About Christi
& Circle Forth
Facilitation is about weaving, listening, bridge building, - connecting people more fully to themselves and one another, while moving forward strategically and joyfully towards purpose and goals.
I am on a mission to:
Help people feel confident in their facilitation
Create spaces that support space-holders
Inspire Collective Wisdom in this time of Upheaval and AI
Create a massive wave of collaborative, joyful, real, and whole groups where people can show up as they are
My background spans living systems thinking, organizational change, council process, The Work That Reconnects, and rites of passage. Still, my greatest teachers have been the earth and the thousands of people I’ve circled with over the years.
My life’s work and a life-long compass towards coherence has prepared me for these times, when healing fractures in our world is essential. I bring grounded presence, sincerity, and a deeply-earned skill set.
I value gathering people from many backgrounds and can work in a wide range of settings—from rural to urban, corporate to nonprofit, classroom to cornfield, boardroom to wilderness.
Learning, Growing, & Adapting
Key influences that guide Circle Forth offerings include:
Most of all, the participants in my groups and classes over decades of teaching and facilitation - direct, dedicated, consistent experience has shaped everything I do and offer.
Up to date understanding of human development, health, and wellness - what helps humans to THRIVE
Living Systems thinking: The Biomimcry Institute for Social Innovation and Matrixworks
The work of Adreinne Maree Brown, Margaret Wheatley, Otto Scharmer, Peter Senge and other thought leaders on organizational change
An ongoing commitment to equity, diversity and inclusion - learning from a wide range of teachers that bring a wholistic view
Thomas Hubl and trauma aware group facilitation
The Work That Reconnects, Joanna Macy
Rites of Passage training with the School of Lost Borders, Trebbe Johnson and Animas Valley Institute
The Earth has also been one of my greatest influences. As a student of nature and of wilderness rites of passage, I bring unique perspectives to the challenges you may be facing, along with strategies to navigate through in 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 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, and discovering collective wisdom.
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.