The Cultural Transformation Circle
The Cultural transformation Circle (CTC) is one of the Circles of the Transition Network international ecosystem shared governance, part of the Transition Movement.
CTC is nowadays composed by five beings from around mother Earth: Anahí (Chile), Andrea (Colombia), Esther (Spain), Eva (Scotland), and Zaida (Brasil), collaborating with other beings and projects in our network of networks.
Our work is aligned with Nature cycles and based on the spirit of Gift economy (every contribution is appreciated!). Our shared governance system is constantly evolving, inspired by sociocracy and holacracy.
Our purpose
To create shared spaces to explore pathways towards a cultural transformation which embodies love, consciousness, compassion, collaboration, reparation, and awareness of the systemic interdependence of all Life on Earth.
To do so, and with the conviction that transformation happens in ripples, we create, gather and share Inner Transition diverse resources, and host events to safely share and practise, building personal and community resilience.
Our main aims are to:
- invite for Wellbeing and human potential development
- catalyze individual and collective Healing, including Trauma work
- promote healthy groups and conflict Resilience
- support Life-caring Activists
- re-connect with Indigenous wisdom and Ancestral knowledge
- honour Spiritual traditions, religions, and practices
- offer (or foster) Inner learning Journeys
- invite Cultural transformation reflections and research
- weave with and empower aligned organizations
Some of our projects have been:
The Moon & Sun Celebrations took place during full moons, new moons, solstices and equinoxes during 2021 and 2022. They were hosted in different languages: Portuguese, Spanish, Japanese, English.
These gatherings were open spaces of mutual nurturing and connection with music, dance, silence, poetry... They began fueled by the longing to reconnect with the natural cycles and return to a healthier relationship with time, honoring the transformation for our humanity and all ecosystems of Life on our beloved Mother Earth.
The Heart of the Matter conversations took place in March, April, May and June 2022.
They were open to anyone within the Transition Movement and beyond, interested in exploring our personal and cultural experience of working transformatively with conflict.
The main goal was to support and develop our understanding and skills around conflict, repair and transformation, through hosting open and safe spaces where people could share freely.
The Inter-Beingness gatherings began in September 2022 until July 2024 happening each last Friday of month from 15:00 to 16:30h Universal Time Coordinated (UTC). Hosted in different languages every time.
Inter-Beingness was a virtual space where all kinds of Life Caring activists from around mother Earth gather to be nourished through meditation and Deep listening in an international community.
Here we co-create a safe and intentional space where we unite from the heart, becoming one with who we are as part of the great web of Life, experiencing the quality of Inter-Being in an almost timeless encounter.
Heart@Work was a virtual coworking space for people working remotely in service of a regenerative future.
People seeking a healthy rythm of productive work time and restorative self care in community could have a great place to start the week.
Conflict Resilience is a project that includes resources, art and a series of free webinars where we take a look at the conflicts we experience from a wide range of different perspectives and guest speakers.
The first webinar took place in March 2024 and we're offering one each month until July. Click on the button below to know more:
Projects where we've participated as collaborators
The Coming Down to Earth Summit on Conflict Transformation took place from June 15th to July 15th 2020. It was hosted by Eva Schonveld, Nuno Da Silva and Tom Rogers, including more than 50 guest speakers, including Adebayo Akomolafe, Anayza Stewart, Charles Eisenstein, Claire Milne, Keshav Mohta, Manish Srivastava, Shilpa Jain, Shunro Yoshida, Sophy Banks, Tom Henfrey.
It was designed as an online Journey to explore pathways towards Regenerative Cultures in a Time of Breakdown, organised in five stages (Grounding, Falling Apart, Nurturing the Soil, Seeding the Future, Emerging Pathways), inviting us to reimagine the ways we understand and respond to conflict.
This journey was developed and hosted by the Transition Network and Movement, The Emergence Network, Starter Culture and the Conversation Collaborative, with the support from a wide variety of partners.
The content is open and accessible to all:
ITC: A bit of history
The first seeds of Inner Transition were watered by Sophy Banks and Naresh Giangrande back in 2007 —amidst the first steps of the Transition movement—, delivering Transition trainings that included Inner theory and practices.
After Transition Network began a power distribution among the Hubs group in 2017 in Santorso (Italy), we were invited in 2019 to consider the needs of the Hubs in relation to Inner Transition and to make a proposal about how could those needs best be met.
An informal Inner Enquiry group began meeting in 2020 as a Community of Practice getting to know each other, sharing Inner transition practices, reflecting and co-sensing what could emerge to nourish the Transition movement in those unique times. By August, four pilot projects emerged: Conflict Transformation Programme, Inner Learning Journey, Spirit-hub & ITC Communications. Our first shared governance structure was agreed in November, and we elected roles for an experimental and learning period of 6 months.
The newly born Inner Transition Circle (ITC) became part of the shared governance of the Hubs Heart Circle (HHC) and is financially backed by it. Later, the four pilot projects transformed into shared governance working circles.
In the beginnings of 2021 we connected with the energetic flow of many great beings nourishing Inner transition in the past —as Sophy Banks and Claire Milne—in gratitude and celebration, continuing with these essential collaborations.
From June 2021 to May 2022 the ITC shared governance was adjusted including learnings from the first 6 months and new roles were elected, this time for a period of one year, willing to develop a process to open the ITC membrane to include wider collaborations.
Today we are one of the distributed circles of the Hubs group ecosystem. Our shared governance is transforming and we have now working groups and link roles, with specific projects going on in collaboration with other Transition groups and distributed circles: Inter-Beingness, Heart@Work, Conflict Resilience, Practicing Transition, Doorways to Transition.
