"As artists we are involved in forces and energies
greater than our own and invoke the great Creator
when we invoke our own creativty, that creative force
has the power to alter lives, fulfill destinies, answer our dreams.
As artist's we belong to an ancient and holy tribe.
We are the carriers of the truth the spirit that moves thru us all.
When we deal with one another, we are dealing not merely with
our human personalities but also with the unseen
and ever present throng of ideas, visions, stories,
poems, songs, sculptures, art-as-facts that crowd
the temple of consciousness waiting their turn to be born.

We are meant to midwife dreams for one another.
We cannot labor in the place of one another,
but we can support the labor that each must undertake
to birth her of his art and foster it to maturity.

It is for all these reasons that the Sacred Circle
must exist in any place of creation. It is this protective ring,
this soul boundary, that enlivens us at our highest level.
By drawing and acknowledging the Sacred Circle,
we declare principles to the above personalities.
We invite a spirit of service to the highest good
and the faith in the accomplishment of our own good
in the midst of our fellows.

Envy, backbiting, criticism have no place in our midst,
nor do ill temper, hostility, sarcasm, chivvying for position.
These attitudes may belong to the world, but they do not belong to us
in our place as artists here in this group.

Success occurs in clusters. Drawing a Sacred Circle
creates a sphere of safety and a center of attraction for our good.
By filling this form faithfully, we draw to us the best.
We draw the people we need.
We attract the gifts we could best employ.

The Sacred Circle is built on respect and trust.
The image is of the garden.
Each plant has its name and its place.
There is no one flower that cancels the need for another.
Each bloom has its unique and irreplaceable beauty.
Let our gardening hands be gentle ones.
Let us not root up another's ideas before they have time to bloom.
Let us bear with the process of growth, dormancy,
cyclicality, fruition and reseeding.
Let us never be hasty to judge,
reckless in our urgency to force natural growth.
Let there be, always, a place for the artist toddler to try,
to falter, to fail, to try again.

Let us remember that in nature's world every loss has meaning.

The same is true for us.
Turned to good use, a creative failure
may be the compost that nourishes next season's creative success.
Remember, we are in this for the long hall,
the ripening harvest, not the quick fix.
Art is an act of soul:
ours is a Sacred Circle, a spiritual community.

...Whoever you are, now I place my hand upon you, that you be my poem...
I will leave all and come make hymns of you,
None has understood you, but I understand you,
None has done justice to you, you have not done justice to yourself,
None but has found you imperfect, I only find no imperfection in you.
None but would subordinate you, I only am he
Who will never consent to subordinate you,
I am only he who places over you no master, owner,
Better, God, beyond what waits intrinsically in yourself.
Painters have painted their swarming groups
Of the centrefigure of all, from the head of the centre-figure
Spreading a nimbus of gold-colored light,
But I paint myriads of heads, but paint no head
Without its nimbus of gold-colored light,
From my hand from the brain of every man and woman it streams,
Effulgently flowing forever...

...There is no endowment in man or woman that is not
Tallied in you,
There is no virtue, no beauty in man or woman,
But as good as in you,
No pluck, no endurance in others, but as good as in you,
No pleasure waiting for others,
But an equal pleasure waits for you.
As for me I give nothing to anyone
Except I give the like carefully to you,
I sing the songs of the glory of none, not God,
Sooner than I sing the songs of the glory of you.
Whoever you are!
Claim your own at any hazard!

excerpt from To You by Walt Whitman