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Issue 25: Awakening Together

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March 15, 2026

Collective Awakening Through Spontaneous Writing

Reflections on The Mystery School’s Spontaneous Writing Circle

By Member of The Mystery School

The Mystery School provides a space for collective transformation through peer-led courses and gatherings. The Spontaneous Writing Circle is one of these spaces, and is structured around a collective intention to allow the collective manifested by the group to express itself through the writings of its individual members. One contributor describes the gathering as “a transformative space where transmission of egoless freedom, care for the whole, and creative self-reflection is immediately felt. Surrender is available as a natural state.”

We have compiled some reflections on collective awakening from members of the Spontaneous Writing Circle that emphasize the emergent qualities that can arise within intentional gatherings.

My Experience of the Spontaneous Writing Circle

By Dawn

The members of the Spontaneous Writing Circle have a shared purpose, which we may describe differently. We show up regularly, which indicates that we value what is happening within and among us.

I heard Jeff Carreira speak this morning about the paradox of what we call practice. He said there are no fake doors we can practice walking through to prepare for crossing the threshold. The door is already open.

My experience of writing in this Circle of women is similar. Other than several minutes of quiet at the start, we make no preparation. We show up, we listen to the prompt, and we write spontaneously for about twenty-five minutes. We are present to our hearts' response to the prompt, and present to what is emerging in the form of words in this moment. We are listening to what wants to be known.

For me, this is sacred. I remember Jeff describing being carried as a boy by the current created from the momentum of a group of children walking around the circular perimeter of a pool of water. Something like that happens in the Circle. I don't know what creates that. It may be intention, it may be listening, it may be presence, it may be an unseen current of support.

Whatever is offered from each of us is received. Sometimes there are resonances among the writings, sometimes unexpected repeated words or ideas not contained in the prompt, sometimes there are other facets of reality to include.

I don't know what the magic is. Allowing and trusting life to speak through me, joining others who open themselves in this way, knowing that all of us are seen and heard and held - loved, you might say. Like synchronicities which can't be explained in the world of cause and effect, there is, apparently, some web of being that we are engaging.

Collective Awakening in the Spontaneous Writing Circle

By Deborah Kaplan

The Spontaneous Writing Circle is a practice of immediate awareness and engaging with what is present. Engaging the Evolutionary Impulse, the creative process that is always available, to describe the truth of the moment. Our human experience, revealing that there is no boundary between divine revelation and our human struggle.

The present moment reveals, too, that there is no preference for either experience… only Truth.

Over time, this practice transforms us by shifting our idea of who we think we are. The acceptance of the moment becomes a revelation - a new habit of experiencing yourself.

Dignity replaces doubt.

By seeing the truth in our experience of no separation (the non-dual existence of the divine and our humanity) we are awakened and available for divinity to initiate our own conscious growth. This expands and frees us to respond to what wants to be created by us and between us, as Artifact and Collective Awakening.

The idea and format for the Spontaneous Writing Circle instantaneously appeared from the divine’s profound knowing. The urgency of its yearning for real intimacy is its foundation and driving force.

When abiding in this space, ego’s responses to needing something more are immediately felt. At once, an awareness appears and gently asks to be released, initiating a profound inner silence. The awareness is a recognition that in our natural state of easeful abiding we can rest that part of ourselves and shift our attention to the moment, beckoning creativity to flow without distraction.

As a result of the format, this recognition has become an unspoken shared agreement as each person came to their own recognition. I see this growth as foundational to Collective Awakening. Without it we are still swimming in ego’s deceit.

The Spontaneous Writing Circle is a transformative space where transmission of egoless freedom, care for the whole, and creative self-reflection is immediately felt. Surrender is available as a natural state.

Autonomous, equanimous, and leaderless, it is a space where there is only engagement. Engagement when your inner voice is free of distraction and doubt, and open to be moved by something higher. Where there is already an authentic dedication to each other’s transformation through shared readings and conscious conversation. Where we expand the idea of who we think we are by discovering all the facets of our humanity, and the curiosity to participate in a Collective that shares a profound intention to evolve from within.

Awakening and Emerging

by Michelle Babian

Awakening and emergence is dear to my heart.

Awakening is a choice to open to pathways, followed by experiences generating endless cycles of inner guidance. This process of awakening and emerging is strengthened when in spiritual partnership with your god, and ultimately in spiritual partnership with community-building. Such partnerships born of compassion are powerful when at the center of everyday living. Awakening and Emergence in community is based on this transformation. The in-between from a fearful, thinking mindset to open-heart experience allows new perceptions of one’s Self in the Universe. This is the realm of awakening and emerging.

The Spontaneous Writing Circle is a community of awakening and emerging from the self to Self. Its format allows for this in community together. Over the years I’ve witnessed an allowing, a letting go of my ego by degrees, thus opening wide the space for emerging beyond self and selves and into an orchestral energy of compassion.

I attend through difficult times, returning after short-term scheduling challenges for its purpose as I see it: of self evolution to Self in a community dedicated to a higher consciousness in beings. Caring for each others’ hearts is the key to allowing connection and creating safety for our members.

Each Circle, with reading, silent written reflection, and sharing, is a celebration of evolving Self-created identities. The life of this Circle emerges from a group acceptance that we will experience fearless evolution, as vulnerable hearts offering condolences of the greatest comfort in deep transformational expressions of Self and soul.

The Spontaneous Writing Circle

By Joyenne Landers

So often I am feeling tired by the time the Spontaneous Writing Circle happens.

As soon as I see everyone, meditate, and listen to the reading, my fatigue disappears. As I write, I am able to switch into a mode of openness, wonder, and exploration of whatever comes. There is a freeing from my earthbound self, and a curious journey into parts unknown.

Then comes the sharing of our writing, with such open-heartedness from everyone, and I truly feel heard and validated. Thank you, Deborah, for setting the stage and holding the space for whatever unfolds to unfold. Collective awakening is happening in our Circle.

Spontaneous Writing Circle and Collective Awakening

By Michou Landon

Even before I joined The Mystery School and the Spontaneous Writing Circle I was aware of and participating as wakefully as I could in the general trend toward a collective evolution of consciousness on our planet. As most of us drawn to this unfolding intuit, numbers and focused intention make a difference. While we can’t push this river, can’t will or think ourselves forward, we can lean in, open, and allow its acceleration by making ourselves available for it. We can be instruments of it, individually and collectively.

We hold any agenda for our Spontaneous Writing Circle meetings lightly, quietly. The “spontaneous” in the name says much. We gather in presence, willingness, and curiosity, and we trust what we bring. We trust what the writing prompt draws out of each of us, is how the Mystery contributes to its alchemy through us. We are grateful witnesses: what we write interacts with the other writings in our individual minds, and in the collective field. It changes in every mind hearing them, and changes every heart hearing them; and all consciousness is changed by it. We often see this integration process underway in the second writings of the evening.

This process is evinced in our writings, in our rapport, and our intimacy over time, not just during a single meeting. And I’m sure the effect ripples out in how each of us inhabits our voice in other contexts and settings less rarified, settings we might consider less “safe.”

In our circle we are not required to show up in any particular way; there is nothing to prove here. But we are encouraged by the safe container to be as truthful and courageously authentic as we can be, and we receive the compassionate witness that notices where and how this is less available for us.

The field that’s been created promotes ease, even in newcomers. Even if they are self-conscious or less confident at first, it seems like they sense safety and potential in the field, and in themselves. They seem to loosen up more readily than other containers might allow.

Sometimes we hear what whispered inside us (but did not flow out our pen) in what someone else has written, or in what we hear when they read it. There is a greater voice shaping and being shaped in the combined voices, and this voice is expressing content that we did not even know we had carried into the room from greater collectives, cultural, ancestral, and more. All is witnessed here, and is spun into wonder, compassion, and insight somewhere in consciousness, like straw into gold.

Discovering the Collective Self

By Bonnie Winer

The spontaneous nature of the practice in the Spontaneous Writing Circle is key to what unfolds each time we gather in unfiltered, untamed, and unedited expression. In each writing something happens the instant the pen moves across the page. Something expresses, discovered often beyond the knowing mind. It is a practice in both writing and listening, listening to the impulse that bubbles up inside, seeking to be set free in words, and letting those words find form on the page. At times expression comes with slow and careful attention, easing through in just the right way to fulfill the intentions of the push from within. At other times the flow is rapid with a will of its own, the fingers merely a pathway for something bigger wanting to speak.

The freedom and safety to speak this way, to write and discover Oneself in the company of others also listening and finding their way, letting stillness, mystery, emptiness speak, becomes a chorus of brilliance and beauty, heartache and longing, that rises with surprise, and even tenderness. Vulnerability keeps making room for each voice that is both a singular expression and a voice from depth that is more than the individual - an open channel to receive and invite wisdom. And when spoken out loud, we recognize ourselves in what flows and grows through each other’s words and something more: the very mystery of the invisible, ineffable, and joy of, Being.

Over time, something else amazing happens. The practice feeds back into the blood and bone of every cell in our bodies, with spontaneous trust in what wants to flow through us, every day. More creativity, freedom of expression, and spontaneous access to a larger experience is nurtured into Being. We are more of this larger Self, more open, available, and aware, becoming more fully who we already Are.

My Experience as a New Member in the Spontaneous Writing Circle

By Trina Soileau

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about consciousness. What does it mean to be conscious and experience consciousness together with others? Sometimes people speak of “collective consciousness” as something abstract. Many of my thoughts about consciousness arrive from contemplation, musings and questions. I certainly don’t have a clear concept of what consciousness is, but I believe one can experience it in smaller, more intimate ways such as within this writing circle.

My experience in this group has been deeply positive. Everyone has been so kind and welcoming. That alone would keep me returning, but it is the container within which the group is held and the qualities each person brings — care, compassion, lived experience, respect — that create something rare.

I believe the qualities present within the group are foundational to opening ourselves and each other to what might allow something else to form between us. It might be similar to what Carl Jung calls the “third thing,” but without the tension. Or maybe this “third thing” is created from a different kind of tension where a kind of honesty is required, inviting something else to form that seems to inform the group.

It feels as though we are influencing the tone of the space together by listening and receiving a particular resonance. The poet Joy Harjo talks about listening as an interactive experience. Perhaps interactive listening is like tapping into a field where insight and creativity move through us rather than from us. Maybe this is what happens in the group.

The format of the group starts in silence — a kind of reverence, an invitation rather than a forced entry. When we sit together in intentional silence before creating, a shift can happen that moves us from a busy day into spaciousness. Space to tap into and create remains present throughout our time together. There aren’t a lot of words spoken beyond what is being read by us, if we choose to read. A container holds us, and within this container is wisdom and safety where the ego can relax and the mind can calm down. We might feel safe enough to allow our vulnerability to emerge. When this happens, attunement and connection has the ability to deepen. Similar themes and images sometimes appear across our writings. The potential for tapping into a subtle, shared current can emerge during our time together.

The structure of the group allows us to write experimentally. There is no right or wrong way. We move beyond the thinking mind where we can spontaneously connect with our felt sense, memories, and images that arise and eventually become words on the page.

Lastly, I think it’s important to note that we are not performing for each other. This invites us to be vulnerable and meet ourselves in a creative way. There is an enormous amount of talent in this group, but it’s paired with humbleness. In a world that demands constant performance and perfection, it is easy to feel you don’t measure up. What a relief it is to know I don’t have to perform in this group. There is space to feel and to express without judgment. To be witnessed and accepted by women (since there are currently only women in this group) in this way carries profound meaning for me. There is great beauty and goodness in that, which I believe is an important component of defining collective consciousness for me.

I find it difficult to translate what might be happening in the group. Maybe trying to define “it” fully reduces the experience — I’m not sure. But I do know this: when I log off after our meetings, I often pause. I take in what I have just experienced, and I’m deeply moved.

Writing Circle Reflections

By Patty Redenbaugh

This pen and paper call me in the calling you all are. This kaleidoscope of unique glorious and sharp people writing to share that which hides inside the words and hurls itself into our hearts!

There is nowhere I would rather be than here and no one I would rather be with than you.

My words seem so simple, but I pray to that which is really appreciating and beholding this… all of us with unique influences bestowing new rays of perception – Oh, to be able to really express this and yet, being here is enough, more than enough.

~

Thank you, each of you who form a “we” together in this moment. These feelings, this outlook is suddenly rich in meaning, rich in intention and depth.

With you I can allow the pulse of positivity that often is invisible to me.

This pulse, this bringing forth of that which stirs our very souls…..

THANK YOU

And especially you, Deborah, for clearing space for this.

~

Breathing this air, this stillness with each of you, sharing these windows to your many-faceted selves. This “selfness” is present, this receptivity. The birds respond, and have been responding this whole lifetime, singing the sweetness of life.

The bowing of heads, the kneeling of communion, in this holiness that is always present.

Thanking you, plural You – never seems enough. Together this tincture, this color, this breathing that transcends and grows down deep into the earth – all of this is made real through our communion.