Welcome Circles

Intuitive awareness is nurtured in non-competitive environments.

Among friends and peers in an open-hearted space, your participation helps shape and expand a global community of like-hearted people who are exploring life as perpetual learners.

Our priority is to generate a coherent space where people share and listen from the heart, where self-awareness and honesty are celebrated, and together we receive each other in the absence of judgment.

Welcome Circles

Sunday July 27th at 11am PST.
Tuesday July 29th at 5pm PST

Each Welcome Circle offers a brief space of silence to open the event, followed by a short passage and seed question read by one of our facilitators.

Each member of the circle will be welcome to share their reflection - some will be prompted by the seed question, others will share from their heart in a different way. Some participants may choose to pass and not speak at all. The value of these circles is presence, listening, hearing and learning, side-by-side.

RSVP for one or both Circles.

Read the July passage below!

In the spirit of collaboration, we are so happy to introduce the new “Welcome Circles”.

Each Welcome Circle offers a brief space of silence to open the event. A volunteer will read a short passage and invite the first participant to share an opening reflection. After opening, they will offer seed questions. Each member of the circle will be welcome to share their reflection — some will be prompted by the seed question, others will share from their heart in a different way. Some participants may choose to pass and not speak at all. The value of these circles is presence, listening, hearing and learning side by side.

July 2025 Circle of Sharing Passage and Seed Questions

What is Surrender?

A passage by Kerri Lake

In the social strata of humanity, the idea of surrender tends to come with a feeling of defeat. If I surrender, if I wave the white flag and admit that I don’t want to fight anymore, I might be saying that something is more powerful than me. I might be admitting that I am less than, that I wasn’t able to accomplish what I wanted. I might feel like I’ve failed.

Being human though has this amazing feature - we can shift perspective!

As I explored surrender, I found a different way to relate to it. Rather than an indicator of failure or defeat, I began to see it as a celebration of awareness. What if surrender is an acknowledgement of clarity in discernment for who and what I truly am? What if it’s a way to be free of what was never me to begin with?

Today, surrender is, to me, the act of handing over any thoughts, constructs or patterns that were never truly me to begin with. In other words, I surrender everything that I am NOT. Who am I surrendering to? To the highest, most loving parts of my own consciousness.

When anxiety closes in, I see it, relax into my heart and surrender to my Higher Self the patterns that created the anxiety.

My own higher consciousness is just about as judgmental as a herd of horses, which is to say, not at all. A significant part of why humans feel themselves shifted in the presence of the natural world is because there is an absence of the mental frequencies and pressures of judgment. Trees do not need to you to be anything other than you are in any moment. Mycelia are not using their energy thinking that humans should spend more time worrying. The non-human world offers space, and the human instrument (the body) responds in that space with a remembrance of that aspect of ourselves that knows the absence of judgment.

You see, the absence of judgment has never left. It is your nature, beyond thought, before words, and without the need to be anything other than who and what you are. That freedom is the nature of your own higher consciousness.

In moments when the walls seem to be closing in, nature has not left the room. The walls are not asking for your unconditional surrender so that you might be dominated. You are always free … to shift your perspective.

Your awareness of the pressure—of the familiar desire to affect change, to run away, to have some thing different in any moment—this awareness can be your call to surrender everything that is NOT who you truly are. Your own, loving higher consciousness receives the surrendered patterns with unconditional acceptance. It is a bold move, this kind of surrender. It is a refusal to fight for or against any outcome. It is a trust fall into abundance. It is an acceptance that you are welcome to flourish in your life. And, it just might feel a bit wonky until you get used to it…

Surrendering all that I am NOT to my higher levels is letting my higher levels run the show. It’s acknowledging that my mind doesn’t have all the answers, that the universe contains nuances I haven’t yet considered. It’s acknowledging the fact that I’ve come this far and there is no reason why I would be abandoned by a loving universe at this point. It is a negotiation with the mind to open up a little more space for something new.

When you think about it, your Higher Self is ever-present. That aspect of your nature has never left, and it has a pretty good handle on what delights your true heart. Letting that part of yourself run the show is a choice—it is choosing to no longer go against your heart.

When things outside, or inside of you seem to be collapsing or closing in, remember the words of the poet Mary Oliver:

“Leave a little space in your heart for the unimaginable.”

This is the realm of your higher consciousness. You don’t have to understand it. Simply invoke it with a sincere heart to know your true nature. Then, relax. Look at what’s right in front of you that could use your attention, and bring your heart to those tasks. This is where magic comes alive.

Do the tasks that are yours to do, and please, please, please … eat the croissants!

Reflective Questions:

• How does surrender feel in your body 

• What does the space of non-judgement feel like? 

• Can you think of a time when you surrendered to your higher self?

• Have you experienced a time when the unimaginable happened?