“What humankind as a whole has learnt in the course of its evolution forms an ever-expanding pool of collective wisdom. Also known as the perennial wisdom, this collective wisdom is freely available to us all.” John Baldock, ‘The Alternative Gospel’, Element 1997, p. 4

“If we carefully analyze the writings of all these people, and others, we see in them striking similarities. It seems to me that when twenty different people who do not know each other and live at twenty different times on the planet write essentially the same things, there may be something here for us to look at very carefully.” Neale Donald Walsch, ‘Questions and Answers on Conversations With God’, Hampton Roads 1999, p. 19

“When many, writing in different times and places, affirm the same thing as true, their unanimity must be referred to some universal cause.” Hugues De Groot (1583-1645), Dutch philosopher, quoted in ‘A Treasury of Philosophy’, vol. 1, edited by Dagobert D. Runes, The Philosophical Library 1955, p. 453

Good day, dear EveryOne,

Since our current collective meditation has much to do with circles, with how circles are defined, formed, lived, embodied, I’ve collected below a sampling of our collective Wisdom about circles, quotes which are clear and intuitively resonant with the One Truth which pulses within each one of us. As Walsch notes in the above quote, when twenty different people from twenty different places and times say virtually the same thing, there is something here for us to look at very carefully….

…..and we have here, in our Quotes section, hundreds and thousands of different people from all times and places, saying in essence the same thing about circles and centers, as well as the One Who encompasses All circles.

So I thought you might enjoy reading a small sampling of these quotes, perhaps taking a favorite one and letting it circle its sweet self through your heart and soul throughout the day, saying to yourself in a prayerful, open manner, “How can I best embody and shine forth the round, whole Truth of this quote from a friend I’ve never met in the flesh, but whose words resonate with deep harmony in my own inner Self?”……”How can I best shine forth OUR Truth in the world?”

……asking this of oneself in a consecrated way will cause the Circle to be threaded more tightly together in Awareness than ever before…..

.....interacting in inner dialogue with our spiritual ancestors and intuitive contemporaries will cause ever greater understanding and compassion to resonate its healing balm within This Circle, and we will be opening ourselves to a more comprehensive grasp of the real Oneness which encompasses Humanity throughout the ages…..in our hopes and dreams…..in our desires and longings….in our heart and soul…..in our Nature as equally created creatures sharing equally in the Center of our One Circle….the True, rounded Wisdom of our Creator resonating in each one of our hearts, coming forth from within us to heal us and bring us to a New Day, a New, joyous Dance within the circle, all hands joined, all faces open and loving........

Much love to you, each and EveryOne,

JoAnn

“Even a pebble or a tiny insect is gathered up in the sacred hoop.” Leonard Crow Dog (Sioux Native American), quoted by Richard Erdoes & Alfonso Ortiz, ‘American Indian Myths and Legends’, Pantheon 1984, p. 133

“The natural image to depict the Infinite’s inclusiveness is a circle, an all-including circle that encompasses our finite universe and out of which it is impossible to fall. ‘In Him we live and move and have our being’, Paul tells us, and Augustine added, ‘God is a circle whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere.’” Huston Smith, ‘The Soul of Christianity: Restoring the Great Tradition’, HarperCollins 2005, p. 3

“The circle symbolizes the all and the eternal, the celestial unity of all.” Herbert Silberer, ‘Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts’, quoted by Richard Roberts, ‘Tarot Revelations’, Vernal Equinox Press 1982, p. 161

“In a twelfth-century hermetic text known as ‘The Book of the Twenty-Four Philosophers’ there is a statement that has been quoted, through the centuries, by a number of Christian thinkers – among others, Alan of Lille (1128-1202), Nicholas Cusanus (1401-1464), Rabelais (1490?-1553), Giordano Bruno (1548-1600), and Pascal (1632-1662), as well as Voltaire (1694-1778); to wit: ‘God is an intelligible sphere, whose center is everywhere and circumference nowhere.’” Joseph Campbell, ‘Tarot Revelations’, Vernal Equinox Press 1982, p. 24

“Both as a principle of unity and a model of the cosmos, the sphere represents the ultimate undivided, undifferentiated whole.” Keith Chritchlow, ‘Twelve Criteria for Sacred Architecture’, quoted in ‘Homage to Pythagoras: Rediscovering Sacred Science’, Lindisfarne Books 1994, p. 176

“It seems the circle has resided within us since the dawn of time, and is a form familiar to us at a deeply resonant level. Over and over again, when this mythic resonance is activated, people experience a sense of ‘having been here before’ as they enter the circle.” Christina Baldwin, ‘Calling the Circle: The First and Future Culture’, Bantam 1998, p. 29

“Thirty-three centuries ago, Ikhnaton, the pharaoh of Egypt, described the universe as a giant egg, a great cell of being in which he conceived the nucleus as the source of that creative force which he acknowledged as the life energy of God.” Kuthumi & Djwal Kul, ‘The Human Aura’, Summit University Press 1985, p. 199

“The Mandala has appeared throughout man’s history as a universal and essential symbol of integration, harmony, and transformation. It gives form to the most primordial intuition of the nature of reality, an intuition that inheres in each of us, giving us life.” Jose and Miriam Arguelles, ‘Mandala’, Shambhala 1995, p. 33

“No matter what cultural lens is used, the symbol of a circle which contains the whole world and the various evolutionary levels of consciousness is powerful and universal.” Judith Cornell, Ph.D., ‘Mandala, Luminous Symbols for Healing’, Quest 1994, p. 18

“The circle is a symbol of God, and the movement of God is in all directions.” John Redtail Freesoul, ‘The Native American Prayer Pipe: Ceremonial Object and Tool of Self-Realization’, quoted in ‘Shamanism: An Expanded View of Reality’, compiled by Shirley Nicholson, Quest 1987, p. 209

“Self-knowledge reveals to the soul that its natural motion is not in a straight line, but circular, as around some inner object, about a center, the point to which it owes its origin. If the soul knows this, it will move around this center from which it came, will cling to it and commune with it as indeed all souls should….for divinity consists in being attached to the center.” Plotinus, ‘The Good or The One’, ‘The Essential Plotinus’, translated by Elmer O’Brien, S.J., Hackett Publishing 1986, p. 83

“The idea of rotation is the keystone of most transcendent symbols: of the mediaeval ‘Rota’; of the Wheel of Buddhist transformations; of the zodiacal cycle; of the myth of the Gemini; and of the ‘opus’ [work] of the alchemists. The idea of the world as a labyrinth or of life as a pilgrimage leads to the idea of the ‘centre’ as a symbol of the absolute goal of Man – Paradise regained….Pictorially, this central point is sometimes identified with the geometric centre of the symbolic circle.” J. E. Cirlot, ‘A Dictionary of Symbols’, Philosophical Library 1962, p. xxvii

“Since olden times the circle with a centre has been a symbol for the Deity, illustrating the wholeness of God incarnate.” C. G. Jung, ‘Psyhology and Religion: West and East’, CW 11, Bollingen 1989, par. 418, p. 276

“We are the countless centres of one and the same sphere.” Pierre Teilhard deChardin, ‘Writings in Time of War’, Harper & Row 1968, p. 15

“Our deepest awareness, the power that motivates all awareness, which we can call the ‘Power to Be Conscious,’ of which we are not ordinarily cognizant, recognizes its own transcendental nature in the geometry of the circle. For this reason the circle has been a universal symbol of an ideal perfection and divine state that always exists around and within us whether we acknowledge it or not.” Michael S. Schneider, ‘A Beginner’s Guide to Constructing the Universe: The Mathematical Archetypes of Nature, Art, and Science’, HarperPerennial 1995, p. 4

“The circle is ever open, ever unbroken. May the Goddess awaken in each of our hearts.” Starhawk, ‘The Spiral Dance’, Harper & Row 1979, p. 200