Meet Anne Forbes

In terms of design, it was important for the Wheels of Time and Place, the carrying case, instruction booklet, and Wheels themselves to be beautiful as well as functional. To begin, you select an image or map to ground your Wheel-keeping journal; a size of Wheel to work with (11” and 24” are the most common); and a time scale to follow – day, lunar month, year with our without dates and moon phases, lifetime, or adapt your own from a blank Wheel.

I’m a middle child, so I seem to always be finding the middle way. The Wheels may call you to spiritual exploration and expression. They are also used widely in the secular settings of schools, youth programs, organizations, or any place where the process of observing patterns helps people notice, learn, communicate, and celebrate. In the words of one longtime Wheel-keeper, that’s the beauty of the wheel. It can be anything you need or want it to be.

Thus, there are as many ways to use the Wheels as there are people who use them. As a Wheel-keeper you might: attune to cycles and seasons in your home place, track your garden year, share your love of nature with your grandchildren, engage your students in schoolyard project, integrate spiritual exploration with natural cycles, tell your life story, set intentions for the coming season(s), take a personal “do it yourself” retreat, plan a retreat for a group of friends, or find common ground with others who share your neighborhood, watershed, or bioregion. See the Gallery for examples.

The Wheels of Time and Place help me explore and fully inhabit the places that sustain my body, mind, and spirit. When I track the continuous rhythms of nature and the new lessons that time brings my way, I am more alive and present to my role as caretaker of my home place and it, in turn, becomes my teacher. I use the Wheels to deepen and integrate my exploration of science and spirit. I offer the Wheels to others because of the joy I find in learning about the variety of ways they are used and the excitement they bring as they change our ways of thinking about time and place and how we choose to live within the circle of life.

Anne has been a student of the natural world for as long as she can remember. Among her early friends were Joe the toad, Timothy the turtle, Clarisse the spider and her hundreds of parachuting babies, and tadpoles in all stages of development. Her father taught her to garden in the deep prairie soil of central Illinois.

As an ecologist, natural resource planner, and consultant for over 35 years, Anne has supported environmental and community collaborations in varied settings. She is a skilled facilitator and teacher and an inventive designer of workshops, forums, and other participatory events. She is a certified SoulCollageâ facilitator.

As a spiritual seeker, Anne has studied and practiced in Buddhist, Quaker, and indigenous traditions, including lineages from Tibet, North America, and Peru, and has taken pilgrimages to Southern France, Ireland, and places closer to home where pilgrimage can be a daily practice. Her recent work, including the publication of the ‘Wheels of Time and Place’ in 2009 and the current design of the ‘Sacred Ecology of the Elements,’ grows out of this profound integration of science and spirit and her commitment to share her journey with others.