Transformational Speaking

Our new program is "The Work" for these Evolutionary Times. We play, pray, create and Listen as though the future depends on it. Because it does! One spot of ten just opened up for Oct. 11-15 due to a postponement. Let me know if it is yours!

The Transformational Listening Playground - Real Speaking | Gail Larsen   Transformational Listening™ for Evolutionaries: Let Life Speak to You A new program for new times. Listen Beyond What You Know. Live Beyond What You Thought Possible. October 11-15, 2026 • Rising Circle Ranch at MEAWisdom • Santa Fe, NM A Circle of 10 | Gail Larsen with special guest Estell...

The Inuit say there was a time when words were like magic. That what you spoke could take dynamic shape and influence your relationship to a wider earth. That speech was a kind of wealth.
(from Martin Shaw)

This morning I woke up to the news that Gloria Steinem has died at 92.
The Washington Post quoted historian Christine Stansell describing Gloria as “to the women’s movement what Martin Luther King Jr. was to civil rights: the galvanizer.”

What a life. What a force for evolution.

This photo is from a writers’ retreat (at Hedgebrook for "women authoring change") where Gloria and I were both guests nearly twenty years ago. I remember how much fun we had, how soft-spoken and kind she was, and how naturally she asked good questions and listened. She even admitted she didn’t love public speaking! Listening was part of her genius, the capacity to hear what women were experiencing and give voice to what needed to be heard. It was her work that paved the way for me to create the first TN Women's Career Convention in 1979 where 4,000 women from 16 states gathered for 3 days to hear inspiring speakers and meet 100 employers who wanted to hire them. It changed my life and led to my being named the first women to be the SBA TN Small BusinessMAN of the year!

I talk a lot about Original Medicine—the particular gifts we each carry that make our expression in the world distinctive, undeniable, and necessary to the whole of life. Gloria’s medicine was unmistakably hers, expressed in naming what others couldn’t yet name, challenging structures that diminished women, and helping millions of women see themselves and their possibilities differently.

And now, in little more than a week, we have lost Dolly Parton and Wendell Berry and Dr. Larry Dossey as well, four extraordinary human beings with four completely different expressions of Original Medicine in service to the world.

Damn, it’s hard losing these elders.
Gloria disrupted what needed to change.
Dolly disarmed what kept us apart.
Wendell never let us forget the natural world of which we are a part.
Larry invited us to take seriously what we cannot see—and helped bring the mysteries of consciousness, healing, and prayer into conversation with medicine and science.

There are so many ways to evolve a world.

I am thankful that in my understanding, our elders don’t simply disappear. They become ancestors on whom we can call. There is a practice, after a death, to consciously call in the qualities—the medicine—the person embodied that we want to claim and carry forward ourselves.

So this is more than a time to mourn these four extraordinary lives. It is a time to ask what they awakened in us that we want to embody and express.

What of Gloria’s courage are you willing to claim? Can you claim Dolly’s generosity and ability to cross divides with kindness and humor? Can you express Wendell’s fierce devotion to the living world and to our belonging within it? What of Larry’s willingness to explore beyond the boundaries of what conventional wisdom says is possible are you willing to carry forward?

How will this enhance your commitment to express your Original Medicine in a world that needs your gifts?

With these heart-wrenching losses of four beloved elders, the world is asking us to carry forward what they awakened—and bring our own medicine fully into service.

May it be so

Come play in the World Outside the Ordinary - Transformational Listening for Evolutionaries. 1 Spot Open Oct. 11-15 and What's ahead for 2027.

How do I find my way when I can’t see what’s ahead?

What is mine to do in a world changing this quickly?

What if uncertainty isn’t something to get through—
but a place from which to listen?

As Life keeps reminding us, we have our plans—and then there is the Mystery’s Plan.

We’ve had five sold-out programs this year, and one person just rescheduled for the October 11–15 Transformational Listening™ Playground for Evolutionaries. This is a circle of ten. Six are returning Transformational Speaking™ grads, and three are intriguing “important strangers.”Apparently, the Mystery has someone else in mind for that tenth spot. Might it be you?

I’m loving this new work. It keeps evolving as we listen! So much is being revealed about how we find our way into the future we long for that I’m already deep into writing about it. In fact, after this October class, I’m going into hibernation until next April to see what form it all wants to take. Perhaps a book—but first, a series of Essays for Evolutionaries: Listen Beyond What You Know to Live Beyond What You Thought Possible.

Transformational Speaking has always been about letting your life speak—listening to the life you’ve already lived to discover the story that is uniquely yours to tell and the message that only you can deliver.

Transformational Listening takes us full circle: Let Life Speak to You. Having discovered what is ours to say, we listen for what Life is asking of us now and what wants to emerge next.

We are living in times that call us to go beyond the old stories that have sustained us and listen for the new world that is calling. We can’t think our way there. We have to learn to listen for what we don’t yet know.

That’s what we’ll be doing in October.

Playing. Experimenting. Listening to ourselves, to Life, to one another, and together for what wants to emerge, both personally and collectively. While we can’t eliminate uncertainty, we can discover how to find our way within it. We can listen for, and co-create, the new story that wants to grow right from where we are.

We venture into the WOO—the World Outside Ordinary™—where we listen beyond what we know so we can live beyond what we thought possible. And we have so much fun doing it!

Perhaps the Mystery has you in mind for that one remaining spot. Want to come play?

Link in the Comments.

Explore 13 ideas drawn from Dolly Parton’s life, from dreaming big and keeping your rights to lifting others, forgiving, and staying true to yourself! Two Transformational Speakers from past classes showing up today. Grace Smith's article in Inc. about how we can become the qualities we loved in Dolly Parton also mentions Gala Darling! So exciting to see these women doing such big work in the world. sohttps://www.inc.com/katherine-grace-smith/dolly-parton-proved-kindness-doesnt-mean-being-a-pushover-her-elvis-decision-shows-why/91397818?inf_contact_key=d548b01f9da73ec52f7b7f7d99d1e8ee680f8914173f9191b1c0223e68310bb1

www.inc.com

Here's Part 2 of the Rising Circle Ranch Labyrinth creation and the magic that ensued! https://chipconley.substack.com/p/guest-post-high-play-with-the-mystery?r=vl6cs&utm_medium=ios&utm_id=97757_v0_s00_e0_tv2_a1dennhb7pmilv&fbclid=IwY2xjawToDF5wZG9mBWV4dG4DYWVtAjExAHNydGMGYXBwX2lkEDIyMjAzOTE3ODgyMDA4OTIAAR7RCoAjnsxIkjZnrJQsga1tvRpCYoKTwWo1_GfraXNxz2D-aZCVhGR77bzNYQ_aem_jww_6kTOOiwjDuTBXMWpeA&triedRedirect=true

Guest Post | High Play with the Mystery, Part 2 Walking the Rising Circle Labyrinth with Gail Larsen

Here’s a story about the building of the labyrinth at Rising Circle Ranch, home of Gail Larsen’s transformational programs. Did the labyrinth build us?

Guest Post | The Wisdom of Circles, Part 1 What the Rising Circle Labyrinth Teaches About Finding Our Way

Ah Danielle. Here’s to fullness! Love seeing this. Yes. Was in london last year teaching for hay house authors and spent a weekend with lee in his program when I landed. A beautiful soul. ❤️

"When a complex system is far from equilibrium, small islands of coherence in a sea of chaos have the capacity to shift the entire system to a higher order." --Nobel Laureate Ilya Prigogine

Congratulations to Transformational Speaker Grace Smith for her new column in Inc. Magazine and her graduation from Harvard!

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