About Christi
& Circle Forth
Facilitation is about weaving and bridge building - connecting people more fully to themselves, one another, and the natural world while moving forward towards their purpose and goals.
As we move away from outdated models of power and control to connection and collaboration, so must our leadership and systems evolve. It is time. And my life’s work and personal and professional growth has prepared me for this moment. I am a deeply committed person, grounded and sincere. I bring to each group hard-earned deep knowing and a diverse skill and knowledge base.
I value bringing people together from a wide-range of backgrounds and can work in a variety of environments from rural to urban, corporate to non-profit, classroom to cornfield, boardroom to wilderness.
Reach out! Let’s see if I might be a good match to support you, your group or organization.
Learning, Growing, & Adapting
It seems that all groups and organizations are “learning organizations.” Life and people are always changing and so we are always learning, adapting. Growth takes on a whole new meaning from this perspective.
One of my most formative experiences was teaching experiential group dynamics and leadership courses through Naropa University. The students were my greatest teachers and I came to have a deep reverence for the gift of learning.
Key influences that guide Circle Forth offerings include:
Living Systems thinking: The Biomimcry Institute for Social Innovation and Matrixworks
The work of Margaret Wheatley, Otto Scharmer, Peter Senge and other thought leaders on organizational systemic change
An ongoing commitment to equity, diversity and education with a wide range of teachers
Thomas Hubl and trauma aware group facilitation
Contemporary understanding of human development, health, and wellness
The Work That Reconnects, Joanna Macy
Rites of Passage with the School of Lost Borders, Trebbe Johnson and Animas Valley Institute
Most of all, the participants in my groups and classes over decades and countless hours of teaching and facilitation
The Earth has also been one of my greatest influences. As a student of nature and of wilderness rites of passage, I can bring some unique perspectives to the challenges you may be facing, along with strategies to navigate through in more healthy, balanced, perhaps even joyful ways.
Experience
It has been quite an adventure already…
Facilitating within the medical community, performance ensembles and organizations, within the criminal justice system, youth programs, co-housing neighborhoods and HOAs, university settings, rites of passage organizations, hospice and various health and healing environments.
Some of the ways I have supported groups include:
Retreat facilitation
Strategic planning and vision clarification
Leadership support and coaching
Entry level diversity trainings
Team development
Feedback Processes
Restorative justice circles
Mediation and conflict evolution
Annual meetings
Facilitating short term projects for organizations
About Circle Forth
Circle Forth as an idea and organization was born in a Circle of trusted friends. In many ways it is a culmination of Christi’s life work up to this point and represents a way of bringing people together in times of change and transformation. It is also a way of practicing facilitation as a craft, as a form of art rooted in living systems and an engagement with nature and human nature. It is a way of experiencing your community.
Circle Forth is also a living organization for spreading seeds of healthier, more effective, even transformative groups and organizations.
The Circle Forth vision and practice is around coming together and moving forward. Breathing in and breathing out. Connecting and then moving forth. It values action rooted in knowledge, insight, intuition, presence, personal stories and the wisdom that can only be gained by hearing the voices of your community.
Mysteries, Yes
Mary Oliver
Truly, we live with mysteries too marvelous
to be understood.
How grass can be nourishing in the
mouths of the lambs.
How rivers and stones are forever
in allegiance with gravity
while we ourselves dream of rising.
How two hands touch and the bonds will
never be broken.
How people come, from delight or the
scars of damage,
to the comfort of a poem.
Let me keep my distance, always, from those
who think they have the answers.
Let me keep company always with those who say
“Look!” and laugh in astonishment,
and bow their heads.