Awakened Woman e-magazine
goddessaltar.com

Join our Circle! Become a member of Awakened Women's Circles for Change. See below.

 

Circles for Change:

Jean Shinoda Bolen's formula
for a new world

By Stephanie Hiller

 

If you focus enough on the Goddess, it's almost as if she begins to notice you and takes you under her wing. She gradually begins to reveal herself in all her complexity, and sometimes in unexpected ways. This is an ongoing process, spiraling in deeper and deeper levels, always continuing.

…Let the Goddess come into your meditations, your dreams, your work and the faces of people around you. You will begin to recognize and acknowledge the Goddess in your life and become fertile soil for you to grow in. Give her plenty of water, light and food, and you will find yourself transformed by what grows inside you. You will have become the Goddess.

Hallie Inglehart Austin, The Heart of the Goddess
Quoted in Return of the Goddess by Burleigh Muten.

[Both books highly recommended! Full of inspiration, beautiful art. Order here.]

 

Jean Shinoda Bolen's vision for a positive future is very simple. It's the circle.

She sees the spreading phenomenon of women's circles continuing to multiply until critical mass is reached, touching off a spontaneous transformation of our culture by replacing the hierarchical pyramid as the primary mode of social organization; "and patriarchy will be over."

For human culture to change -- for there to be a hundredth monkey -- there has to be a human equivalent of Imo and her friends.* For patriarchy to become balanced by the discerning wisdom and compassion that are associated with the feminine aspects of humanity, and by the indigenous wisdom and relatedness to all living things and to the planet, that shift will come in the hundredth-monkey way. I believe that this will happen when there are a critical number of women's circles: for patriarchy to change, there has to be a millionth circle. That's because what the world needs now is an infusion of the kind of wisdom women have and the form of the circle itself is an embodiment of that wisdom. Marshall McLuhan's famous expression, "The medium is the message," greatly applies to women's circles: a circle is non-hierarchical -- this is what equality is like. This is how a culture behaves when it listens and learns from everyone in it.

In more ways than one, women talk in circles: conversation takes a spiral shape in its subjective exploration of every subject. Listening, witnessing, role modeling, reacting, deepening, mirroring, laughing, crying, grieving, drawing upon experience, and sharing the wisdom of experience, women in circles support each other and discover themselves, through talk. Circles of women supporting each other, healing circles, wisdom circles, soul sister circles, circles of wise women, of clan mothers, of grandmothers. Circles of crones, circles of pre-crones, lifetime circles and ad hoc circles, even circles of women in cyberspace and the business place, circles are forming everywhere. It's "Imo and her friends" getting in circles, and learning how to be in one.

The more circles there are, the easier it is for new circles to form; this is how morphemic fields work. Each circle is a regeneration of the archetypal shape and form that draws from every woman's circle that ever was, and each circle in turn adds to the field of archetypal energy that will make it easier for the next circle. Morphemic fields and archetypes behave as if they have an invisible preexistence outside of space and time, and become instantly accessible to us when we align ourselves with that form, and are expressed in our thoughts, feelings, dreams, and actions. The circle is much more than the experience of this generation, a sacred circle especially.

*The author refers to the change in behavior that occurred on an island when one monkey was the first to wash her sweet potato. Not only did all the monkeys on the same island mimic her, but so did the monkeys on another island!

The circle, by its nature, is egalitarian, she writes in her new book, The Millionth Circle, How to Change Ourselves and the World. released this fall by Conari Press. The growing number of women's circles reflects an evolutionary impulse to organize society in a new way, one which respects all life and encompasses all diverse forms of culture.

The idea of a critical mass touching off spontaneous change is based on a well-known tidbit of anthropological research, the phenomenon of the hundredth monkey. One monkey was the first to wash her sweet potato before eating it; gradually, all the other monkeys in the colony followed suit.

But what was most amazing was the fact that monkeys on other islands spontaneously took up the practice, with no discernible means of transmission from the first group. No one can explain how this took place! Bolen suggests women's circles will eventually embrace and transform the culture in the same magical way.

Why women? Because women are wonderful! We are the great underrated asset of the human world. And it's time we were heard!

Bolen packs a more rational explanation. "Women know how to be egalitarian," she explained at a book signing last spring for her previous book, Ring of Power, "and they can teach it to the men."

If we have not always been egalitarian, it's something we take to readily. We are more comfortable in a place where no one's held superior; there we feel the bond we share and we feel safe.

Because we have all been raised and tutored within the confines of hierarchy, gathering in circle is a process of healing and change. We watch each other display old habits and find ourselves reacting according to ours. Each time we come into conflict, we learn new ways to come to agreement.

Whatever the purpose, whether discussion or ritual, making quilts or cooking the holiday meal, or while entertaining a crawling baby, whatever the reason, our circles become a place where we can relax into the great safety net of each other's arms.

When women gather in circle, for support in healing or simply to talk, and especially when in sacred space, the very form of the circle encourages us to learn (or remember!) how to be together in an authentic, loving way, listening respectfully to one another and speaking from the heart. When no one is judging us and we have stopped judging each other, we feel free to be who we are. The circle becomes a practice for rediscovering and expressing our highest selves.

We share Bolen's belief that the circle is way to a safer world. For millennia, the circle has been the way to hold power. In India, it is called the dhuni. Among native Americans and other indigenous people, all transactions for the tribes are conducted in circle. Witches dance in circles, invoking the goddess into their forms. And the ancient peoples undoubtedly gathered in circles around a fire, and built their great stone monuments in circle formation.

The current phenomenon of crop circles springing up all over England, whatever their source, seems almost to augur in this phenomenon for the coming age. In his new book, James Redfield (author of the Celestine Vision) tells us that our prayers and our magic are effective. Gathering in circle not only helps us grow in mutual respect. It helps to manifest our will for a different, and a better, world.

We recommend Bolen's book as a dulcet little handbook for everyone who wants to organize a women's circle. Our work is terribly important. Our wisdom is desperately needed. Whether chanting or knitting, sharing our struggles with breast cancer or taking care of AIDS patients, protesting the World Trade Organization or marching for freedom of choice, we are doing the work that women have always done to weave the fabric of existence. If we keep on talking with each other, men will begin to pay attention.

And that in itself will change the world!

 

Order The Millionth Circle, How to Change Ourselves and the World by Jean Shinoda Bolen, M.D. Conari Press, 1999.

 

Join our circle of Awakened Women!

We invite you to join the process. Join our circle or, if you already have a circle, register yours with us. We'll develop a directory of women's circles, and we'll survey everyone to ascertain the answers to Freud's great question (poor misguided fellow that he was). We'll be quite happy to tell the world What Women Want.

From that, we plan to establish an agenda for social change, form a 501c nonprofit, roll up our sleeves and get to work.

Let's create the millionth circle! Just write to us and send us your name, address, e-mail and phone number. Or register your circle and let's link 'em!

Women's rights are human rights. As Awakened Women for Change, our intention will be to develop a woman-based, woman-centered agenda for creating a woman-friendly world.

 

Order Jean Shinoda Bolen's book The Millionth Circle from Powell's Independent Bookstore!

 

>>>Next

<<<Back

<<<Contents