Why Do Agreements Matter in Circle and in Life? - Circle Conversations July 13, 2026
Updated: Aug 5
a presentation by Sharon Riegie Maynard
The purpose of Circle Conversations during 2026 is to get “back to basics.” I chose to visit GTW’s Vision and Who We Are statements in a conversation about Agreements.
Have you thought about the difference between assumptions and agreements? When problems arise within mutual agreements, returning to those points is the first step toward finding solutions. Agreements give us a place to work things out and assumptions offer no such ground. In assumptions, we end up spinning in Chaos.
We are certainly seeing many “problems” emerging in our lives and in the world today. What better time than now to consider the agreements contained in Gather the Women's vision statement, the place where our shared values are held.
I chose to speak of the Gather the Women visions as if they are agreements. They are not agreements in the regular sense. Each of you did not set your name to paper or raise your hand. The fact you joined GTW indicates these values match your own. Within that platform of understanding, my hope is to stimulate you to consider your own personal relationship to obedience, assumptions, and agreements.
Gather the Women Global Matrix (GTW):
Is a grassroots organization focused on evolving feminine leadership
Is a worldwide sisterhood
Connects women through Circles
Creates safe and brave spaces for women to share our true selves
Encourages women to find their voices, reclaim their power, and remember their self-worth
Celebrates individuality and diversity
Acknowledges the rising of the Divine Feminine leading to personal and planetary transformation
Believes every woman is a leader
Upholds Circle Principles and Practices that empower and transform female leadership
Trusts that every woman safeguards the energy of the circle
Within my religious community when I was young, agreements were never discussed. Instead, the governing rule for girls and women was simply obedience — obedience to assumptions the community held.
Men, in the image of God, speak for God
Men lead
Women follow and nurture
Women nurture and serve the man and his ideas
Women have no need of education or vision or voice
Women birth and nurture children for the system
Women do not question the system
Women are so precious that God wants men to keep troublesome thinking away from them
These were unspoken, assumed within a system that works in a top-down, toxic Patriarchal culture.
Agreements come from each individual sharing ideas. From conversations, listening, and consideration for a desired outcome, collaboration brings multiple ideas into a woven form and agreement. When a problem arises within such a system, you can go back to the agreements. Revisit them with new possibilities, new skills, and new creations to be considered. Agreements are changeable and can evolve, and when they do, growth happens. Obedience to one person or a group of individuals and their ideas does not allow expansion.
In the early 1980’s I was given a tap on the third eye when I attended a lecture by an Indigenous filmmaker. He spoke of a tribe in Borneo that had been annihilated by a neighboring tribe. A few of the children were taken to be assimilated. Fifteen years later, three of those young boys, now attending a university as young men, realized they were of that tribe destroyed years before.
They made a commitment to go back to the place of that annihilation, set up camp in the nearby caves, and stay on the land to “dream awake the bones of their ancestors.” The wisdom, dreams, commitments, love… I was touched, and after the lecture spoke to the presenter.
He looked me in the eyes and asked, “When are you going to dream awake the bones of your ancestors?”
What?
He could see my confusion… “The women, the mothers and grandmothers?” And so, it began.
Those who know me, know I will always add Insights I have been given over 40 plus years, including from “dreaming awake the bones of our mothers.” To me, the true basics of women are hidden in the shadows of the distant past. They leak through to us in small dribbles unless we set intentions to dream them awake.
In the times I questioned my own inner assumptions, I would sit to hear from those I have come to call the Ancient Ones. Names you may know, Christ, Sananda, Ascended Masters, Quan-Yin, Mary Magdalene, Gaia, Archangels, and others. Some would call it channeling. I call it a telepathic gift. We each have them, information from the world of spirit and information from Gaia and her creations. Gather the Woman is a global Matrix of souls in female bodies.
The most shocking information, for me, one that shattered my assumption of male and female contributions, came when I asked this question to my teacher Collective: “Is there a Divine assignment, or overall Purpose, connected to souls who birth into female bodies?”
I assumed, of course, there could not be one assignment for all women. We are all so different and diverse. I realized my assumption was we birth children, mother, clean house, cook food, and make sure the men were supported in their hard work of being leaders. Perhaps you had similar assumptions. Women were to be soft, gentle, nurture, and serve. Even the personal growth Community at the time in 1980 and 1990 and even today said women are the nurturers.
I was surprised when the answer came from Christ Sananda. It was very clear. “Souls in what is called female bodies came with an agreement/mission to vision greatest good, to hold a design for those values to emerge, to set policy as leaders. Setting and holding values, they are to birth worlds and then test the forms in order to maintain a culture of those values. They vision and birth and safeguard the world.”
What?
I asked the question in different ways. Then I asked: “Am I receiving it clearly? Are my answers coming from sources of Home or Light?”
There was never any wavering.
“Women are to design from values of Divine Home, set policy, birth worlds, and remove anything that would destroy their creations. They are to be clear, assertive, Leaders, life bringers, and safeguarders.”
I was told in the original evolutionary system of the chakras, the female’s sensitive center of solar plexus was the center of authority to safeguard all Good in the world She designed and birthed. Females hold the ability to sense energy and know what does or does not resonate with the values. Her sensitivity could say with authority, “Yes, this form adds value. Expand and support it.” Or, “No, this form causes energy to fracture, to separate, to diminish. NOT Acceptable!” And our spiritual teams, assigned to remove codes of such energies, would act.
Females were to discuss, set values, design space, set policy, birth the design, and then safeguard the manifested forms with an authority voice into the heavens. Her “NO” meant “NO!” and would be acted on from worlds beyond earth?
Shocked!
Back to basics of agreements, these agreements were basic. I sat with that plan, and possibly you would like to sit with that plan. We are intelligent, magnificent, loving souls of genius. I could imagine us making such a plan and agreeing.
Then, I asked, “What was the purpose of souls birthing in male bodies?” “To create space for the women to have time to design, to birth, to determine what brings benefit, and to exert her ‘NO’ of authority. While the Good was created and tested, men were to hold and flow energy of love, support, respect, and encouragement into the female creation space.” “They are the nurturers.”
So now, look at the values held by Gather the Women Global Matrix. See how, even unconsciously, they reflect women’s original intention. We:
Are grassroots, no exclusion
Are evolving female leadership
Form supportive circles with a sacred center
Consider EVERY woman a leader
Empower transformation leadership
Hold heartfelt connections
Create safe and brave spaces
Heal, empower, and honor the Divine Feminine
Welcome diversity
Practice deep listening
Hold that everyone is responsible for the circle’s health
As I shifted my assumptions and applied the new information, my life changed, and so did the lives of my clients.
My intention here was to get back to the basic GTW vision in the form of agreements, and to weave in the insight held in the “bones of our ancestors, our ancestral mothers.” In doing so, it confirms for me the deep value of this Community, Gather the Women.
Sharon Riegie Maynard
