Nature, Culture, & the Sacred: Reinventing Leadership and Reclaiming the Feminine with Nina Simons

EcoJustice Radio

Leadership: what does it mean to lead in our times? Perhaps our times are requesting that we all express leadership in our own unique ways and forms. Etymology of the word leadership reveals root words that mean to go and also to guide. We might perceive leadership as going somewhere together with others, with being the important preposition. Because many of us have become jaded by modern leadership, influenced by patriarchy, tyranny, hierarchy and racial, social or gender inequalities. Nina Simons, Co-Founder of Bioneers, joins us to share her investigations of leadership in her book, ‘Nature, Culture, and the Sacred: A Woman Listens for Leadership’. Ours is a time that yearns for a new, feminine, inflected and heartled vision of leadership. Where might it lead us collectively, at the local and global level? Many Indigenous peoples around the world hold understandings and perceptions about leadership that are inherently more spiritual, circular, communal and collaborative than what many of us have experienced or been taught in traditional schools or by society at large. May we redefine and expand our notions of leadership, for much is at stake for the natural world, especially including ourselves. Some indigenous communities speak of the bird of humanity that has been flying too long with one wing. Now is the time to return to balance and fly with two wings for the benefit of the world. Nina Simons is here to explore the potentiality of leadership for our shared future. Extended Interview: https://www.patreon.com/posts/nina-simons-83808655 Fall in love with a place, a people, with children, a cause, an organization, a creature, a species - anything that really lights you up. Then give yourself to it in some form of purposeful action…Then see who else is committed to it. Who else is in this river you’ve opted to swim in, on behalf of our collective future? Bring all of yourself. - Nina Simons, Nature, Culture and the Sacred: A Woman Listens for Leadership Nina Simons is Co-Founder of Bioneers [https://bioneers.org/] and Author of ‘Nature, Culture, and the Sacred: A Woman Listens for Leadership’ [https://bioneers.org/ncs/]. She leads the Bioneers Everywoman’s Leadership program. Bioneers is a nonprofit that uses media, convening, and connecting to lift up visionary and practical solutions for many of our most pressing social and ecological challenges, revealing a regenerative and equitable future that’s within our reach today. Nina speaks and teaches internationally at schools, conferences, and festivals, and co-facilitates transformative workshops and retreats for women that share practices for regenerative leadership through reclaiming wholeness and relational mindfulness. Her personal website is https://www.ninasimons.com/. Carry Kim, Co-Host of EcoJustice Radio. An advocate for ecosystem restoration, indigenous lifeways, and a new humanity born of connection and compassion, she is a long-time volunteer for SoCal350, member of Ecosystem Restoration Camps, and a co-founder of the Soil Sponge Collective, a grassroots community organization dedicated to big and small scale regeneration of Mother Earth. Podcast Website: http://ecojusticeradio.org/ Podcast Blog: https://www.wilderutopia.com/category/ecojustice-radio/ Support the Podcast: Patreon https://www.patreon.com/ecojusticeradio PayPal https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=LBGXTRM292TFC&source=url Executive Producer and Intro: Jack Eidt Hosted by Carry Kim Engineer and Original Music: Blake Quake Beats Episode 178