Is Circling a method to hasten (and maybe even resolve) the existential crisis? Maybe. More on that in the second section.

But let’s begin with some really exciting news about our events.

First bit of good news: we’ve created a Google Calendar for you to see all of our events. Check that out here. This makes it much more convenient to track what we are doing and to add our events to your calendar.

Related bit of good news: as you’ll notice, we are significantly increasing our offering. We have two events in August, and then we are moving to three Circles a week in September.

These will include:

We want to support members of our practice community to circle at least once a week. There’s really no better way to deepen your practice and bring the insights of Circling into your day-to-day life.

Below are details on the next circle, and as always, you can check it out on our MeetUp (and, of course, now our Google Calendar which is also available on our website).

Meaning is an elusive quality in life.

Words, those precious utterances that bear the weight of so much meaning, make for the best illustration of this.

When we begin to ask around for the meaning of a word, we get more words. Each of these is only definable by still more words. Soon, we have piles and piles of words all interlinking but never really rooted.

But words still seem to mean things.

That’s because words make up networks. When you are snuggled up in the center of a network, each node has relative meaning. The more we can get to the center of the network, the more total and real and concrete it seems. But at the edges, that sense of security breaks down as the milky thickness of the center reduces to a mist. At the far-flung ends, we are left with only whisps of meanings and the infinite space beyond. It’s like a cloud in that way.

Returning to the center of the cloud for a moment, we can see the value of meaning, and we can see why so much of human behavior and psychology pushes us to the center of the cloud (just as things that take us to the edges often fill us with fear).

Meaning turns a long day of work into the noble pursuit of a family’s wellbeing. It turns the simple lines and colors of a flag into the touchstone of national identity. It’s the power that drives people out into the world to face the countless risks in hope of fulfilling a duty, answering a call, fulfilling a dream.

Despite the power of meaning, it is also very fragile.

When we find ourselves wandering out to the edge of our meaning cloud, we might find ourselves asking questions about that sacrifice to a spouse and children, the unanswered shadows of a nation’s history, and self-judgments around ever making a dream into a reality.

If we continue this journey, we will reach the core issues of the existential crisis. As existential psychiatrist Irvin Yalom labelled them:

As a practice, Circling draws us into an awareness of collective meaning making.

It does this by asking us to:

Circling can be, strangely, a technology that rushes you as quickly into an existential crisis as possible.

It works just the same as with any conflict. In your relationships with other humans, Circling is not a method for reducing real conflict. If anything, it speeds up conflict and takes us to the other side of airing it. If a conflict is relationship ending, then Circling will bring the end of that relationship quickly. At the same time, Circling will bring to light conflict that deepens a bond.

Similarly, the existential crisis is often lurking in the back of our mind as an argument we’ve been meaning to have with God.

Oh, I should bring the apparent meaninglessness of life up with God, but I’ve got to pick up the kids and get groceries today.

It is natural to presume that, having gotten us into this mess, Circling will surely get us out.

But that reason, ironically, takes us in the opposite direction of the practice.

Circling, as we say at the beginning of each and every one of our events, is not a place where we seek to fix, coach, change, or heal.

The practice is something so much more radical. It asks us to simply be with what is exactly as it is. And over time, it asks us to continuously move into our vulnerability and accept a little bit more of the truth that’s here in this moment.

Now, let’s say you have a desire to change the situation. A common experience in an existential crisis. This desire arising doesn’t mean something “wrong” is happening. All Circling asks us to do is be with this desire as well as the situation itself. It’s another part of the truth about what is here.

This is an example of the practice awakening us from identification: to welcome with love your desire to change rather than obeying it. Can you allow it to arise in its purity and innocence while also holding the crisis in this way?

If we take that approach to the existential crisis, we realize so many of the paradigms of “dealing with it” are ultimately feeding it.

And so, for the Circler, the only choice is to be with the existential crisis. This doesn’t mean we tolerate it for now in the promise that this will make it go away.

No, Circling asks us to do the single hardest thing with the existential crisis. We sit with it because it is here, understanding that it may never get easier. It may never go away.

Sometimes, this will stir sensations, feelings, thoughts, and desires in us. And we will sit with them as they come.

We will keep the front door of the present moment wide open, acknowledging each visitor as they pass through the door and whisper to ourselves…

This, too. This, too. This, too.

The Container brought on Miguel Conner of Aeon Byte Gnostic Radio to give us a crash course in Gnosticism, that most mysterious of Western religious traditions.