The Sharing Circle

- Richard Wagamese
There’s a circle of stones in our front yard. The dog and I gathered them one day in the
old pickup and brought them here from an area near a remote lake higher up the mountains.
The stones are of various types and textures, and they form the rim of a garden I planted.
Within the garden are plants, flowers, and grasses suited to the arid heat. As summer
edges into fall, they’re tall and thick and colourful. The display draws hummingbirds, bees and
butterflies. It’s a magnificent circle of life, and it took tending to get it this far.
My people say that all things form a circle. Life is a circle that moves from the
innocence of childhood and back to it again, in the quiet wisdom of elderhood. The energy we
call Great Spirit moves in a great unseen circle around us. That's why the bowl of a ceremonial
pipe, a sweat lodge, and a Medicine Wheel are round. The circle, they say, is the model of the
universe.
In my late forties I lived in a condo in Burnaby, British Columbia, amid the sharp angles
of the metropolis. How isolated the geometry of the modern world makes us all. There’s
rigidity to straight lines, and when you live within them long enough you can’t help but be
affected.
I spoke to the pastor of a downtown church about it. It was a United Church called the
Longhouse Ministry that ministered to urban native people and others who were marginalized.
I expressed my concern that we weren’t speaking to each other any more. I told him about a
simple ceremony I’d been instructed in a long time before.
It’s called a Sharing Circle. It’s open to everyone, a safe place to gather, to speak and be
heard. It’s a place of prayer and ritual guided by ancient spiritual protocols aimed at creating
harmony. In the Sharing Circle, we can share about our common human experience, its joys
and sorrows, and offer the power of our words and emotions to each other. The pastor and I
agreed that the community could benefit from something like that.
We put up posters and gave out pamphlets for a few weeks before the first gathering. I
described the circle to organizations over the telephone. I emailed, faxed and visited in person.
When the night of the first circle arrived, my woman and I were anxious. We didn’t know what
to expect.
It was a rainy night, cold, on the cusp of winter. We arrived a half hour early, and as I’d
been instructed, I smudged the area with sacred medicines, said a prayer and centred myself on
the push of positive energy. We wanted desperately to share the hope we felt, the strength
we’d both found in the traditional teachings of my people and the vision of harmony we held
for the planet.
 When people began to arrive, we were amazed. They were a glorious conglomeration.
There were urban native people, dispossessed of their cultures and traditions. Along with them
came a university professor, a carpenter, a school teacher, a working single mother, a
grandmother and a businessman. All of them gathered shyly in that circle, silent, maybe
skeptical and afraid.
We sat in candlelight. When the ceremony started and a prayer was said, you could feel
everyone relax. Taking up a hand drum, I explained the nature of our circle. I told them that
the guiding principle was equality. We were all brothers and sisters, all looking for a linchpin, a
way to focus our lives. Then I sang a prayer song.
What followed stays with me still. I explained how the ceremony was created to allow
every voice the opportunity to be heard. The circle was a sacred space for every hurt, every joy
to find expression, I said. It was a teaching way to show us how similar we are, how joined.
Then I passed around an eagle-wing fan, and each person had a chance to share.
We heard stories of pain. We heard of struggle. We heard of confusion and doubt and
unknowing. Some people spoke of gratitude, their relief at finding a place where unspoken
things could be surrendered. As the talk continued, the sounds of the city disappeared, even
though we were half a block away from a major thoroughfare. We sat in deep communal
silence to listen to each other. When the ceremony ended with a final drum song, a prayer and
hugs all around, not a single person wanted to leave.
We carried on that simple ceremony for the better part of three years. Every time it
was the same. The energy of the people, their desire for talk, for connection, for harmony,
created a magnificent spiritual sense we all carried away. We learned that no one of us is every
far away from others, that we all carry the same baggage in life, that when we allow ourselves
to hear each other, we are joined forever.
Everyone has a story. That’s what the circle teaches us. We become better people, a
better species, when we take the time to hear them. That’s how you change the world, really.
One story, one voice at a time.
 The Sharing Circle
Big Ideas:
Using examples from the text, explain the importance of the circle in Indigenous culture.
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Elements of Style:

a) Throughout the text, Sharing Circle and Medicine Wheel are capitalized. Suggest why.
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b) Explain the metaphor, “we call carry the small baggage in life”.
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c) Explore the statement, “Everyone has a story.” How does this connect to the larger ideas of
the circle?
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Connect!

Think about your own experiences. Choose one experience from your own life that was painful
and write about it here. Use everyday, casual language - write it like you would say it sitting in
a healing circle.

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