This is Part Four of our Collective Presencing series. The earlier three articles in this series describe the new human capacity we are calling Collective Presencing. This article describes the journey to becoming a Circle of Creation--at least as far as the authors have travelled thus far, knowing that the horizon moves ever ahead as we take the next step.

It’s 2013. You have probably noticed. We survived the end of days, so what now? What is humanity’s future?

In the first two articles in this series, we introduced collective presencing as a new human capacity emerging at this time. The first article described a journey of individual and collective deepening and widening through a set of practices that can, over time, allow us first to achieve collective wisdom and later to become generative of more life. The second article took a more detailed look at the first phase in the process: what it takes to become a Circle of Presence. We promised that the next article would treat the next phase, the Circle of Creation. On deeper reflection we came to see that the transition to the Circle of Creation represents such a paradigm shift that some wider context is needed before we broach that subject. This article offers that.

The serpentine wall was built by Thomas Jefferson at the University of Virginia nearly two hundred years ago. Only one brick thick, it takes its resilience from the curvature of the wall, needing only one brick sitting beside and supporting one another. Resilience is essential for health care providers as well.

On November 26, 2010, HE Mr. Joseph Diess, the President of the 65th session of the UN General Assembly, delivered to me the world renowned 3rd Annual Global South-South Development Award for the CHAHAMA initiative (Network of Multi-Faith Based Organizations in response to HIV). Receiving this award affirmed to me that large scale change in the Arab region depended on the active engagement of religious leaders, the guardians of values and cultural norms.