Product Description

The original small-press edition of Calling the Circle has become one of the key resources for the rapidly-growing "circle" movement. This newly revised edition brings Christina Baldwin's groundbreaking work to an even broader audience ranging from women's spirituality groups to corporate development teams.

50,000 years ago, women and men gathered around campfires to decide the key issues in their lives. Today, groups everywhere are discovering a new form of this ancient ritual for communication, mutual support, teamwork, and social change. Now, in a book as consciousness-changing as Riane Eisler's The Chalice and the Blade or Peter Senge's The Fifth Discipline, Christina Baldwin offers this powerful new tool to everyone who longs for a community based on honesty, equality, and spiritual integrity.

In this simple, profound practice, participants sit in a circle, pass a talking piece from person to person, and speak and listen from the heart. Christina Baldwin gives detailed instructions and suggestions for getting started, setting goals, and solving disagreements safely and respectfully. She also offers inspiring examples of circles in action: a women's spirituality group, a father and son in crisis, a PTA group that averts a school strike and a work project team that accesses a new level of creativity and caring.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #71785 in Books
• Published on: 1998-03-02
• Released on: 1998-03-02
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

From the Inside Flap
The original small-press edition of Calling the Circle has become one of the key resources for the rapidly-growing "circle" movement. This newly revised edition brings Christina Baldwin's groundbreaking work to an even broader audience ranging from women's spirituality groups to corporate development teams.

50,000 years ago, women and men gathered around campfires to decide the key issues in their lives. Today, groups everywhere are discovering a new form of this ancient ritual for communication, mutual support, teamwork, and social change. Now, in a book as consciousness-changing as Riane Eisler's The Chalice and the Blade or Peter Senge's The Fifth Discipline, Christina Baldwin offers this powerful new tool to everyone who longs for a community based on honesty, equality, and spiritual integrity.

In this simple, profound practice, participants sit in a circle, pass a talking piece from person to person, and speak and listen from the heart. Christina Baldwin gives detailed instructions and suggestions for getting started, setting goals, and solving disagreements safely and respectfully. She also offers inspiring examples of circles in action: a women's spirituality group, a father and son in crisis, a PTA group that averts a school strike and a work project team that accesses a new level of creativity and caring.

About the Author
Christina Baldwin is the author of Calling the Circle, Seven Whispers, and most recently Storycatcher, which won a 2006 Books for a Better Life Award. She teaches and lectures extensively through her educational company, PeerSpirit. She lives outside Seattle, Washington, on Whidbey Island.

Customer Reviews

Circles for Business, Home or Community
Baldwin's book provides easy to follow guidelines on how to use circle methodology in a variety of settings. You can do some of the pieces or all of the pieces and they apply in multiple settings. I often facilitiate meetings with clients and found Calling the Circle to be one of the most valuable tools I have for taking a group beyond the flip chart and multi-voting.

a book whose time has come
This book has been waiting for us to get ready to do something really different-- speak honestly and heartfully and listen compassionately. I've been looking for some way to help elicit the level of conversation that is missing all around us, and calling the circle is an essential tool that needs to come back into the mainstream. Baldwin's book is not the only one out there, but it's a classic, and when you look at her website she's been walking her talk a long time...PeerSpirit is what she calls her circle methodology-- it's highly adaptable. Try this at home. Then try it at work. Then try it in your neighborhood. We will surprise each other with who we really are!

What the world needs now!
This is a book for our times. Christina provides a much needed paradigm - a new container within which human interaction can happen in a spirit of respect and tolerance. It is an important answer for anyone who has ever wondered how to be a peace maker in their own lives and in the world. I have used what Christina teaches, and it enhances every interaction all the way from talks with my spouse to large organizational meetings. It is useful at every level of life. It is beautifully written, and it leaves you with highly useful tools in your hand and hope in your heart.