Circle and Ceremony Workshop

A couple of days ago, I cohosted a workshop on circle and ceremony with Ramona Sierra of Sierra Earthworks Foundation, and John Kesler with whom I co-direct the Salt Lake Center for Engaging Community. We had 3.5 hours to work with. Thirty-five people signed up and participated at a beautiful location, the Chase Peterson Building, on the University of Utah campus.

We offered brief introduction on purpose. In this case, the workshop was designed to help people learn and practice circle and ceremony as methods of engaging community, of building deeper connections, or enspirited community.

We had intended a simple check-in circle for people to share a bit on who they are and a bit of why they chose to come to the workshop. However, as we were about to begin that circle, I realized I felt it served better to combine that circle with what was to be the next, which was to speak to the need that any of us were seeing in the world (community, work, family, nation) that requires us to practice the different kind of leadership, the hosting.

The circle began with Ramona selecting a talking piece, a beautiful beaded and feathered stick. I had set some time boundaries, one minute per person. This circle went deep quite quickly, yet stayed in the time framing. The words and energy that were shared were very beautiful. People shared their desire to learn, to connect, to reach out, to be in an authentic space, to slow down. Some shared stories from their respective lives and causes: a refugee community, a woman’s recovery center, a city diversity program, a character education program, documentary arts films, children, hospice work. We were a beautifully diverse group coming to sense in each other ourselves and the beauty of connection.

We took a break after this round, and upon returning asked a simple question, a time-out kind of question. What just happened here? I loved what people spoke, some of which is below.
– Hope and possibility became visible.
– There was a safe place for emotion.
– People were listening with their whole being – this was the invitation spoken by my colleague Ramona to begin – what are the other ways that we can listen with each other?
– The circle creates flow.
– In a minute we were able to say enough about what was important to us and create a container to stand shoulder to shoulder.
– The energy shifted when our stories got more personal.

I suppose it is true that we planned on these kind of things. But we did not design explicity for this. It was not a workshop on creating safe places. Though we touched some of this, I feel we just set conditions and held the space for this to be possible. The way that people entered and participated is what created the stronger impressions for people. And this led them to offer a few gems in checkout — “you’ve expanded my life; I take you with me.”

This experience of circle reaffirms what I know and have experienced from other circles:
– people want to witness each other and want to be witnessed. And even more significantly, it can happen at a surprisingly deep level in a surprisingly short period of time.
– people want the experience of being open hearted or maybe full-hearted in community. We don’t necessarily start speaking it that way, but the form, the circle, activates and reminds us of this experience.
– circle creates the quality of listening that enables us to build. It creates relationship with each other, a chance to hear a bit of story. I shared with them what has become one of my favorite lines on story — “the shortest distance between two people is a story.”

There were many gems that were shared in this circle. These are gems that I carry with me now, even if just for a season. They are bits that are embodied in the turquoise bead that each of us received thanks to Ramona.

And there was simple humor – the transparency of one participant sharing that she didn’t know anyone in the room and actually brought a book to read in case she got bored. We all laughed, relating, and yet knowing the very clear experience of not hiding in a circle. The form gently requires us to show up, which sadly, is often avoidable or not possible in many forms of meeting.

Gratitude for the simple power of a circle. It is the form, the invitation, the energy that builds that helps people feel both friendship and deep learning and that then inspires ideas to use in our respective areas of work and life. Gratitude to Ramona and John, and to the participants that support a process that very easy to feel for a long time.

Photos

Invitation

Circle Handout

Harvest Document

Design

1:15 Welcome
CEC – John Kesler

1:20 Context, Workshop Shape, and Circle Introduction
Ramona, Tenneson

1:45 Circle
Ramona, Tenneson
Who are you?
Why did you choose to come to this workshop today?
What is the need that you see in your world that requires us to meet and lead differently?

2:30 Break

2:45 Noticings From the Circle
Ramona, Tenneson

3:15 Ceremony Introduction
Ramona

3:30 Ceremony / Circle – Gift of Turquoise Bead
Ramona
What do you take with you from this workshop?

4:25 Close & Thanks
John, Ramona, Tenneson

Community that Learns

This is a great video from Phil Cass in Ohio that includes Toke Moeller and Monica Nissen in Denmark, Silas in Zimbabwe. The video is just over an hour — Conversations on Art of Hosting.

http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid1155394240

I was drawn immediately to the stories, the people, and the clear statements of purpose that show up around the Art of Hosting body of work.

Communities must learn — which means being in dialogue with one another.

The Art of Hosting is not the focus, not as a training. It is what it does in people in communities that serves needs. Silas tells some of the Kufunda story on this. What is possible with nothing? How do we learn together in unknowing.

What if hosting is the leadership that is needed so that we can be learners together?

How could we create the future we want and not just what comes if we are not conscious of it.

Who is hungry to learn?

Home

What if the process of conversation was the most simple way to support healthy, thriving, learning-filled, systems? In work, in community?

My work is leadership and community development – hosting spaces for co-created insight and solutions. My focus is often to help teams and communities awaken to the soul of the work and the simple, wise choices of action that grow from there.

I work in partnership with clients, colleagues, friends, family, and community to integrate learning and action of self, team, and community. A few of my current partnerships include: The Berkana Institute, where I am helping to co-create more availability of the hosting pattern through client systems and open enrollment trainings; The Salt Lake Center for Engaging Community, where I support and design local dialogues on living in healthy community; and formerly, The Dyer Institute for Leading Organizational Change, where I worked with university students, faculty, and managers on practices of change. I am currently working on transformation projects in health care, faith-based community, and health and human services.