Now you have people and you want to make a circle. How to begin?

I always begin by holding hands. The spiritual leader of my tribe always begins this way, and so do many others in many nations I have visited. In the first place, people who are not used to coming together in circles won’t automatically form themselves that way even when you ask them to. They will bunch up at one end and overlap in places, some standing behind, making two lines, coming into strange shapes.
Holding hands is the quick easy way to get people into a circle. As soon as you ask them to take someone’s hand on either side, the circle begins to shape up. At least it’s only one connected line. Then you can ask people to round it up and fix any bulges. I tell them that the idea of a circle is that you should be able to look around it and see everyone’s face. You should be able to look everyone in the eye. So all should look around and to both sides to make sure they can see each other’s eyes, and if you do that holding hands you will have a circle.

What our people usually do at the beginning is a smoke cleansing we call smudging. That consists, for us, of someone carrying a burning incense of some kind around to all the participants. (…) The idea of smoke is to clear the atmosphere and make it fresh for something new to happen. Some people say that it washes away all the old talk and vibrations that have happened there before, others say it clears their minds and makes them present. I always think when I smell sweetgrass, sage or cedar, that now we are going to do something special. The aroma reminds me of other times I have smelled that, of all the ceremonies that have started that way, and I become excited and alert, ready for something important to happen. (…)

The next part of beginning a circle is giving greetings. In my way, as we stand there holding hands I ask people to look around the circle and greet each other with their eyes. We look at each face and acknowledge each other. I usually tell them, “Give a little nod of thanks to each for coming so that you wouldn’t be standing here all alone.” Giving thanks is the other important part of opening a circle.

“Now that we see who we are,” I go on, “we can put our minds together as a circle for the first time. And the first thing that my people always do when they put their minds together is to greet our Mother the Earth.”
If we are gathered outside on the earth, I may call attention to the feel of our mother’s skin under our feet, if not, I may ask the circle to visualize a part of the earth that they love while they send their greetings. Then we should remember that everything we need comes from her, all our food, the materials for our shelter and clothing and fuel, and all our medicines, so she is a very good and generous mother. She gave us our bodies -they come from her, not from Mars or Venus or some other place - and she will keep providing us with everything we need until we have worn out these bodies and give them back to her again for recycling into some other life.
I say, “Let us put our minds together as one and give our greetings and thanksgivings to Mother Earth, so be it our minds.” And then, in our.way, we all say “Ho!”
“Ho!” has become sort of an all-purpose word of assent and recognition and affirmation among the many different North American native cultures. It means “Yes!” and “Yeah!” and “Okay” and “Right on!” and “I’m with you!” and “That’s good!” or as I translate to young people:“Outstanding!””Excellent!” “Awesome!” “Cool!”
A speaker will also end his talking with “Ho!” which then means “I have spoken” and his listeners will respond with “Ho!” meaning, “We have heard you, and it is good.” Of course, you may have another form of assent in your culture, such as “Amen”.

Next we will extend our greetings to the other children of Mother Earth. We are not her only children - our family is very large. We will give greetings to all those who put down roots into the Mother, the grass beneath our feet, the standing people - the trees- who are connected to us in an exchange of breath, and all the many plant peoples who give us so much, and the other relatives who crawl under the earth, who run upon it as we do, who swim in her waters and fly through he air. And each of these have some gift it brings to our circle, that strengthens the great web of life, and so we give our thanksgivings to all our relatives all over the earth. “So be it our minds!”-  “Ho!”

Then we put our thoughts out beyond the earth and notice that there is a vast universe out there. We give our greetings to our Grandfather Sun, who brings us light and warmth and energy, to our Grandmother Moon, who gives us cycles of cleansing and fertility and stirs our creativity, and to the many circles of star nations that comprise the great wheel of the universe. They are many and unknown to us, but we are. all part of one circle, so they are our distant relatives, so we greet them all and send our thanksgivings that they are all in place and carrying on the work within Creation that they were given to do. “So be it our minds!”-  “Ho!”

Finally we must give our greetings to the power that put all this in place. We do not really know what this is. It is truly the greatest mystery of all. We may give a name to it –some may say “God” or “Allah” or “Great Spirit”– in my people’s old language we would say “Kiehtan”. But these are only words. They tell us nothing about what is. People have many different ideas about that, and strangely seem to enjoy arguing and even fighting over that. Some will not give it a name and say only “the reason for it all,” or “the ground of our being,” or just “I don’t know.” But we don’t need to start any arguments here, because there is one thing I think we can all agree on. We are alive! At least I never had anyone yet dispute that point with me. Also most people will agree that life is a very good thing. If people have taken the effort to get up this morning and come to this circle I am sure they are glad that they are alive. It certainly seems better than the alternative.

So with our gratitude for the miracle of being alive at this moment, and of being aware that we are alive, of being able to think our thoughts and feel our feelings, of being here in this circle with these people and being able to communicate with each other and come closer to one another, for being able to share the many blessings of this beautiful earth and all of Creation …we put our minds together one last time to give our greetings and our heartfelt thanksgivings to the Creator. “So be it our minds… HO!”