Day 10 Michael Land- Circles

**Written and submitted by Michael**

Planets
Do it
With stars

It’s happening all around
Us, inside of
Us, at the centre
 
Our home is built this way
The one we all share
Water and dirt
Stuck to fire
 
Birds build
This way too
Our own egg of conception
Follows its form
 
And we, much more intricate now
Sense the primal call
To come back
To circle
 
Where we see each
Other, within the sacred
Container
 
Gather round
The fire, spirit
Burns like a sun
And we, together here
One
 
In it’s warmth
Hearts open, ears
And eyes, witness of
What is, how we live
So that we may be, as always
Surrounded
By god
 

 
Tonight I’m going to my men’s circle. Sitting in circle is a practice that I believe is as old as consciousness. It is how we come together as tribe in a way where each person can be seen. I believe circle is an integral part of community. Whether it’s to hear what is in each other’s hearts, or to raise our voices together in song, the circle is the container that helps us find harmony and connection, when each voice is heard, and each heart cared for.

“How do you come together in circle with others?” is the question for 12 days journal #296

Day 12 Gift of Presence- Circle Curiosity

Presently I am missing the womyn's circle here at Intention to prepare for my workshop tomorrow. There is a men’s circle running at the same time. I would love to be in the womyn's circle AND a fly on the wall at the men's circle. I get why we womyn can’t go in there, I support it, celebrate it, none of this stops my intense curiosity about what is said in that room though! I have been told about a few of the exercises, even tid bits of what was said but only ever under strict guidelines. I have learned that in many men's circles there are very clear agreements about what can be repeated outside the circle. To be honest the womyn's circle is of less interest to me, probably because I COULD go, my gender alone means I can not enter the Moose Room where the men's circle is being held. Oh to be able to turn into a fly!

The relationship between the male and female of our species seems to take up a great deal of my mental space lately...lately being perhaps the last 20 years of my life. How do you think we used to relate to one another before societal structure became polluted with class, religion, agriculture, industrialization, world wars and the make believe economy? Say you take a baby boy tiger and a baby girl tiger and set them loose in their natural environment and simply observed how they related, I would hazard a guess that they would establish a relationship driven by their instinct, their dna, their distinct male and female nature. Now say we did this with two baby humans, for sake of argument we can imagine it to be like the biosphere experiment back in the late 80’s early 90’s. Without any outside influence, how would this man and womyn, once they became a man and a womyn, relate? I know I ask the impossible, but indulge me, suspend your disbelief for a moment and imagine what a male and female relationship without all of our chaotic his-and-herstory would look like. There are books which speak of this, of the Goddess cultures which predated Christianity, there are stories about cavemen with big clubs, there are ideas. I am never sure which to buy into. I long though for us to find a more comfortable gender balance, to find the alchemy which exists between the yin and the yang, where the giving and receiving become inseparable. Ahhh....Oh man...oh womyn.

I am finished prepping for my workshop. I leave you with a video of one of the songs I am including in my playlist. I wrote the bare bones of this post on this night, I added this song when I was editing the post to upload it to the blog. I happen to know that Lhasa de Sela died the days after my workshop ran, 2 days after this entry was first roughly written. She is a shinning light, a beautiful soul who used her own joys and pain to create beautiful art. Enjoy.



“How do you relate to the oposite sex?” is the question in 12 days journal #262