So far I had the circle, but not the process. I had nothing readymade in my life to guide me here. I’m sure all of our ancestors gathered in circles around fires. Our modern ways of heating spaces no longer make this a necessity. But in the time where fire was the primary source of heat my ancestors would have gathered in a circle to share the heat and perhaps knowledge in the form of stories too. But whilst there is a genetic line between those ancestors and me, there was no cultural line that had kept these practices alive. There was nothing in my wider culture that I knew of, nothing in the lessons I had been taught through formal education, nothing gifted to me through parents and grandparents that gave me any kind of legacy to draw upon. There was no process as part of my cultural inheritance. 

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But a process found its way to me nevertheless. It arrived thanks to Layla F. Saad. In 2018 I was doing some personal anti-racism work. In her booklet (and now published book) ‘Me And White Supremacy’ Layla cites ‘The circle way’ as a process for safely gathering in groups to hold what can be difficult conversations. I got a copy of the book. I had found a process. 

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In The circle way Christina Baldwin and Ann Linnea share the knowledge they gathered over many years of experimenting with a process of holding circle. In their book they describe how circle can help us gather as a community or organisation to make decisions, to connect and to share. This wisdom is only available to me today thanks to those communities who have honoured these processes and managed to keep them alive as part of their cultural tradition. It is always with this gratitude that I step into circle. As Christina and Ann say:

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"We acknowledge that the essential form of circle comes from ancestral fires that fed and organized humanity into larger societies. We acknowledge that despite centuries of violence and genocide, Indigenous peoples have held this pattern so that the alternative to hierarchy, patriarchy, and domination has not been lost. This debt of gratitude we can only rectify by working for a just, sustainable, inclusive world."

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Whilst the book found its way to me, it was Cynthia who first reached out to The circle way and enrolled in their training program. During the pandemic we decided it was time to begin holding space in this way. We wanted to support our colleagues in the sexual violence sector and so began to hold circle for teams at Rape crisis centres across the country as a way of helping them feel connected and held whilst they were delivering their work in isolation from one another. We also began to hold circle on ‘Healing from injustice after sexual violence and relationship abuse’, which eventually grew into a tour of the UK.

It was at this time that we connected with ‘Healing circles global’, a community of people who hold circle purely for the purposes of healing, starting with circles for people living with cancer but growing to hold circles on a wide range of themes from grief to race. As a consequence of Covid-19, Healing Circle Global’s efforts to be truly global were accelerated as they moved their work online, making circle available to people across the world. This was how I was able to do my training with them and I'm honoured that the connection with this loving organisation just keeps growing. 

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I have now been able to create the kinds of spaces I’d been looking for for years. Circle has become an integral part of how we gather, how we listen, how we are heard. This is a process. A deep, powerful, soulful and sometimes messy one that I am so grateful to have discovered and so proud to share.

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If you're inspired to hold circle we wholeheartedly encourage you to do so. We invite you to walk this path, and we recommend you walk slowly, in community, and with the spirit of honouring and sharing close at hand. To help you with that please find a community to support you in your practice. You can train with us and/or you can connect with The Circle Way or Healing Circles Global. 

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Nina