This Circle of Women

There is something extraordinary about a circle, that round shape, reminiscent of beachballs and donuts, of round pudgy babies, wedding rings, and the circle of a hug. The circle creates a space with no beginning and no end -- infinite connection.

Children play games in circles -- like marbles and The Hokey Pokey. Hunters circle the area for game. Teenagers and football players huddle in tight exclusive circles while ancient men circled the Round Table to confer and conspire.

When women come together, for whatever reason, they create a circle. And inside that women's circle lives the myster and magic not of the hot fiery sun, but of the cool mystical moon. A sense of timelessness, safety, and strength permeates the space. No one enters without feeling it and no one leaves without feeling its loss.

As I meet week after week with my women's group, I am struck by how easily we fit together on the couch, the floor, on chairs; always in a circle and close enough to reach out and touch hands, creating the energetic boundary that will contain us for these few hours. For these few hours, no children will need us, no husbands or significant others will call us, no bosses will demand of us. For a few hours in time we disappear to everyone but ourselves.

I drink in the wisdom and experience of the grandmothers as they speak of their children, grandchildren, and a different time and way of being. I cherish the presence of the mothers, speaking of gently nurturing long-awaited children. I savor the friendship of those who, born within a few years of each other, are bonded by a common generation and struggle with the approaching Crone. We are married, divorced, and single; mothers, grandmothers, and childless; homemakers, business women, educators and therapists.

Sitting in this container, it is as if I am sitting with every woman who has ever gathered in this way around the hearth, the fire, or the kitchen table. The women's circle is a place of connection. It is a place where souls, escaping from the girdle of expectations, can expand and flourish. We escape from everything but ourselves, for the circle itself is a mirror reflecting back to us the truth of who we are. It is a place where all voices are welcome and all voices can be heard.

I sit listening, our voices rising above the din and clatter of our car's engines, our children's needs, our radios, televisions and CD's. They rise above the chatter of the office, the grocery store, the family. We sing our love and happiness, our anger and pain in and out of harmony, and we sing our longing for some barely remembered purpose. We sing our hope for the uniting of earth and heaven and we sing our search for ourselves and our search for a GOD that knows what it is to be a woman.

It is here in the women's circle that we refuel, recharge, and remember who we are. The fuel does not come from some external material source, but from our willingness to live, for a few hours, as if nothing else exists but this circle of women.

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