Here is something I learned about the power of a circle —

it holds together under stress.

It pulses and surges and can expand to hold someone in grief or sorrow.

It is a container and a community,

is big enough for us all

and for all of us.

What you bring into the circle resounds, reverberates, returns to you somehow richer

When you step into the circle, you are both beneficiary and benefactor,

you are protected by it, and you are making it a protection for everyone else,

it is a shape of co-creating,

a boundary of safety and support,

and when you need to step away, you can,

and it will shrink to size

and always welcome you back.

For 5 weeks in the early winter, the Wellness Almanac partnered with the Pemberton and District Public Library, to present a series of Sharing Circles, led by Tanina Williams of Amawilc. I’ve been trying to encapsulate what I learned, but it was an experience, not a lecture, and so the learnings are lodged somewhere inside of me, and hard to distill, even though they’re easy to tap into. Ultimately, right now, I’m thinking, how beautiful the circle is, as a shape to guide us, as a system… instead of a pyramid, that is a structure that reinforces scarcity and power over, a circle is about wholeness, there’s always enough for the people who are making it, and everyone is equally valuable.

The Sharing Circle suggested an approach, a way of thinking, that I want to cultivate… and cultivating that, I think, is an adventure in decolonizing my mind and thinking, and re-inhabiting wisdom that I once belonging to.

I’m inspired to be more circular in my approach – circular economies are those in which nothing is wasted, everything has a role, nothing is discarded.