I recently had the opportunity in a retreat setting to sit in such a circle, not because I am a member of an ecovillage or intentional community but because I am in the process of relocating and wanted to practice community building with other folks in transition. At first I felt absolutely overwhelmed with the amount of emotional work that needs to be done in order for community members to bond and build trust with each other. At the conclusion of the retreat, however, I felt less pessimistic and realized that it is not only possible for community members to consistently do such work together, but that when they do, they successfully break through their internalized culture of empire and experience and sustain the connectedness that empire renders utterly impossible. I'm not talking about momentary feel-good experiences where everyone holds hands and dances around the world, nor am I talking about everyone agreeing about everything. I'm talking about the kind of profound, intimate joining that natural cultures of indigenous traditions were able to experience and sustain and which allowed them to survive and thrive. And while circles of community building do not guarantee survival in the face of collapse, they are remarkably effective in facilitating the navigation of collapse.

What is more, every tribe, every community must develop skills for resolving conflict. Conflict will and should arise. Its absence is, in my opinion, a frightening red flag signaling glaring dysfunction and seething cauldrons of unspoken feelings and truths that need to be told. All indigenous cultures at their highpoints skillfully navigated conflict-in fact welcomed it as a barometer of their community's health. They also developed ever-more creative skills for addressing it compassionately and assertively.

So what actually happens in a circle? To begin answering that question it's important to understand that a community circle must be leaderless. Individuals may take turns facilitating them, but everyone in the group must be a leader. Facilitation simply means bringing up a topic or restating one that is already on the front burner and making sure that the group adheres to already-agreed-upon groundrules. Such groundrules include a commitment to stay in the group until the issue is resolved or until the group decides to take a break or decides to adjourn until a later time. For purposes of safety, everyone needs to agree to stay in the circle and not flee so that when someone is working on an issue with the group, they are not abandoned by anyone and know that space is being held for them by other group members. At all times, the group practices deep listening and compassionate truth-telling. When one person is speaking, the rest of the group listens attentively and stays present with the speaker. Likewise, when one speaks, one does so non-judgmentally using "I" statements, speaking as much as possible from a place of feeling rather than intellect or thinking. Perhaps most importantly, each person is accountable and takes responsibility for his/her part in whatever concerns or complaints he/she verbalizes. Deep listening and processing may involve other factors, but these are some of the most fundamental.

In facing collapse it is important to develop skills that will be useful in navigating it. We hear a great deal about learning permaculture, organic gardening, woodworking, composting, catching rainwater, and utilizing alternative energy sources, but the two skills without which communities cannot be created or sustained, deep listening and compassionate truthtelling, are rarely discussed.

As I have stated repeatedly, I do not know how collapse will play out. It may culminate in instantaneous nuclear annihilation, sudden economic devastation, or some other form of civilization plunging blatantly off a cliff. It may also unfold more slowly with consequences equally as dire. Therefore, it is important not to embrace the illusion that skills provide magic bullets of survival. Who knows who if any of us will survive no matter what we know or have experienced?

With every passing day it becomes clearer to me that as civilization continues to self-destruct, I need to discern how I prefer to spend my time and energy-and with whom. What I least want to do is mimic the culture of empire by rationally focusing on logistics and losing sight of humanity. I know that I cannot survive alone, and even if I have learned no skills whatsoever, I need my fellow earthlings in order to navigate collapse. Moreover, even if I have learned every skill imaginable, if I and my companions in collapse cannot deeply listen to each other and speak our truth with compassion, none of us will survive, and even if we did, an internally vacuous emotional domain would render survival nothing less than absurd.
 

Did you enjoy this article? Please bookmark it onto: