Gentle circles where people come together to explore, listen, and learn around a living topic, theme or question.
Join a circleGentle circles where people come together to explore, listen, and learn around a living topic, theme or question.
The structure of a Living Circle is light and simple. People arrive from different roles and worlds, sit together with a question, and see what emerges.
What makes these gatherings particularly special is the quality of being: being in a space with people in a circle, open, and really listening, to the individuals, to each other and to themselves.
Any topic, any community
Living Circles can form around anything — education, regeneration, leadership, love, democracy, belonging. The structure travels across contexts.
People from across sectors
Circles bring together people from different roles, backgrounds, and vantage points — people who wouldn't ordinarily be in the same room.
Exploration and listening
The emphasis is on exploring together rather than arriving at conclusions. People come with curiosity about the question and about each other.
Simple to create
The structure is light enough to create anywhere — used in homes, offices, community spaces, in person and online, across cultures and languages.
This space is an invitation for our essence to show up.
Essence more than persona · the heart more than the ego · presence more than opinion
In many ways, this is a very ancient tradition, whether sitting around a fire telling stories or gathering around a well. Through all cultures and all times, circles have been an essential way of gathering.
This is a time often called the Age of Disconnect, with increasing complexity and more people on screens and phones. Places to be human together seem to be one of the great calls of this time.
A Living Circle is a way of being together that is open and gentle, where people can really be seen and be present for who they are.
There is also a call for spaces beyond polarisation, where different views can be seen, heard and felt.
Being human, gently, together.
People sit in a circle where everyone can see one another's eyes, for around one to two hours. Each circle follows a simple flow, which the people hosting it can adapt and make their own.
I
Welcome
Everyone is welcomed equally, even if differently. The host shares why we are here and the qualities of the space we share together.
II
Arriving
A chime and a moment of silence, just to arrive and let the day settle. Then a poem, a quote or a short story.
III
The first round
The question opens, and everybody is welcome to speak to what resonates for them. There is no right answer. It is okay to sit in silence between voices.
IV
The second round
What is this moving in you? What is alive in you now? People share what is true and alive for them in that moment.
V
Closing
Thanks to everybody, any next steps, and a final moment of silence. What happens from there continues freely.
The Gatherers are open-hearted people who bring people together around a living question, to explore different perspectives, and to connect and share. They deeply care about the quality of space and connection between people, and about what can become possible through presence, connection and care.
In a community
Somebody living somewhere who wants to bring together their neighbours, friends or community around a question that matters.
Within an organisation
A way for a company, a project or a team to meet around its own question, as a way of sensing together. More spacious than brainstorming, and of the heart.
Across sectors
Bringing together people from different sectors, perspectives, roles, expertise and knowledge, who might rarely sit in the same room.
Anyone who feels called
A Gatherer can have any job or role. What matters is that they can bring people together: those around them, those they know, and those beyond who they know.
These are the values a Living Circle holds — an invitation to everyone in the room, host and participant alike.
Person beyond role
People arrive as themselves — as humans, ahead of their title, sector, or expertise.
Shared attention
Phones are on silent or set aside, and people are there with their full selves. There is an alchemy that becomes possible with collective attention.
Profound respect
For oneself and one another, and for the journeys that have brought each of us into the circle, which we can never fully know of one another.
Listening as practice
A wakeful listening, with the whole body: to what is said, to what gets stirred within, and to the silence. Listening is a way of being.
Speaking from the heart
People are invited to speak from what is true and alive for them in that moment, rather than a rehearsed answer.
The joy of different perspectives
By the nature of being human, there will be different views. One person speaks at a time, around a shared centre, and every view can be seen, heard and felt.
Trust and confidentiality
Anything personal that is shared belongs to the person who shared it. Personal content is kept, and inspiration flows.
The question leads
A good question opens things rather than closes them. Everyone in the room follows it together.
Care for the whole
Each person is tended to, and so is the group as a whole. What happens between people is given as much attention as any individual contribution.
Living Circles gather regularly around different topics, themes, and questions. Each one is shaped by the people who come, and they are open to anyone who is willing and open to sit, listen and be heard.
A circle is forming — details to follow
To hear about upcoming circles, or to explore bringing a Living Circle to your own community or organisation, reach out and we will be in touch.