Escape your box: Get into a circle

Circle is the most ancient organisational form. Everything in nature is formed from circles and spirals.

Traditional societies were organised around the circle, where every member of the tribe stood together. Recent human history has reshaped our society into a boxes, lines and pyramids of hierarchy.

In a circle everyone’s equal, there’s no bottom and no top. Everyone can see each other.

What if our world were more like this? What if we could bring back Circle as the primary organisational mode for all our living human systems?

Circlewallas is a movement for circular power and healing for peace.

Our vision is for humanity to live in harmony with nature and with each other.

Our mission is to revive ancient wisdom and mesh it with new technology for the heartfelt liberation of a better world.

Why Humanity Needs Circle

Our global socio-political-economic system is toxic to democracy by putting power and money in the hands of a few whilst developing futures and changes that people are not involved in choosing for themselves. We need to deepen democratic process.

It’s time to transition into the Green Economy. The complexity of our rapidly changing era means that those with the power and money don’t actually have the solutions.

We need to gather intelligence from the wider system and equip local communities with the capacity to be self-organising, responsive, resilient and sustainable. We need to build bottom-up innovation drawing on existing local assets with access to global assets where it is needed.

Swaaraj – Gandhi’s Legacy and Vision

Swaraj is Gandhi’s concept of Indian independence from foreign domination. Swaraj lays stress on governance not by a hierarchical government, but by self governance through individuals and community building. The focus is on political decentralisation.

Gandhi explained his vision in 1946:

Independence begins at the bottom… A society must be built in which every village has to be self sustained and capable of managing its own affairs… It will be trained and prepared to perish in the attempt to defend itself against any onslaught from without… This does not exclude dependence on and willing help from neighbours or from the world. It will be a free and voluntary play of mutual forces…

In this structure composed of innumerable villages, there will be ever widening, never ascending circles. Growth will not be a pyramid with the apex sustained by the bottom. But it will be an oceanic circle whose center will be the individual. Therefore the outermost circumference will not wield power to crush the inner circle but will give strength to all within and derive its own strength from it.

Circle Up: Community is the Cure

Being a CircleWalla is a 24/7 occupation. It’s holding space in every situation, listening deeply, asking powerful questions and engaging in conversations that matter.

On a practical level, some of the ways in which we Circlewallas are active include the following:

Building capacity to build capacity

In order to tackle the myriad challenges it faces, the world needs a LOT more Circlewallas. Ingrained at the core of everything we do is the principle of “building capacity to build capacity.”

Whenever we host a Circle of any kind, we do so alongside a team of apprentices, stepping back and allowing them to take to the lead. For this reason too, coordinating workshops that teach some of the methods we use is also a key focus of our work. We’re building capacity to train and empower future generations of Circlewallas.

As well as apprentices, we are growing a network of aligned families, an earth guardians collective, a community that believes in the principle of participatory inquiry and problem solving on local and human issues. Through community and interconnectedness, we are co-creating a centre for celebrating earthly humanity.

This is a call to heart to anyone who shares our vision for a more beautiful world. You are welcome here, in Circle.