Circle Council Practice #4 - 8th November

This time we forgot to agree on a scribe, so, today, on the eve of session #5, we have nothing written up of our 4th session!

Well, lets make a valiant effort to remember what was two weeks ago.

Present were Anneruth, Betty, Bill, Charlie, Dazey, Rona and Sue, with apologies from Evie (who urgently needs childcare!) and Iain.

Setting the centre:
Bill brought a Mayan frog (well, one made out of metal!) to honour what had value to them and his connection with Nicaragua. Charlie brought a crystal he uses to cleanse water. Rona brought fruits of the earth, Sue a little tiny booklet called the name of which I have forgotten, but it's one sentence sayings referred to simplicity and small is beautiful, and I brought a handmade glass pendant I got given in Germany that week - and as I have a picture of that I add it here

As celebratory opening of Circle we went round reading each one reading one page/sentence of the pearls of simplicity of Sues little book.
To welcome Charlie back and Betty anew, we went slowly over the agreements.

As Dazey had not managed to prepare his reading and as Iain had not managed to come in this time, I had to step in and take us through the two 'host-less' sections, second part of the intro which was still outstanding and Ch. 1. I did not find it easy hosting because a) I was not fully prepared to do the hosting and b) our chosen method of studying is different from last term (where we read aloud page by page of the chosen texts) and most folks had not read the chapters yet in depth.
To get more hard copy texts was an issue identified, and action is being taken.

Intro core points:

• To welcome the very personal nature of the book, esp the beginning of it. Louis shared his personal journey, and his unique way of seeing, finding and relating to universal truths underpinning a sane economy.
• moving from fear to love in our relationship with money. For Louis those 2 are fundamental 'rightful' forces of human nature influencing our choices in life and in economy - fear disables, love enables caring for everything. That outcome was felt to make sense, but the notion of the two being 'rightful' was being questioned: "How can it be 'rightful' to have fear?" (what does he mean, really?)
• Louis Plan of Action: the wish to start a platform of conversation on Dare to Care and people working together: question arose where was the 'platform' - how active is it, and how does it work to join in if one is not online sort of person? 

Ch #1 Core points:

quote from p3:

MY INTENTION

I am writing this bookwith the intention for all humanityto see and dream a visionof a new economic foundationand be able to implement it.I believe that our need for vision is deepand I want to make my contribution toward itby sharing insights and revelations I received over the yearsin my search for an answer to the question: How we can resolve our financial and economic issues andestablish peace on Earth?

• introducing the notion of stage 1, the 'Garden' section of the book: we are curious to learn over the weeks to come why Louis introduces this notion, dream or vision. Are we to 'revert' to a paradisaical state? But we are living in cities now,  most of mankind? 
• stage 2: 'a love based economy', an intellectual and emotional inner structure as foundation for new culture. Good idea. But how could that be realised when glitz and glamour tempts people at every corner and traps them, what ever their money supply (eg also the so-called poor)? The hugeness of the brainwash all societies are living in was felt ... 
• part 3: "A Care First World"  a portal stage/phase where Care-First as a measure opens the gate to the Garden made manifest? Sounds easy, but as not knowing what the balanced wellbeing of each being (hnman or non human) intrinsically means - how can we make choices, alone and together?

All in all, the reflections on the readings so far was mainly critical and curious as what Louis sees the way forward is for a complex and rather fundamental process of structural transformation of society!

It was decided to ask Louis to come at a later session (not the next one on the 22nd as original thought) so we have had more time to read and reflect on his book before he comes.

Homework:

reading the next 3 chapters

Bill to host Ch #2

Charlie & Iain Ch  #3

Rona & Dazey Ch # 4

and we see how far we get on with it all in 2 weeks on the 22nd of November

Rona and Sue will via ALP further investigate child care possibilities for Evie

Circle council practise number 3 Thurs 25th October.

Write up by Sue - from memory:

Well, our start time was a little earlier than last time so we are moving in the right direction !  It was good to welcome Rona to the group and Evie’s son was a welcome visitor. We appreciated that Bill came despite little sleep.

We reviewed the agreements in the circle and all noted them to increase our ownership of them.

Ruth again prepared for the centre, so it would still be good if the rest of us put thought into bringing something to it.

I read my poem ‘It’s Criminal’ and felt the circle was an appropriate and  sufficiently supportive group to read it to for the first time. I appreciate the comments that people made.

We all talked about our recollections of the previous discussion of the book.

The Introduction (pt 1)

Ruth invited us to talk about our own personal relationship to money, which we did. Louis is highlighting concepts which are not new. There was a general agreement that it is the intention behind the use of money that is important.  

There was discussion about companies that use sustainability as a marketing ploy and fail to live up to the principles of a love economy.

The personal journey

Gave opinions about whether the love economy principles are likely to ripple out from a local to a global institutional level. Heart –warming examples were given on a local level and there was discussion about how doubting the ripple  effect can feed into creating failure/self-fulfilling prophecies.

There was discussion about the language in which the book is written, and the personal spiritual experience which informed the direction of his theories. We agreed that we could read for the content regardless of feelings which the language may evoke, and talked about what->

Next

We agreed to continue discussion of our reading next week.  Louis will come to the  following meeting and we thought that we may want to invite him back again later when we are further through the book.

When hosting a chapter we agreed to invite people to think about .

1.     What facts have you learned?
2.    What are your feelings about this chapter?
3.   What action might you take as a result?

Hosts for next session on the 8^th of November – as far as we remember right now – were to be:

Intro revisited            Iain or Ruth?

Chapter 1                  Christopher

Ch. 2                          Bill

Ch. 3                          Evie

Ch. 4                          Rona

In general: we wish to progress a bit faster now through the chapters, to get ready for Louis!