Category: General Learning

I quite love this new configuration on my office window sill.

The stone is from a 2018 road trip to Yukon. I was meeting my buddy Roq. We hiked a bit. Told stories. Laughed. Created a bit of ceremony. From a remote hillside I brought this stone. Makes me think of mountain. And then Roq and me drove to Vancouver, BC over five days.

The person is a praying monk, also a stone. I’ve used it many times as a talking piece in Circle. It was given to me around the same time. From a colleague and fellow mischief-maker of the best kind, Kathleen Masters. Kathleen and I hosted several events over a few years, particularly to support community leaders in the United Methodist tradition.

One, I like the way these two things look on the window sill. They are grounding to me. They have a simple beauty. Beauty matters. I like to appreciate simple beauty connected to friends. I feel aliveness. Aliveness matters.

Two, stories matter. We and the things around us come from somewhere. From people. From people in stories. I good hunk of my life has been learning to reclaim and celebrate context of stories.

Three, from the angle of the photo on the left, the monk looks a bit sad. From the angle of the photo on the right, the monk is actually smiling. I like the contrast. No change in figures. Just a different angle.

We too, are all of this at once. We humans. Living sadness and sorrow. From another angle, living sweetness and smile. Discovering stories. Appreciating beauty.

Yup. Good for today. Appreciating my little Mountain Monk on the window sill.

Very circle-focussed this week. Quite loving that. Circle, and the people that I’ve been taught by, and the people that I’ve worked with, have formed much of the gifts I’m able to offer.

There’s A Circle Way Intensive. Come to learn. To contribute. And for all the other reasons that matter so much now.

There’s the conversation I had yesterday with Penny Hamilton in Brisbane Australia. Penny, Amanda Fenton, and I hosted several practicums and workshops together. Super refreshing. Supportive.

There’s this excerpt below. It’s a draft couple of paragraphs of an introduction. For a book on Circle that I’m writing. Anticipating being able to share this book later in 2024.

Enjoy. Perhaps there’s a spark or two for you.

My first Circle teacher was Christina Baldwin. It was the late 1990s. Christina and Ann Linnea had formed their education company, PeerSpirit. They taught Circle. And memoir writing. And quest. They joined with Meg Wheatley and Bob Stilger, whom I was working with and for. We were creating a conversational leadership initiative. Circle was to be our core methodology to connect leaders locally and globally. Through deeper listening. Through more authentic sharing. Through more lasting learning together.

Back then, in my mid 30s, I listened to much rhetoric about “collecting tools for one’s tool box.” I thought of Circle as one of those tools, which of course, it was. However, I came to learn quickly that Circle was much more. I learned it was also a way of being that prioritized so much of what tools were created for — connection, story, pace, pause, and questions engaged together.

Circle would come to ground who I was as a person. It would ground how I paid attention in groups. It would ground how I came to invite people together, in circumstance ranging from casual social settings to formal professional meetings and workshops. Circle would come to change my life, just as did Christina, Ann, Meg, and Bob.

Well, now it is 2024. I’ve been a Circle practitioner for 25+ years. I’ve taught classes. I’ve hosted workshops in person and online. I’ve hosted practicums, advanced practicums and intensives. I’ve practiced the subtle and the implicit. I’ve practiced the obvious and the explicit. I’ve followed the mentoring of those who have taught me. I’ve claimed some of my own nuance. I’ve come to be first teacher and mentor for a few folks along the way.

Yes, very glad to be offering this Circle Way Intensive. With Rangineh Azimzadeh Tehrani, who I’ve come to know and appreciate for her Circle skills and commitments, heart and brain.

Yes, very glad to be returning to a home teaching space, The Wasatch Center, in Salt Lake City, Utah. It’s my home geography. Anticipating some who will travel to join. And some local that have been waiting for this gathering.

Yes, very glad to continue contributing to those of us who so yearn for the connection, learning, and weaving that Circle creates. In teams. In communities.

Join us.

We will refresh some basics that ground your Circle practice. We will deep dive some nuanced insight that gives your Circle Practice flight.

Come for learning. Come for practice. Come to gain skill and perspective. Come to share and explore. Come for new insights. Come for enlivened heart of courage and clarity

More Information and registration links are here.

Or, straight to registration.

Yes, encourage your colleagues and friends.

What joy!

On a road trip this week, drawn as I am to horizon views, I experimented with “Long Exposure” on my photo setting. I quite love the blurring of colors of open fields. I quite love the softening of color.

Hmmm….

How to pay attention to what has your attention and why that matters — ya, I so appreciate the skill to be soft. To be integrative. I so feel compelled to explore such views — within myself, with others, with circumstance, with life flowing.

The opened heart has much to teach. The long exposure heart has much to invite.