urge to Push 242

Encountering Resistance 245

Competition Between Women 248

Projection 251

Healing the Wounds of Tribal Rejection 258

Emotional Eruptions 263

Kundalini Awakenings 267

Unconscious Merging 271

Guidelines for Conflict Resolution 281

Conflict and the Inner Child 288

The Wrestling Match 291

About The Institute for Circlework 297

About the Author 298

242 THE CIRCLEWORK TRAINING MANUAL

Resist the Urge to Push

Sometimes I want to change people.

Sometimes I just want them to get on with

their lives. But I am learning patience—to

have patience with people. I see that that

is what Spirit has. Spirit has patience with

us. When I’m in touch with that, I know I

don’t need to do anything. In that place,

I feel a deep sense of silence, and I can

let people be who they are and unfold as

they need to, without pushing for change.

SOMETIMES, circle leaders and participants

alike may feel tempted to push others in direc-

tions that they might not want to go in. Most

commonly, this happens when someone is in

an uncomfortable or stuck place. For example,

someone might be bursting with grief yet stub-

bornly insist she’s fine.

Emotional states are states of tension. When

we feel that tension in others, we too get

uncomfortable. Then, we may start pressuring

PART III: CHALLENGES 243

them toward a release. We see their repressed

emotion and want it to be expressed. So out of

our own desire for discharge, we begin to push.

But no matter how good our intentions are,

our pushing will not necessarily serve others.

When you’re waiting for a rose to bloom, you

need patience. If you try to pull the petals

open, you’ll just kill the flower. The same is

true of people. When we see someone who

is half open and half closed, we want them

to open fully. But some people need a lot of

time to blossom. They may need to stay in that

place of emotional tension for weeks, months

or even years. Can we respect their pace? Can

we have faith that their blossoming will happen

in due time? Can we allow them to unfold in

their own way?

Consider the following scenario. A hundred

women have gathered for a ritual. At one point

a woman steps into the center and speaks of

her inability to express anger. “I have always

been a good girl,” she said, “I never get angry.”

As she stands in the center, unsure of how

to proceed, another woman begins beating her

drum and chanting: “No more good girl! No

more good girl!” Others take up the cry. The

circle wants to see the woman break through

her inhibitions and get angry.

In the midst of this sea of emotion, the

woman in the center has no space to listen to

her own truth. Gradually, the circle sweeps her

along, and she begins to stamp and scream to

their chant.

Once again, she is being a good girl and

doing what others want. Perhaps, if the circle

had merely witnessed her supportively, she

would have eventually started screaming and

244 THE CIRCLEWORK TRAINING MANUAL

stamping anyway. But then, the impulse to do

so would have been her own. As it was, she had

no chance to really look at what she wanted

and make her own choice.

This woman entered the circle because she

felt a need for transformation and rebirth. A

good midwife allows the process to unfold in

its own time and does not push for a premature

birth. In contrast, this circle became impatient.

Basically, they used the woman as a kind of

lightning rod to discharge their own pent-up

energy. Instead of empowering her, they pres-

sured her into yet another act of self-betrayal.

This circle had three leaders, but no one inter-

vened. Like riders unable to control their horses,

they allowed the circle energy to gallop out

of control, perhaps unaware of what was hap-

pening. The women in this circle meant well;

nobody intended any harm. But unconscious-

ness can do just as much harm as conscious

intent.

We need to constantly remind ourselves that

we don’t know what is best for others and that,

sometimes, a person may need to stay in a place

that we perceive as uncomfortable, conflicted,

painful or confused. Can we bless them, right

where they are? Can we hold an opening to

their growth and transformation, without dic-

tating how and when it should happen? This

is, I believe, what love asks of us.

Voices from the Circle

I’m very empathetic, and passionate about healing.

I so often find myself in this place where I dive in

and merge with a person’s story, and if they’re in

pain I want to help them move to a more com-

fortable place. I do this habitually. I get hooked on

wanting resolution. Now I realize how valuable it is

to sit with discomfort and incompletion, and that

it’s actually a great gift we can give each other.

PART III: CHALLENGES 251

Projection

discover that they both share similar childhood

traumas and that, even though right now one

appears to be angry and the other sad, they are

in fact both feeling the same emotion: Terror.

Both grew up with abusive fathers who were

liable to attack them when they least expected

it. They are, in other words, perfect projection

screens for each other.

Both are intensely sensitive to criticism and,

when they get a whiff of it, they shut down

like clamshells. One just made a remark that the

other interpreted as critical. She in turn blurted

out an angry response and, in the blink of an

eye, each started equating the other with the

scary father of her childhood.

Right now, neither is aware of this. Neither

feels she has done anything wrong. Both feel

unsafe and scared. Yet by the time we get to

the bottom of what just happened, they’ll real-

ize that what looks like a disaster is in fact a

doorway to healing and growth. It will take

a while for this healing to run its course, but

within 24 hours their relationship will not only

What causes the collapse of circles full

of well-intentioned human beings is not

the presence of shadow but the repres-

sion and denial of shadow; the insistence

that it is not among us. Denial of shadow

eventually fi lls the interpersonal fi eld with

so much unrecognized and unresolved

energy that it is released through explosion

or through gradual erosion and undermin-

ing of healthy norms.

—Christina Baldwin, Calling the Circle

WE’RE AT an isolated retreat center, cradled in

beauty and serenity. Yet right now, most of us

aren’t feeling so serene. For seemingly out of

the blue, a confl ict has erupted between two

women in our circle—Wendy, a curly-headed

young artist, and Brenda, a psychotherapist in

her fi fties. Wendy is tall, powerful and—in this

moment—furious. Brenda, on the other hand,

looks small, helpless and sad.

Eventually, the two women will come to

understand what just happened and why. They’ll

252 THE CIRCLEWORK TRAINING MANUAL

be completely restored but infused with more

love and compassion than before.

Grappling with projections is definitely one

of the biggest challenges circles face; navigat-

ing them calls for a lot of skill, integrity and

courage. Circles are like witch’s cauldrons; there

are always various kinds of projection bubbling

in the stew. In a short, one-time gathering, it’s

easy to overlook them but, in longer circles,

they invariably show up.

Psychological projection is an unconscious,

unintentional process whereby our ego cons

us into believing something internal is actu-

ally external. Like a bird that pecks at the

mirror without realizing that it’s attacking its

own reflection, our ego pecks at another ego,

sometimes in disgust, sometimes in adoration.

Either way, we’re attributing to someone else a

form of power that rightfully belongs to us. In

sacred mirroring, we see the light of our own

self within the eyes of another. In contrast,

unconscious projection blinds us to the fact that

what we’re looking at is actually an unclaimed

aspect of our own potential.

Of course, projection isn’t just a problem in

our personal relationships. It also poisons rela-

tionships between nations, races and religions.

For example, in a process as powerful as it is

primitive, white people have projected their

shadow onto those with darker skin. Projection