What is it Like to be You?
A renewal of the Circling practice as a path
of tantric awakening and integration
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What is it like to be you?
It's the simplest thing in the world — you might be asked some version of that question 20 times a day: "How are you?" "What's up?" At the same time, it's a truly strange question. Ask it seriously, check your actual experience at the moment, and it will almost certainly be surprising. It's a question that can open up into realms of inquiry that change your very sense of self. It can foster a deeper connection and intimacy between you and others. It's a question that, pursued earnestly, can even open up into experiences of awakening that people pursue for decades in a meditative practice. All from this one simple question, and from the practice, Circling, that holds it at its core.
What often surprises people when they first Circle is how alive it is. You sit down with someone you may have just met. Someone asks some version of the question — and, without much warning, you find yourself in a conversation that is realer than most of the conversations you'll have all week. Or all year.
It's funny. It's tender. It can be confronting. It can be strangely relieving — as if some part of you has been waiting to be met like this, and only now noticed. A kind of presence shows up between you that neither of you made happen on your own. You can feel it in the room. Everything gets louder and quieter at the same time.
It's a practice that wakes you up — not through effort or striving, but through presence. That heals old wounds by meeting them, not analyzing them. That shows you dimensions of yourself you didn't know were there. That deepens your capacity to stay grounded and real in intensity — in love, in conflict — in the moments that actually matter in your day to day life.
A practice that integrates everything you've been working on — your meditation, your bodywork, your therapy, your years on the cushion — and lands it in the space between you and another person. Or, if you've never practiced before, starts you right where you are.
This past year, I've been writing a book about all of this.
It started as something practical — a way to help people who come to my weekends ground in some of the basic approaches we take when practicing. But it became something much bigger: a renewal of the practice, from the ground up.
For years, I've been asking: what is actually happening when we Circle? What is it that we're doing, and how can you best teach that? What makes it transformative, and not just interesting? And how does this practice connect to the larger path of healing and awakening that many of us are already on with meditation, embodiment work, therapy, psychedelics, tantra, etc.?
What I've found has been a revelation — not because it was new, but because it had always been there. Circling is a practice of awakening, a foundational practice for a 21st century tantra. One that happens in relationship, and that can help integrate everything else into your actual, lived, day-to-day life.
If that's interesting to you, or exciting -- I'd love for you to have the book! I'm editing it alongside its first readers, and so I'd value your feedback immensely.
Enter your name and email below, and I'll send you a PDF, an ePub version, and a link to a living GDoc for commenting, if you're so called.
Join a Weekend!
If the book stirs something, come check them out — they’re the first weekends I’ll be teaching this approach to Circling Live.
- May 30–31 — Amsterdam (in person)