Circle of One Book Forum offers seasonal selections
By Marla Pierson Lester
August 16, 2007
AKRON, Pa. – Delve into the writings of Native American authors and see how their stories intersect with your own.
The Circle of One book forum invites readers to a new experience – a seasonal approach to reading and discussing books, a new way of talking about them and likely new material to discuss.
Each year, the book forum recommends four books, one for each season, and provides discussion questions and suggestions. An online study guide is available at mcc.org/news.
Selections for summer, fall, winter and spring are meant to encourage readers to be more aware of the rhythms of the seasons while introducing Native American authors and giving readers an opportunity to experience Native American perspectives and storytelling.
“Over the years the bulk of our stories are told by white authors. I think it’s important to highlight Native authors who are telling stories from our experience,” said Harley Eagle, co-director of the MCC U.S. Anti-Racism Program.
Eagle, along with Ruth Yellowhawk and Lily Mendoza y Ducheneaux, are co-creators of the Indigenous Issues Forums, a relationship-based group of Native facilitators, mediators, writers, producers and educators who create safe, respectful and family-centered forums to talk about complex issues.
Indigenous Issues Forums is a partner of MCC Central States, and MCC Central States is also promoting the Circle of One book forum, which grew out of the trio’s work and conversations.
“The idea for the book group began several years back, just from our common way of reflecting what we were learning from indigenous authors, and from wanting to put some of our elder's teachings into action,” Yellowhawk said.
“We wanted to promote Native books by Native authors so we can all get educated together, whether we’re Native or non-Native, an adult, a child,” Yellowhawk said. “I think it’s really important to access different ways in understanding how the world works.”
The trio decided to shape selections around the seasons, recognizing that many in the United States and Canada live the bulk of our lives indoors, with little sense of the passing of seasons.
“The program is designed to root us in a more natural rhythm of life,” Yellowhawk said.
Summertime picks celebrate creativity. And in fall, the harvest time, selections focus on putting, or harvesting, ideas into action. Winter is a time of reflection. Spring selections are about new ideas. “Spring is a time for new growth. It’s hard to change the rut our minds get into. Our picks for the spring are to always challenge that pattern,” Yellowhawk said.
The forum provides far more than simply book suggestions. Materials also guide participants through book discussions using what is often known as a circle process.
Each person has an opportunity to answer a discussion question. The speaker holds a talking piece – whether a stone or a quilt or a piece of fabric. All others listen until the speaker finishes and passes the talking piece on. “It’s really important to us that everybody is seen as knowledgeable, everybody is seen as bringing something,” Yellowhawk said. “For us, the process of how we talk is equally important, if not more important, than what we talk about.”
The forum is designed so people can use the material at home, in school, at church or in a community setting.
Building community
Eagle and his wife have used the circle to discuss book selections with their children, who are 8 and 5 years old. “They really enjoy it. It’s their opportunity to be treated as equals in a world that treats children as less thans.”
Yellowhawk, Eagle and Mendoza y Ducheneaux also lead discussions as well.
A children’s book retelling a Cherokee story about strawberries resonated so much with Spanish-speaking children of migrant logging workers that they wanted to translate it into Spanish. Children learned about Cherokee culture and Native culture, but they were also very naturally bringing the story back into their own culture.
When Yellowhawk discussed the book with adults, an Episcopal priest reflected on the views of creation the book showed, another member remembered berries she’d encountered in Bolivia. Others began to talk of how food can be linked to peacemaking, the role of food and food production and how that’s been affected on Native American reservations.
“I just really love literature and community-building,” Yellowhawk said. “It’s been a grand adventure.” She’s relished having others talk about what the story means to them and how it meshes with their own story and experience.
A congregation’s experience
In Sioux Falls, S.D., Sermon on the Mount Mennonite Church is in its second year of holding discussions on the books.
“It’s been good. The books have helped us to learn some about Native American concerns,” said pastor Rosie Epp. “Using the Circle of One process has helped us experience how Native Americans listen in respectful ways.”
It’s been an opportunity to explore Native American culture and an entry point to becoming more aware of Native American issues, said Epp. Discussing the books together has made that journey more real. “It’s just a valuable experience to read the books and talk about them in the circle process and experience them that way. I think the questions presented maybe were questions we wouldn’t have thought of otherwise,” Epp said.
“I would encourage anybody to do it. It’s fun. It’s stretching. We do all kinds of book clubs. It’s fun to do this one with this theme and process,” she said.
Sharing stories
In his tradition, Eagle said, books are a relatively recent development – oral storytelling was and remains a prized component of his heritage. “It was so important to take the time to listen to each other’s stories,” he said.
And stories would be shared in the context of relationships – the listeners’ relationships with the storyteller and their ability to add in their questions, comments or responses adding to the experience.
The forum revives some of this, allowing participants to exchange ideas and stories and listen to each other, Eagle said.
The end goal is not the books themselves – it’s the community they can build and the barriers they can break down.
“We hope people will start talking about their interpersonal issues and their community issues through these books,” Eagle said.
Find the online study guide at mcc.org/news with the August article, “Circle of One Book Forum offers seasonal selections.”
END
Marla Pierson Lester is a writer for MCC.
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