Thanks for your response Therese. The words "dark side" occur only in the (inherited) subject of the string, I made no reference to them in my post. Nor did I have any intention of imputing any "darkness" to the PeerSpirit Circle process. To the contrary I see it as inspirited. I was responding primarily to Harrison's question in his post of July 8: "... what is/are circle practices in the West or anywhere else????" and musing on the subject/question of facilitator control and if it was germane to the string.
My post was based on my reading of the book "Calling the Circle". I cite writings on pages 74 and 75 as an example. On page 74, number five of six "generic circle agreements" states as follows: "Anyone in the circle may call for silence, time out, or ritual to reestablish focus, to recenter, or to remember the need for spiritual guidance." And from page 75, in the Section named "Guardian of the Circle" I excerpt the sentence (already in italics in the text): "The Guardian has the group's permission to interrupt and intercede in group process for the purpose of calling the circle back to center, to task, or to respectful practice, or suggesting a needed break." And on the same page: "The guardian often serves as the one who carries out agreement five" and: "At these moments, the guardian calls for silence by using the agreed-upon signal. Everyone (in italics) falls silent, and waits for further instruction." I hope you will allow my interpretation of that as a potential source of facilitator control... Respectfully and with caring, Winston ----- Original Message ----- From: "Therese Fitzpatrick" <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Tuesday, August 03, 2004 9:37 PM Subject: Re: the dark side of circle practices -- and related themes Regarding: Christina Baldwin's circle methodology, Meg Wheatley's embrace of Christina's approach and 'facilitator control'. I participated in a From the Four Directions circle for two years. Our 'facilitator' had been trained by Christina and Meg. We all read both Christina's and Meg's books. Most of us were facilitators and OD types. There was no facilitator control of any kind and I never got the impression that the methodology had any intention in its design to have facilitator control in its design. The facilitator held space for our first meeting and then we quickly self managed for the next two years. The facilitator continued to feel responsible, I know, and she was in dialogue with Christina. But the facilitator exerted no control. The group actually brought Christina to Michigan to do a circle practicum but that took place after I had moved to Seattle. There was no 'dark side' in any circle practice in our Four Directions group and I feel quite confident that we were closelyl aligned with both Christina and Meg. Two of our members, Carol and Dave Schwinn are long time partners with Meg. Carol still works for and with Meg. I am a savvy gal and if there was a dark side to Christina or Meg's approach to circle, I would have discerned it. >From: WINSTON KINCH <[email protected]> >Reply-To: OSLIST <[email protected]> >To: [email protected] >Subject: the dark side of circle practices -- and related themes >Date: Mon, 2 Aug 2004 08:21:36 -0400 > >Hi all. >I know this is a somewhat extended string at this point (I just returned >from some time away and tuned in) but the "circle practices" referred to >early on in the discussion sound a lot like Christina Baldwin's "Calling >the Circle" which Meg Wheatley has supported in her recent work... I recall >having some concerns about the "facilitator control" aspects of the process >when I first read about it and wonder if that is not what is underlying >what I have been reading in the string? >Winston * * ========================================================== [email protected] ------------------------------ To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of [email protected]: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html To learn about OpenSpaceEmailLists and OSLIST FAQs: http://www.openspaceworld.org/oslist
