PeerSpirit Circle Training
The world we long for is a real-time experience that is already available to us. We access this experience by opening an interactive space that reminds us who we really are, holds us to our common intention, and honors our diversity, commonality, and contribution. This space is circle.
PeerSpirit Circle Process is a highly adaptable modern methodology that calls on the structure of circle process as it has existed throughout time. Because circle is universal, it is familiar and easily learned; because circle challenges current status quo it needs to be hosted with skill.
The practica and trainings are based on Christina's book, Calling the Circle, the First and Future Culture and on a line of PeerSpirit booklets authored by Christina, Ann, and a range of co-authors.
Focusing on the axiom that it's easiest to learn circle by living in circle, the PeerSpirit Circle Practicum gathers a small group of people at a retreat center for four-and-a-half days of intensive, experiential learning that blends council time with significant training.
Each day's teaching presents a theme:
- Individual skills and practices: what we each bring to the rim;
- Energetics: creating a vital interactive container;
- Challenges to circle: real plays of situational challenges;
- Vision, reality, intention: setting the course to bring circle into real life situations.
In addition to skill-building, the Circle Practica offer participants the opportunity to:
- Slow down and honor the need for replenishment with good company in a beautiful setting,
- Remember our way back to speaking our thoughts in conversations that matter,
- Experience what it means to lead from within the group's experience.
Previous experience in group facilitation and leadership is helpful. An application process helps us create a fine mix of people for the training. Please see our schedule of upcoming Circle Practica (including events in Canada) and our application form below.
| CIRCLE PRACTICUM APPLICATION:
Thank you for taking the time to completely fill out the application. It is our way of helping you clarify your own purpose for attending a circle practicum, and a way that we can conversationally introduce ourselves. Be brief or lengthy, we hope you find the process rewarding. (please be sure to include your name and email address so that we may contact you) The easiest way to complete this application is to download a copy of it (in MS Word), complete it, and then email it back to us as an attachment to . Below, for your reference, is a list of the fields and questions that are included in the application form: |
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| Name | |
| E-mail address | |
| Day phone | |
| Evening phone | |
| Cell/Mobile | |
| Mailing address | |
| Primary occupation | |
| Anything you'd like to share with us (relationships, children, pets, hobbies, interests) | |
| Birth date | |
| If you are applying with a partner or colleague, please note that person's name: |
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| This written application is our primary tool for choosing a compatible group of participants. Please respond to the following questions. Your responses may be any length. They will be kept confidential! | |
| 1. Write a character sketch of yourself five years ago: who were you? What was happening or not happening in your life? What was just starting then that is coming to fruition now? | |
| 2. What is your philosophical or spiritual belief about this point in history-- the broad picture? | |
| 3. Have you read Calling the Circle (Christina's book) or Deep Water Passage (Ann's book): how did either of these books affect your ways of seeing the world? | |
| 4. How are you already using circle in your professional or personal life? | |
| 5. How do you wish to apply circle/council in your professional/personal life? | |
| 6. Describe a moment when the circle was a shaky or scary place to be: what happened? How did you and the circle respond? | |
| 7. Describe a moment when the circle was transformative: what happened? How did you and the circle respond? | |
| 8. Why do you think this is the right time for you to attend the Practicum? | |
