Opening Circle and Check-In

Explorations in Ecology for Children and Their Adults: Transformational Adventures for All of Us

Note: For now, this blog is a serialization of a book titled Field Trips for All of Us: Exploration in Ecology for Children and Their Adults. This series of posts starts here.

Introduction

I like to start adventures with others sitting in circle and checking in with ourselves and each other. This ritual helps orient us as we find out what we are all bringing to our time together and what we’d like to do with that time. A former participant in one of our classes recently visited. He had two requests: to see what was happening in our worm bin and to sit in a circle and do check-in! My sister, Susan Birns, an anthropologist and wise soul says, “I think more and more that checking in is the most important thing people do in most relationships!”

Activity

I usually start circle by asking if anyone wants to facilitate. If no one else is interested in facilitating, I take on that role. The facilitator’s initial task is to ask who wants to go first. If no one wants to go first, I start. If one person wants to start, they do and then I ask if anyone cares which way we go around the circle. If several people want to start, the facilitator picks someone to start, and the direction around the circle we go trying to meet as many participants’ wants as possible.

After we establish the order we are going to use to go around the circle, the first person starts. The prompts we use are:

• How are you feeling: ____________________

• What are you grateful for: ____________________

• What requests of the group do you have: ____________________

• What requests of the universe do you have: ____________________

This set of prompts has evolved over the years as has our explanation of why this ritual is important. 

Using an object passed from speaker to speaker helps keep the group focused on listening to the speaker and is a great fidget for the nerves.

I often remind participants in circle that our role when we are not speaking is to practice our deep listening skills; listen to ask questions, relate to the subject, or look at the non-verbal messages. The one exception to this is our general “Shout out if you see something interesting!” agreement.

I often express gratitude about getting to spend time with the group in the forest and this gratitude is often echoed by other group members. Requesting things from others is an integral part of forming mutualistic relationships with others. And requests of the universe provide an excellent opportunity for all of us to learn about each other’s wants and for group facilitators to model caring about each other and the Earth. My request of the universe is usually something like, “I hope that more and more people realize that caring for each other and the Earth is our best choice.”

Working out what we’re going to do based on my and other participants’ requests from the group gives us all the opportunity to improve our shared decision-making skills. We’ll usually take some time at the end of check-in to figure out how to put our wants and needs together.

When I’m working with a group participating in recurring sessions I like to take several opportunities to talk about why we do check-in. In addition to talking about check-in as relationship building, I also talk about check-in as a tool to help our time together feel more like being in a forest and less like being in a factory. My explanation goes like this: In factories, the timing of almost all activity is based on a fixed predetermined schedule. The Greeks called this kind of time Chronos, meaning clock time. In forests, the flow of activity emerges as individuals seek to meet their needs and respond to what they bump into along the way. A lizard pounces on an ant not because of clock time, but because the time is right. From the opportune time to shoot an arrow to time to take the soup off the heat; the Greeks called this type of time, Kairos. I go on to explain that many of us spend much of our time following schedules and that whenever possible, I like to bring more Kairos into my life by following a responsive schedule.

Background

In the Interaction Game field trip, we introduce the idea of an interaction. I think of an interaction as a one-time exchange between two entities; An acorn woodpecker retrieves an acorn from a hole in a ponderosa tree. Interactions between living beings and between living beings and their environments are not isolated occurrences. Most, if not all, happen as part of an ongoing dance of interdependence. This dance includes many sustained relationships between individuals and species. Our woodpecker is part of a social group that uses specific trees as their granaries to store food. Woodpeckers in a social group have repeated interactions with each other and with specific trees over generations. As we’re using the word here, a relationship is a series of interactions over time. We can say that a social group of acorn woodpeckers have relationships with each other and with specific trees.

Relationships with each other are not only crucial to woodpeckers. Our relationships with other members of our species play a major role in the lives of us humans as well as the lives of other animals. Other field trips (Looking for Mutualistic Relationships in Nature, Using Mutualistic Relationships in Gardens, and Exploring Mutualistic Relationships in the Rhizosphere) explore specific kinds of relationships, specifically, those that are mutually beneficial to all participants in the relationship.

We believe that mutualistic relationships with ourselves, each other, and the Earth are all central to personal, community, and planetary well-being. Check-in is a powerful context for developing all three of these kinds of mutualistic relationships. All four check-in questions give us all a chance to pay attention to and relate to ourselves. The practice of listening to others express their feelings, gratitude, and requests gives all of us a chance to practice deep listening and understanding. This is a central aspect of forming deep relationships with others, ourselves, and our planet. We learn what our natural cycles are and what is normal for us in a forest system. Reflecting and understanding our own needs and wants allows us to experiment with our reactions, emotions, and feelings.

Suggestions for Educating Like a Forrest

In a factory system, a schedule tells us where to be and when, while the job description tells us our purpose. There is little to no room for creativity, let alone experimentation with others within the same system as you. We can discover our natural nature with each other in the forest, instead of our internalizations of the expectations put upon us by efficiency and profit.

Sharing how we feel, what we’re grateful for, what we’d like from each other, and what we wish for from the universe brings those things to the forefront and helps us improvise our flow of activity based on each of our inner nature and the rest of the natural world around us.