The beginning

I came to this collective practice, which is now called Collective Presencing, because I was intrigued by something that now and then happened in my early circle practice. Imagine a group of people, sitting in a circle, listening with great attention to one another, all engaged with a really difficult question. The kind of question that holds the complexity of what is going on; all realizing that a planned and even a complicated approach is not going to cut it. Sometimes it felt as if we all entered a different space, a deeper level of insights, somehow tangible, but still subtle – hard to describe.

I was intrigued by this magic in the middle: as if one was speaking from a different place than usual; as if we were all, somehow, contributing to a puzzle image that no one had seen before. Enough difference with our normal speech that we saw it as magic.

Within the context of me getting to know – and practicing deeply – several participatory methodologies I found myself returning to what we called the mother of all methods: the circle. Ancient as it is – the tribe meeting under the local tree, or a group of friends meeting around the campfire – it has been brought to our (Western) attention by a couple of people and networks: The Circle Way and The Way of Council. Old social technology translated for our times.

I went on a quest – with many, many people in many circles over many years – to understand the conditions to make this magic happen more easily. One element in this search was the term – and some of the practices – of Presencing, as brought to light by Otto Scharmer. Presencing is a new word invented by him; a compilation of Presence and Sensing. Being as present as you can in the moment, and sensing into the potential or even the future. Now that came very close to that wide-open attention, witnessing and listening that I had noticed in these specific moments. Important to me was to add the word Collective. Deep inside of me (hence the importance of that word sensing) I knew that we were dis-covering something really new, and that we had to practice this together. A generative dialogue practice that builds on the capacity of participants to be fully present or here – through any personal practice that they might have.