Walking aspens on a mountain, eleven thousand feet. Alpine air up above the high desert planes of Northern New Mexico. The leaves had just come out and it was particularly nurturing to feel green emergence and hear the soft wind pass through the forest.
Then, my perspective shifted. Instead of seeing the forest, I saw Circles, hundreds of them around me.
I took out my notebook and, seeing with my round eyes though my round cells, and holding the round pen with my round fingers drew this sketch. I was astonished to recognize, once again, even after over decades of studying Circle how easily Circle just blends in.
Yet Circle’s influence was radiating out into the environment—aspens with their circular trunk, branches and roots, under the circular sun, moving about on the circular earth. The thickness and strength of the circular ring within the tree is determined by relationships during a season with the soil, clouds, light, rain, in their cyclical movements through seasonal changes.
I was also reminded, once again, about the relationship between linearity and Circle.
We live in a timeline that goes forward, a hyperlinear time-is-money march that drives our resource to cash to trash consumption model. Economic prosperity is predicated on a perpetual growth model that is not sustainable, yet collectively systemic change has been very difficult. It’s hard to get out of our human centeredness to see other patterns around us.
But what if the way system reboot is right in front of us, overlooked in plain sight?
Aspen Wisdom
Aspens are known to be one of the oldest living beings on the planet. One grove in Utah is estimated to be 80,000 years old. In aspens, and all trees, linearity, the growth, emerges as an organic and systemic response from the needs of the circular trunk, the whole tree.
Branches are circular and linearity emerges out of that wholeness…
In nature, it is this wholeness, the wholeness of Circle that births generative movement.
So, linearity is innately enmeshed in the intelligence of the interconnected entire natural system.
And, Circle is structuring relationships that support the life of the entire environment from which the trees emerged. Relational wholeness. Reciprocity—based upon equitable, life-giving exchange with the environment.
Seeing the trees from the forest, and the Circles in the trees, I could begin to get the smallest glimpse, once again, of how the Circle is functioning behind appears before us to support life in the aspen forest.
More than that, over decades of holding Circle in my consciousness as a teacher, I’ve come to grasp how it structures the infinite potentiality that allows life to exist on earth.
So it was, once again, walking in the mountains, which I do often, I held the question, how can we live in balance like an old growth forest?
Doesn’t it make sense that developing a more intimate understanding of how Circle functions could be critical to our understanding of relationships? From our view, any new story, gift economy and sustainability all depend upon our ability, whether we are intentional about it or not, to think like a Circle.
Patterns
From the spiral of a nebula, the circular planets in our solar system, to my cat circling up beside me in front of a wood stove burning with round logs, Circles are innately and bafflingly structuring our very make up. Circles are everywhere. Just look.
Our heads are round like the earth and round like our cells—that same roundness is in our spiral DNA. My toes, finger, legs and arms, the bird feeder out my window, car tires, the circular plate by my computer.
Circle is so common that it goes unnoticed. This is often true for me.
But what is Circle?
From one perspective, Circle is but a geometric pattern, a round figure on a plane formed by a boundary (circumference) on which all points are equidistant from the center, a fixed point.
As a form, Circle seems easy enough to understand. But this surface understanding is only the beginning of the story. What we are offering is a method to build your own relationship with Circle. But the knowledge has to be earned through your own willing engagement with the material.
Let’s start the process now.
I invite you to pause for a moment and make your own list of Circles around you—at least ten. This will help sensitize you to how prevalent the Circle is in our environment.
After you have created that list, write next to each item how these Circles are working in their environment. I mean, what are the parts or perspective of Circle that make it critical as a structure for relationships? Does Circle have a viewpoint that you can articulate?
What adjectives come to mind? Go ahead, take your time. There’s no point in forging ahead. There’s no destination or end point. Every section is equally important to your whole understanding.
When I do this exercise now, I think about a wide spectrum of where and how Circle functions in this Circle of life, from the roundness of Gaia to my Circle of friends. Our community meals start with holding hands in a Circle before dinner around our large circular table, giving thanks for the plants and animals that gave their life, the farmers and hunters, the life in the soil, the pollinators, the rains, wind, sun, for the earth, sun and moon seasonal cycles.
Circle is intimately involved in that moment sustaining moment.
I also remember how my kindergarten teacher put us in a Circle to provide structure for a different kind of communication. Why? Part of the answer has to do with wholeness and connection.
All parts of a Circle are in relationship with every other part, equally—every part has a right to exist as it is and is intrinsic to the whole completeness. From this wholeness is a feeling of wellbeing, an ease, the sense that everything is okay. Life is good.
Whenever we are encircled, in the womb of acceptance or someone’s arms or in a caring group, we feel this. It’s innate to Circle.
Another insight you might gain from this exercise is, that Circles are completely adaptable and scalable to any set of relationships. That means that the qualities innate to Circle are the same in our cells and in the vulnerable eyes of a mouse as is found in stars and planets. What we learn about one Circle can be applied to any Circle that we encounter of any size.
Offerings
What Circle Think offers are examples, concepts and contemplations that can take you into wholeness: you as part of the whole with a right to be. But a Circle is not only a symbol of wholeness– it’s a portal from programmed dominance of linearity, triangles, and squares of human centralism.
Wholeness, within Circle, is not just as a concept, but a felt experience of wellness, a quality of awareness infused into your full consciousness, including bone, blood and cells. We want to facilitate processes, through Circle awareness, that will anchor this sense into this primordial resilience and profound connectedness that will be unshakeable, regardless of your life circumstance.
But this is a journey.
It’s not easy to put yourself to shift out of flatland linearity and truly accept yourself as an equal part of the whole. An intimate relationship with Circle depends upon your capacity and commitment to engage with the material and earn the knowledge.
In this process, the Circle reveals where we are whole and where we are broken, personally and collectively.
This ability to orient from wholeness that encompasses diversity and holds polarities is particularly critical in our current times. In fact, I would argue that any approach to sustainability that does not fully encompass core elements of Circle lacks much that is critical to address the root of the challenges that we collectively face today.
Doesn’t it make sense, therefore, to understand Circle, be intimate with it, apply it to thinking that is emergent of awareness of this whole?(This writing is excerpted from our upcoming book, Circle Think, Volume II, Circle as Map and Compass. We anticipate publication in the Spring of 2026.)