Circle Keepers

Circle Keepers is the largest role in the Office of the 3 Sisters by headcount (100+), and the broadest community-facing layer of the Office's relational structure. Members of this role tend circles within the wider community across multiple forms: sub-cycle integration circles, language-carrier-adjacent circles, and Earth-stewardship circles. The Community Research Keepers Circle operates as a sum-group expression of the Circle Keepers role — meaning the collective of Community Research Keepers is one named instantiation of what Circle Keepers hold in aggregate.

Status: Open to be filled
Approximate count: 100+
Languages: EN / ES

Role in the Kichwa Schema

Per the Office's Kichwa ecological role schema (see Wasi, Sacha, and the Kichwa Ecological Role Schema), Circle Keepers map to the Wasikamayuk relational function — the steward position. The Wasikamayuk listens to the keeper (Wasiyuk), suggests needs, supports the larger ecological purpose of the Wasi, and coordinates Ayni acknowledgments. This places Circle Keepers in a supporting-steward relationship to the wider Office ecology, distinct from the keeper role held by the Registry Keeper and Office Habitat / Resource Steward.

Circles Tended

Circle Keepers hold circles at multiple scales and purposes within the community. Documented circle types include:

Sub-cycle integration circles — accompanying community members through the integration work of the Medicine Wheel's six-day sub-cycles
Language-carrier-adjacent circles — circles that support or sit in relationship with the Office's Indigenous language-carrier work
Earth-stewardship circles — circles connected to participation in the Earth Stewardship Program and its seven Alli Kawsay pathways
Circle of Community Research Keepers — the collective form of Community Research Keepers, explicitly named by Kichwalana (2026-05-12) as a sum-group of the Circle Keepers role

Relationship to Community Research Keepers

The Community Research Keepers Circle is the most operationally developed instantiation of the Circle Keepers role as of 2026-05-12. Where Circle Keepers as a whole tends community relationship and integration, Community Research Keepers is a specific named circle within that larger role — focused on receiving, integrating, and carrying research from the Office into wider community networks. Community Research Keepers are Circle Keepers; the inverse is not necessarily true.

Current State and Development

This role is open to be filled. Operational registry entries are staged to populate as the role opens; as of the sources available, most sub-fields of this role remain to be developed.

A public-facing Circle Keepers webpage on the Office website (o3s.foundation) is planned, to explain what a Circle Keeper is, how to become one, and how to step out gracefully. This page has not yet been published.

Guidance documentation for the role follows the Office's principle that each role receives a short instructional document — covering what it holds, how to enter, and how to leave — before being opened to the community.

Place in the Office Structure

Circle Keepers sit within the broader role ecosystem of the Office, which operates on the design principles that one person may hold multiple roles, multiple people may hold the same role and rotate, and roles may exist in development before being open. Circle Keepers is bilingual (EN / ES) and is expected to scale significantly relative to all other roles; no other published role approaches the projected 100+ headcount.

For Quechua-Kichwa terms used in this page (Wasikamayuk, Wasiyuk, Wasi, Ayni, Alli Kawsay), see Glossary — Quechua-Kichwa and Office Terms.