During my trip to San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, we gathered on a rooftop and got down to business. “We” — a diverse group of women from as far north as Canada, as far south as Australia, and many geographic locations in-between. Within our sacred circle each voice was heard and celebrated for the wisdom it carried.
Whether we connect in person or virtually online, when women gather on the rim — in sacred circles — we birth energetic patterns that change the way we think, the way we work, and the way we experience community.
With a mindset of unleashed, unlimited, potential and possibility, when women gather on the rim we tear down geographic boundaries and break through the seeming limitations of culture, socio-economics, religion, age, language, academics, politics, and diverse interests.
A form of sacred geometry, the circle is an ancient universal symbol that signifies no beginning and no end. When women gather on the rim we share experience, strength, and hope; we share recovery, discovery, and empowerment.
As peacekeepers and healers, the sisterhood of women transcends space and time. When women gather on the rim we form a sacred container for women’s wisdom; we collaborate and co-create visions; we change history by creating a roadmap for tomorrow.
“The answers we seek lie within the inner most circle — the sacred circles of women.” — Grandmother Threecrow
When was the last time you gathered on the rim?
“Whatever you are not changing, you are choosing.”
— Laurie Buchanan
Discovering the Seven Selves Life Harmony Facebook
© 2012 Laurie Buchanan – All Rights Reserved
Tuesdays with Laurie 
How beautiful! I love that picture of the hands joining together. When have I gathered on the rim? Right now, here, in this amazing cyberworld. Holding your hand now, Laurie, and all those who share themselves.
Kathy – Holding yours right back 🙂
Love this post, Laurie. Thank you 🙂
Linda – I’m glad you enjoyed it 🙂
I gathered on the rim yesterday with some really wonderful women here in San Miguel organizing for the Walk Against Violence in January to benefit CASA’s domestic violence program.
Trish – And after having viewed the amazing work that CASA does, I’m thrilled for the walk you’re organizing and I hope you raise both money and awareness.
The first thing I must say in answer to this post is YES! Thank you for the wisedom of your words.
To answer,
When I gathered with a circle of women authors during a writers’ retreat organized by the Federation of BC Writers’. We meet at Rivendell Lodge on Bowen Island, British Columbia, Canada. Rivendell is a special place that I know you’d love to visit Laurie.
Leanne – The name alone — Rivendell — conjures up all kinds of mystical and magical thoughts!
Precious, Laurie! Thank you! I had a circle of women for years doing journal writing. Indeed there is the sacred in the midst of the circle of women. I miss it. The closest I come these days is through you and several other bloggers I feel so connected to. Feel so blessed to “know” you!
Hugs
SuZen
SuZen – Like you, I’m so glad to “know” many women through our “online circles.” It seems that our online gatherings are just as important and positively impactful.
Our spiritual community sits in a circle each week and my prayer/ peace group gathers on the rim each month and yearly the women’s wisdom circle gathers at the waters edge – there is so much power and energy – it is good and wise
Thank you for sharing
Patricia – “…gathers at the waters.” Oh, that sounds just lovely.
Laurie… One word: WOW. This was so, so beautiful and so true. The power of women is not to be underestimated!
Melissa – I’m so glad for your visit and comment today, thank you 🙂
There is certainly power in a circle setting; especially a circle of women. I thank you for the imagery and the experience sharing. I also agree with your comment SuZen … we are sitting in a circle of wise women here in this cyber space and yet so connected … spirits moving quickly back and forth; through our finger tips as we type energy is sent. I’ve been sitting since I heard the news of the Bangladesh Factory Fire with unrest. I am disturbed by the repeated story; in the US 1911 Shirtwaist Factory Fire so many women trapped in the fire storm by locked doors and unsafe conditions and killed or scarred from burns or broken from jumping out of windows. Over 100 years later women (and men) trapped by locked doors in Bangladesh working in unsafe conditions killed/scarred or injured. All so we here can wear low cost clothing and corporations can gain a few additional percents of profit. Can I ask you, women of this circle, to send healing energy out to those who might need it.? Those who now are grieving the loss of their mother, sister, friend. Can we all think of one action we might take in the face of this repeated lesson. Thank you for your presence.
Audrey – Thank you for the gift of your reflection today. Thank you, too, for making a need known so the rest of us can hold HeartLight (sacred space) for it.
Thank you Laurie. I so appreciate the gift of knowing you and others present here may hold in HeartLight (sacred space) the women (men) who suffered and or died in the Bangladesh Factory Fire and their families making clothes for U.S. corporations. This news hit me deeply (I don’t even fully understand why) … likely in part because of my past advocacy for women’s rights. And, more and more, the greed rampant in some sectors of our company. Knowing we can hold sacred space together helps me to direct my energy in a healing way. When I “sit” tomorrow, I will “sit” with our shared sacred energy. Blessings.
Audrey – I hope you know just how truly special of a person you are. You have one of the sweetest spirits I know.
Laurie, thank you for sharing about your grand trip San Miguel de Allende and your joyful question. I am blessed to have many women who complete various personal and professional circles in my life. However, the smallest is a woman’s circle of 2, which I treasure the most. It is the circle of love, safety, trust, encouragement, friendship and family for 50 years that I share with my college room mate, Michelle Bracken.
Sheila – It sounds like both you and Michelle landed right side up when you got each other for college roommates. Clearly your friendship has stood the test of time.
Wonderful! I feel the power of gathering on the rim every day when connecting with women like you through cyberspace. What a gift!
Dorothy – I have “met” so many wonderful women online, only to discover that our collective energy is just as powerful through cyberspace as it is in person 🙂
Dear Laurie,
Here is me so enjoying your trip in San Miguel.
Thanks for your connect of the gathering on the rim.
Jody – I’m so glad you enjoyed this post, thank you for letting me know.
How lovely, Laurie. Like so many others have said here, I experience this circle online in my blogging community. What a caring, supportive group of women–and a few men. Thanks so much!
Hugs,
Kathy
Kathy M. – Like you, I find tremendous value in global, online communities. In a matter of minutes I can connect (really connect) with like-minded people in Canada, then Scotland, then Africa, then India, then Mexico, then…..
I love this article Laurie….you are truly a gift to us all. The power of a circle is amazingly sacred and the power of women is not to be underestimated! Sending love to all.
Sherry – It’s so good to see you here. Thank you for visiting and leaving a comment 🙂
Laurie, once again I marvel at your perception! Here we are on the Rim, or even on the edge of a new/old/new again circle of women’s understanding of themselves and others. I would list the positive qualities that women seem to possess that men do not but that would seem to be taking a poke at men which it not my intention. We are in a New Age of learning, communications, and willingness to go higher and farther than has ever been possible before. The time of isolation in homes, under the guidance of our menfolk has been eroding as we have learned to speak our own thoughts, gain an education, to be active politically and economically. To connect with each other on the Internet, through social activities and groups designed to bring women together, have made us more aware of the challenges yet to be addressed. That’s great! We’ve learned that our voices together can produce a mighty sound, capable of being heard through out the World and effecting change, and all of this in my lifetime. We’ve learn to stand together and walk together, it’s been a long, hard road, and farther yet to travel. We can do this.
Sandi – “… our voices together can produce a mighty sound…” Thank you for the gift of your reflection. We do, indeed, have the power to effect change that is positive, uplifting, constructive, and healing.
A beautiful post – it warms my heart and brings back memories. I think my rim is in a friendship of 50 years, carried on now across the width of this country but always, always, I feel her connection.
Carol – A 50-year friendship is a tremendous gift; a blessing, indeed.
Your post made me realize, I’ve been out on the cliff instead of on the rim. Perhaps I should reel it in a little!
Siegrid – Your lovely comment induced a great big smile on my face 🙂 thank you!
Hi, Laurie – Your trip sounds like it was wonderful. I think I must gather on the rim physically whenever I am in a drumming circle (I try to join one at least once a month) and then, of course, virtually in my spiritual groups online, on my blogs, and through e-mails. There is something very powerful about connection among women and I think that we are just waking up to just how powerful we can be.
Barbara K. – As a fellow drummer (https://holessence.wordpress.com/2010/10/16/my-bodhran-–-love-at-first-sound/), I know the inherent power of the frequency produced by drumming circles makes. yes, Yes, YES!
Thank you for sharing about your trip San Miguel de Allende and gathering on the rim. This sacred circle has now extended itself to us and with each thread we weave in your blogs, the circles take on a life of their own each day. My experience is on line with a circle from the heart giving thanks to mother earth and all of her blessings each day. It’s very real to me that on-line connection spiritually will be the power and energy needed as a tipping point to make a better world. Thanks for facilitating that here too.
Kathy S. – I love your observation about the tipping point. Well said. Very well said, indeed.
Grandmother Threecrow’s words about the sacred circles of women are truly wise. I also feel the strength of these circles online in the blogging communities I feel a part of. The sisterhood of women definitely transcends, as you say, space and time, and cyberspace, too.
Barbara R. – Grandmother Threecrow is, indeed, a woman of wisdom. In case you’d like to learn more about her, here’s a link to her website: http://www.barbarathreecrow.com/barbara.shtml
Thank you for the link to her website, Laurie. Delighted to discover that Grandmother Threecrow’s given name is Barbara, too!
The warmth and teamwork shines through this beautiful post report Laurie! I was on the rim during the recent hurricane in the NYC area, when I help to manage and coordinate the relief efforts locally, standing as a coordinator at the charging station in the cafeteria of one of our schools here. Hundreds of residents came to charge their cell phones, and shared all the difficulties they had an continued to have days later. It certainly was a time when people were on this best and most inspiring behavior.
Sam – Oh my gosh, to have been gathered on the rim during Hurricane Sandy must have been beyond eye opening on a number of levels. My hat is off to you!
Changing history by creating a roadmap for tomorrow. How beautiful that sounds. There is hope for a better future with women like you out there.
I am so encouraged by your consistent contribution towards a better tomorrow.
With you and the others, we have hope for improvement and we are both glad and confident.
Keep up the good work!
I remember when we had a Grandmother’s Circle in the old Zaadz community. I thought it was a wonderful idea but it really never accomplished its potential. There is a special quality that women gathered together exhibit; yet, these days i believe that the Sacred Circle really ought to have no gender focus. I believe the world cannot be truly made “better” until both men and women cooperate in that desire for every being to be provided with the most basic needs we each have; and then a little more – at the least.
Deb – I think men are amazing; I’ve been married to the same outstanding guy for 33 years 🙂 And you’re absolutely right – it takes both yin and yang: masculine and feminine energy; solar and lunar energy; projecting and receiving energy. My last four posts, however, have been highlighting my experience in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, and while there I was part of a women’s circle, hence that particular focus. I hope to craft a post featuring men in the near future.
Love this post, Laurie! (And cheers to us women!)
Anne – I’m glad you enjoyed this post, thank you for letting me know.
Wonderful Laurie. Most recently the gathering of women was with my mother, my sister and my daughter for a long walk on the Stuart River in September. A powerful and memorable experience.
Terrill – If I’m not mistaken, you shared a few lovely photographs on your blog of that very walk.
Agree with you there Deb.
Ted – As do I (but in this particular post I was highlighting my San Miguel de Allende experience in a women’s circle)
When women gather on the rim we share experience, strength, and hope; we share recovery, discovery, and empowerment……i love this and it is exactly what I do with all my ‘women folk’ and have needed to a lot lately.
Andrea – I’m so glad this post resonated with you 🙂
It has been a while since I participated in a Sharing Circle. I miss the friendship and closeness of the nations with which I communed. It is a truly spiritual experience. Thanks for sharing yours. 🙂
Mywithershins – I’m glad this post resonated with you, thank you for letting me know.
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Readers – After reading Sam Juliano’s review, I’ve added “A Royal Affair” to our must-see movie list this holiday season. Here’s a link to his Morning Morning Diary (December 3):http://wondersinthedark.wordpress.com/2012/12/03/a-royal-affair-hitchcock-samsara-killing-them-softly-and-mea-maxima-culpa-silence-in-the-house-of-god-on-monday-morning-diary-december-3/
I used to work at a wonderful women’s health organization in Alberta. That’s the last time I *officially* gathered on the rim, but I sneak a few steps on the rim every now and again in my everyday life, too. Wonderful post, Laurie!
Dana – It’s always good to sneak in a few rim steps 🙂
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This is a most awesome post, Laurie. And it is precisely what I have experienced since joining Zaadz back in January 2007. Since then through its various permutations and amongst our scattered seeds on Facebook (a scattering out as it was envisioned from the first) there is a community of women whose presence in my own life has been a blessing. You are one of those and it is my hope that I am one too. All these traits of women that you acknowledge in this blog are what I have found myself as well. Thank goodness women are some part of all that is this Earth !!
Debt — It’s such an honor to be in your sphere of influence.