Storytelling Around a Circle of Light
“After a Circle experience, nothing around you has really changed, but the person who walks out of that space is a different one altogether, and that my friends, makes all the difference.”
Going Down
Today is Saturday, and I woke up in a down mood. Some would say that I shouldn’t feel this way because I am a volunteer at the Presencing Institute’s GAIA Journey. This work not only gives me meaning because I am doing something for the greater good, but it also allows me to breathe in air from a different atmosphere, to experience a different social field. But I am a human being living in Venezuela, and that is not an easy task. The country is in such bad shape that Covid-19 is not “the problem” as it is in the rest of the world. In Venezuela, it is just another problem on the pile of disruptions that make the lives of 30 million people miserable. As a result, the country’s social field is so poisonous that it is almost unbreathable. This week I went for another Inhale of inspiration for my soul, which I found, but the weight that the George Floyd affair had on the international social field, brought me down even more.
GAIA
The Presencing Institute’s GAIA Journey has weekly activities. The Inhale weeks have 7 virtual live sessions with special guests in 6 different languages. Together, they convene 7,000 people from all over the world. Everyone inhales inspiration in these sessions. The Exhale weeks are for reflection and acting locally on your change initiative. An element that is fundamental for reflection in the Exhale weeks is the Social Solidarity Circles, a weekly meeting of 5–6 people who convene in a modern version of the ancient circle tradition that originated 40,000 years ago when Homo Sapiens began telling stories around the fire.
The Circle
I arrived late to my weekly Circle reunion with my dearest friends from India, Mexico, and Venezuela. After I manifested my emotional condition to my friends, Laly began speaking about Martin Kalungu-Banda’s GAIA session. And then the magic began to happen. She narrated the amazing things that had happened to Martin’s life every time he trusted the decisions that he had made “from his heart and from down there just below the belly button”. Specifically, she told the story of how Martin had met and later had worked with the President of Zambia, and also when he had met his wife.
I was inspired by her story and suggested that each of us narrate one experience when we made a decision based on those “heart and belly” types of inspired hunches. Immediately Rhea suggested that the rest would mirror back to the narrator with images and feelings.
I told a story of a recent synchronistic event that spanned two continents and four countries. The rest mirrored my story with images of fireflies, Christmas trees, and worldwide invisible nets.
Yanitza explained to us about the Hara energetic principle, stated by Barbara Ann Brennan, that is behind our invisible connections when we communicate from the places that Martin was speaking about. She showed a picture of that connection that left us flabbergasted. It looked like an energetic scan of our group, nothing less, and then she shared Barbara’s book “Light Emerging”.
When I saw the picture, I remembered Laly’s comment about the invisible net, which brought to my mind a story from India about the goddess Indra, whose infinite net has jewels in each node. Rhea corrected me, saying that Indra is a god, not a goddess. She also mentioned that those jewels are so polished that one can see all the other jewels in the reflection of a single one, a metaphor for the interconnectedness of the universe. She shared the origin of the story and how that metaphor had permeated and became one of the fundamentals of modern Hinduism.
Biren spoke next and said that Indra was part of his name, and mentioned that what one’s consciousness sends and what the other person’s consciousness receives comes from the universe, not from the individual person. He also shared that many people believed that he was crazy because all his life he had acted in connection with the inspirations that came from his gut and heart, and he stated that he didn’t care about what other people believed or said about him.
Cultural Injustice
He then told us a story about his wanderings through the small villages in the mountains of northern India. Upon entering a village he found a girl and a boy of about the same age. He stopped and spoke to them, and found out that the boy spoke perfect English and the girl didn’t. He was surprised and asked them why. The boy explained that he had received the benefit of an education and the girl did not. He asked why again and they told him that girls were not allowed to have an education. He was astonished and found out that it was a cultural behavior that replicated in every other village. Following an impulse, he began making calls, explaining that act of discrimination to everyone who cared to listen. One month later he had built a movement that began to bring awareness to the cultural injustice that the village girls suffered.
The thought came to me that we were capable of producing miracles. Another thought followed. We are gods in service of the greater good, and we have the capability of knowing our role in the complex web of the universe if we tune in to its intention. Laly said that the instant that we get that inspiration we must act, otherwise, the opportunity is lost forever, so we need to act while in the gap.
Changing the World from the Gap
That thought of the gap reminded me of another reflection by Martin Kalungu-Banda that had penetrated deep into my heart. Martin spoke about the meeting that he had with John Carlin, author of the book Invictus. On that occasion, Martin explained to Carlin what the U process was. Carlin share that he knew why the dot at the bottom of the U divided the arrow and the U process in two, preventing it from being a continuous process.
Martin was intrigued by that statement, and Carlin mentioned to him that he had been in the same room with Nelson Mandela when Mr. Mandela received the news that Chris Hani, his great friend, and political son, had been assassinated. Martin quoted Carlin “When the news broke, Mr. Mandela became like a statue, it was like he was not breathing, just stood there, motionless, sphinx-like for about 5 minutes, then he said, I need to address the South African people”. On that occasion, he gave the six minutes speech that saved South Africa from self-destruction. Carlin also said to Martin,
“When leaders function by getting into the gap and are confronted with disruption, they stand a good chance of picking something that the future needs in order to create future possibilities”
Sadly, our circle meeting came to an end sooner than all of us expected. So, we said goodbye until next week.
The Personification of Presence
I have been in that gap, not reacting in a continuous process of stimulus — reaction. Coming from the gap, our actions are not our own. Our actions are guided by something greater than the person. At that moment we behave in a godlike manner, far from the reaction of any ordinary human being.
When you deep dive into the gap and co-habitate a space of Presence with a group of people, the whole group gets a different perspective on life. After a Circle experience, nothing around you has really changed, but the person who walks out of that space is a different one altogether, and that my friends, makes all the difference because, at that moment, that person is the personification of Presence.
