Editors’ Note

WILD CARD! Be careful what you ask for! At the beginning, even with two announcements, we had so few submissions that it looked like Circles on the Mountain just wasn’t going to make it into form this year. As a last try, we put out a call . . . more submissions, please. You responded in spades! Never have we been so swamped with members sending in their stories, their reflections, their photos, and poems. We went from ten submissions to almost forty in less than two weeks!

What awaits you in this issue is the generous heart of the WGC community. More than being grateful for a large quantity of submissions, we editors see this outpouring as a big YES to our mutual connection, made visible through Circles on the Mountain. We take Circles home and read it in bits and pieces. We refer back to it and get re-inspired about our work. We find an unusual perspective, a poetically turned phrase, or a touching, tender description. Some authors we have known for many years, and some we are meeting for the first time. Together, we are a landscape as varied and as colorful as the landforms we quest on.

Circles on the Mountain has provided a record of who we have been, who we are now, and who we are becoming. Yes, Circles remains our heart offering to one another. Thank you, one and all, for your voices and views. In between annual Gatherings, we can sit in “council” and share stories, here in our larger circle, our Circles on the Mountain.
With wild heart,
Nancy and Sara
 

The Wild Imaginal World of Storytelling and Mirroring - Betsy Perluss
Hefted - Simeon Ayres
Refuge in These Burned Hills: A Prayer - Sage Abella 
Weaving the Web - Anna Coffman 
What is Wild: Ecotones! - Jennifer Wilhoit 
“All” is a Big Word - John Davis 
Insanity: A “How-To” Guide - Lauren Marziliano
A Mask, a Mouse, a Bear, a Cow, and an Eagle - Kent Pearce 
Let It Be a Dragon - Trebbe Johnson 
Initiation and Rites of Passage - Bill Plotkin
Ayahuasca Ceremony as a Rite of Passage - Larry Hobbs 
A Simple, Primal Challenge-  Robert Wagner 
Praise Be the Drinking of Sunlight - Joseph Rubano 
Primordial Dialogue - Nancy Jane 
Wild Future Vision - Kinde Nebeker 
The Courage to Be Happy Galaxy - Earth Dancer 
Rites of Passage and White Cultural Identity Darcy Ottey 
A Different World: Perceiving Possibilities Corinna Stoeffl 
Wild Card Notes on the Great Gamble - Dominica Krizova 
Reflections on Teaching Others to Guide - Fran Weinbaum 
Caretaking: Love, Stonepiles, Witness - Carol Wilburn 
Green Tara Strikes - Phil Baum 
Grail Quest - Paul Andrade 
To Be Satisfied - Keith Kilburn 
Turning Fear into Power - Linda Sartor 
The Living Symbol on Quest - Mark Sipowicz 
Dawn Walk - Michelle Katz 
Grandmothers’ Circle - Silvia Talavera 
Ascending, On Being a Mentor - Vanessa Osage 
The Wisdom of the Branch - Polly Triplat
Beautiful - Pippa Bondy 
Wilderness and Grace - Ruthanne Svendsen 
The Parade of Our Mutual Life - Scott Lawrance . 
The Mountains Are Beckoning - Stephanie Block 
Harvest Time - Petra Lentz-Snow 
The (Nearly) Dead Guiding the Blind - Scout Tomyris 
Coyote Keeps His Name - Steven Foster