The Circle Way

CHAPTER4Rotating Positions of Leadership in the Circle

A PeerSpirit circle is an all-leader group, in which positions of responsibility change and adapt as needed. The three most identifiable positions of host, guardian, and scribe hold the progress of a circle session while all participants hold the infrastructure.

A small Zimbabwean woman named Sikhethiwe (pronounced “Ski-teeway”) leaned forward in her handmade wooden chair and said to the guardian, “Stephen, ring the bell.” Stephen rang a tingsha, held the pause a few seconds, and rang it again. All twenty-four of us, brown and white faces, young and old, paused in our talking under the thatched-roofed, open-walled meeting house in Kufunda village. After the second ring, our young host said ...