Newsletter Archive

In this issue of the Circling Guide Newsletter (a lot to cover here):

1. The Circling Federation is being formed!
2. Circling Guide, 2nd Edition release (please do me a favor and review it)
3. ART International and Circling Europe resume in-person courses
4. Join me at Level Up Circling Facilitation training
5. Authentic Relating, Intentional Community and Eco-Villages: a personal check-in
6. New connection entrepreneur networking group launches: VYVE

1. The Circling Federation is now formed

The Circling Federation, holding the newly awarded trademarks for Circling™ and Circling Method™, is now formed as an association between three major circling schools: The Circling Institute, Circling Europe, and Robert MacNaughton’s Integral Centered Leadership.

The trademark application was approved in April of 2020 and led to considerable controversy in the community. In the end and as a result of these discussions, the Circling Institute who requested the trademark agreed to transfer it to an association of the current major schools. Some of us think that this is a much better result than was originally proposed, and congruent with the idea of Circling as a partnership and collective emergence. It is possible going forward, however, that it will be necessary to pay royalty fees for running “Circling”, and/or that providers who are not graduates of the 3 founding schools will be barred entirely from using the brand name.

As a representative of the school of “cowboy circling” myself (meaning: let’s all go out and lead as best we can, humbly apologizing for the mistakes that all beginner leaders make), I wasn’t initially too happy with the change. However, it does seem fair that the 3 groups who worked hardest and longest to build up the Circling practice (Robert MacNaughton stepping in on behalf of the now-defunct Boulder Integral Center) would own the trademark. As such, I wish success to the new Federation, and hope that this will be a positive step for the Authentic Relating movement as a whole. To note that “Authentic Relating” will remain forever an open-source brand, and others are rebranding under “Relational Leadership” and similar words.

2. Circling Guide, 2nd Edition release (please do me a favor and review it)

I have released a 2nd Edition of the Circling Guide to print, Kindle and audiobook. It contains new chapters with significantly expanded content and contexts, including my attempt to place Circling within the currently exploding “we-space movement”, distinctions between Circling and NVC, between Circling and Authentic Relating, description of the modality we created called Developmental Circling (the name may need to change), updated sample leader formats, and more.

Can you do me a favor? If you liked the first edition, or else are able to skim the new edition, please review it on Amazon, as I lost all the reviews in the edition upgrade. Also, now that the Circling Guide is here to stay (it’s 3 years old after all), I want to do some marketing of it (oh, horrors!) and perhaps find a publisher. If you have any ideas about that, please reply to this mail.

3. ART International and Circling Europe resume in-person courses

ART International is offering in-person courses in  Copenhagen, Costa Rica and Boulder CO (details here). While Circling Europe is resuming in-person programs in Malmo and London (details here).

I continue to be amazed at the scope and vitality of ART and Circling Europe. Also, I took an ART Level 1 in January/February and it was fantastic. Highly recommended.

4. Join me at Level Up Circling Facilitation training!

I had a very good talk with the folks at Austin Circling Studio (who now run CircleAnywhere as well) about the Level Up Circling Training. To make a long story short, I was sold! For the price ($500/mth x 8) it’s an incredible value in terms of both personal guidance and group work. And you can apply for certification at the end! I intend to start as soon as I settle down from my travels (see below).

Maybe you want to join me? Circling is always more fun with your friends 🙂 .

5. Authentic Relating, Intentional Community and Eco-Villages: a personal check-in

I have always thought of residential intentional communities and eco-villages as the leading edge (“rubber hits the road”) of human culture. Well, I have finally surrendered to the inevitable and am starting a tour of intentional communities with the goal of finding one to settle down.

If you want to read more and/or follow my journeys there, you can subscribe to my Author blog. And if you are also passionate about bringing Authentic Relating into intentional communities and eco-villages, I am forming an interest group which may end up running Developmental Groups for free or cheap. If interested, subscribe to the Manifesting Community site.

6. New connection entrepreneur networking group launches: VYVE

In April I joined new network called VYVE, which is a kind of professional development network for connection entrepreneurs of all stripes, be they Authentic Relating, NVC, producers for parties or corporate events, dance DJ’s, professional educators, corporate consultants, and more. I think this group fulfills an important function, of providing support and connection for the facilitators, many of us being quite lonely ourselves (surprise, surprise). Jacques has put together an amazing group of global entrepreneurs and connection facilitators, and I recommend you read the vision (Note: it’s not necessary to pay for a subscription, there is a free option).

Jacques has an infectious enthusiasm, a great deal of energy and is an excellent writer. You will be hearing more about this, as the month I spent there really changed me (I will resume with VYVE when I settle down from my travels)

Community News & Events

CircleAnywhere, the world’s largest online Circling group which is now under management by Jordan Allen and the Austin Circling Studio, has a new high-level training / certification program called Level Up. Way to go, Jordan!

Peter Benjamin’s Connection Institute is also starting a new certification program, specifically targeted towards developing facilitators in European time zones, and is therefore very affordable. Their online platform is also growing, with 3 or more events per day now.

The Circling Institute has a beautiful new website and some great new free training, How to turn any conversation into a life-changing event and Courageous Conversations

There are several new online A/R groups (at least new to me — I will be adding them to the book and the website). Check out:

• Authentic Relating Go (Montreal, QC)
• Evolutionary Relating (Australia)
• Circling Cornwall (UK)
• Let’s Be Authentic (Philadelphia, PA)

Please let me know if I am missing anything important!

And finally, my own Developmental Circling offer has been very well received. All the events have been super-inspiring and there are two private circles forming in January. There will be one final intro event in January before the new circles start, on Saturday Jan. 9, 2pm EST.

It’s a great pleasure for me personally, by the way, to see more and more Circling and A/R training organizations starting to present A/R as a developmental practice. To the extent that emotional intelligence is, nowadays, the greatest predictor of success and happiness, it stands to reason. I find Jordan’s offer (above) especially eloquent on that topic.

From my two new blogs…

What to do during the endless days and hours of this last terrible year? Eat, watch TV and write blog posts! I have been pulling my weight there. Many of these are intensely personal, others are just for laughs or entertainment.

If you like, please comment and/or subscribe!

“You know you are a writer when”: writing and coffee addiction jokes
I am trying to locate an old joke but did not succeed. It goes something like (very roughly paraphrased): You haven’t slept for 24 hours. The room is spinning around you. You have enough caffeine in your blood to kill a horse. But you won’t stop what you are doing. […]

Marco’s 3 Noble Truths
[Note: this article is a continuation of How to talk to the voices inside your head]. The approach I am about to describe, attempts to make the very tricky balance between compassion (empathy) and wisdom (or discernment, accurate and sober self-perspective, ultimately emotional intelligence). I would call this approach, simply […]

How to talk to the voices inside your head
We all have them. For some of us, it’s a single insistent voice. For others its more of a cacophony of voices, rising and falling according to the flow of the day and whatever perceived “success”, or lack thereof, we are having in the moment. Some of the voices are […]

Best classic movies, documentaries and TV series of 2020
Despite the tragic scarcity of parties and the sad state of dating, there is some good news: I have noticed a sharp uptick in the quality of television this year. Here is a list of my lifetime favorites. I especially like documentaries, given my desire to learn something in the […]

The year 2020 in review (oy vey…)
I have been silent on this list for so long, I don’t even know where to start… so I will start at the end and go backwards. I left Asheville in October and hit the road in my new outfitted truck, named “Bubble”. How that came about is its own […]

Relational Leadership, Part 2: How I learned to be less of an asshole.
In part 1 of this article, What is Relational Leadership, I shared some ideas about the nature of emotional intelligence. In this part 2, I get more personal, of how I discovered the Authentic Relating movement and what happened to me there. It’s an embarrassing story. It’s quite a long […]

What is Relational Leadership? (some embarrassing reveals)
This is a very personal article, especially in part 2 where I speak of my own failings (you can skip to the juicy parts directly in Relational Leadership, Part 2: How I learned to be less of an asshole). I hope to illustrate my belief, that most of us learn […]

How to learn chess by playing your phone against your computer (with Arena and Stockfish)
I have discovered a new addiction (oy vey — just what I needed ): playing chess against my phone. But since I have no chance at all on a new game against my phone (I believe even phones play grandmaster level these days — yikes), what I do is […]