Isabel Allende (l) and Martha Llanos (r)

Martha Llanos
Peru

“In Iona, I discovered the power within us as women to share the joy, the pain, and the dreams of many generations and to work collectively for equity, peace, solidarity, and the fulfillment of rights.”

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I describe myself as a Peace Ambassador. I have a life mission of global service to children, women and families. It is thanks to the understanding, compassion, appreciation, and courage that I have experienced in Circle with other women that I am able to make progress in this mission to advocate for women’s rights in a world that shows violence towards women and girl children, especially when they are indigenous, poor, and illiterate.

On the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day, I would like to pay tribute to the inspirational women who have inspired me through their participation in Circles.

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A Circle gathering is an ancestral way of getting people together in an egalitarian way. It ensures full participation, personal growth, and unlimited creativity. Circles provide the common ground for all to come together to find new solutions to problems, to co-create new resources, events, and programs, and to close the gap between opposing sides.

Circles focus on the principles of Inclusion, Wholeness, Unity, Nurturing, Cycles, Centering, Sharing, Infinity, and Completion. To Indigenous peoples, the Circle illustrates “the way the world works.”

Peruvian celebration with my Circle. We have been sharing together for 30 years.

Since my childhood, Circles have been very meaningful in my personal growth. I recall myself seated on the floor listening to stories told by my teachers. Mythology, gods, and goddesses fascinated me—Greek and Hindi archetypes were my favorites.

In my adulthood, I have continued to spend a great deal of time in Circles with Indian communities in my home country of Peru. We sit around the fire and individuals share stories of their everyday life. This time, the gods and goddesses are real human beings—most of them are illiterate, but they have a special inner beauty that is expressed through their everyday stories of courage, solidarity, struggle, pain, and joy.

Circles have a long history in my life but 2002 was an exceptionally active year.

It started with the UN Special Session on Children that resulted in the document A World Fit for Children. This session was a precedent-setting example of the power of children’s participation. I cooperated with Olandina, a Quiche girl from Guatemala, to participate in the Session. Olandina engaged with a group of children who had all suffered the horrors and violence of war. In the Circle that these young people created, they received the most elevated lessons of resilience, forgiveness, and reconciliation—going beyond the pain and trauma to advocate for their sisters and brothers.

Rigoberta Menchu and myself at first session of the Permanent Forum of Indigenous issues

Another historic event that occurred that year was the first session of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. As part of the program, Circle practices were utilized in a workshop conducted by Donna Goodman, Ann Smith, and others.

The biggest event of all, though, was an invitation to the most fascinating Circle gathering I have ever participated in. In September 2002 a Circle of women from around the world gathered for a Deepening the Circle Experience in Iona, Scotland. Together with Jean Shinoda Bolen, Clare Paterson, Nancy Grandfield, Kate Collins, and others I talked, danced, sang, and shared silence—we relished the power of women Circles.

In Iona, I discovered the power within us as women to share the joy, the pain, and the dreams of many generations and to work collectively for equity, peace, solidarity, and the fulfillment of rights. I came to realize that the sacred is always there in the Circle and that I can call on it in any different situation.

As I wrote in my diary at the time: “I am sharing the song of life. Here I celebrate the magnet of encounters, rejoice in grandmas stories, hear songs from the hearts. A flying bird has just come…this is the symbol of Iona. This is a symbol of Iona and myself, my passion is more alive.”

By sharing our different experiences as a collaborative Circle of peers, we were able to deepen our understanding and knowledge of the power of Circles and of women’s wisdom. Together we planted the seeds for a future Fifth World Conference on Women.

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A Circle of parents in Mozambique.

From Circles I have learned the power of sharing, the abundance of a collective creativity, the uniqueness of each story, the blessing of silence, the many ways to communicate, and the permanent love and hidden joy that comes to the surface in the unconditional love of a Circle. A million ideas surface when one is at peace in a loving atmosphere—when one trusts the universe and the fabulous wisdom of the elders. Women Circles spread seeds of love, determination, appreciation, and intergenerational understanding.

At this present time, Jean Shinoda Bolen, Annele Heiges, Anne Smith and others have initiated the UN Women’s Circle Campaign. They are advocating that Circles be utilized in all institutions dealing with women’s issues. They are pushing for the UN to sponsor the 5th World Conference on Women, so that women from all 192 UN countries know that it is about and that it is for them. Now is the time to join forces with UN Women and let the feminine energy inform new paradigms of leadership. In short, it is the vision of the Millionth Circle: “A proliferation of circles with a spiritual center becomes a worldwide healing force by bringing feminine values of relationship, nurturing, and interdependency into a global culture in which hierarchy, conflict and competition, power over others, and exploitation of the earth’s resources are dominant values.”

Together let’s respond to the urgent call of our Mother Earth by gathering the girls and women to save the World.