Edited by Nina Simons with Anneke Campbell, Foreword by Terry Tempest Williams
This anthology presents more than 30 essays from eminent women trailblazers (and a few men) who collectively describe how our mental models and role models for leadership are transforming in this time. such as author Alice Walker, psychiatrist Jean Shinoda Bolen, playwright Eve Ensler, holistic doctor Rachel Naomi Remen, biologist Janine Benyus, hip-hop performer Rha Goddess, and famous tree-sitter Julia Butterfly Hill, as well as lesser-known but equally influential leaders such as social entrepreneur Judy Wicks, philanthropic activist Kathy LeMay, food justice advocate LaDonna Redmond, and media educator Sofia Quintero. Their narratives explore how they cultivated their leadership impulses and their “feminine” strengths, reinventing leadership to prioritize community, collaboration, the environment and the common good. Illuminating a path to progressive environmental and social change, their passionate stories of joyful, creative, collaborative and sacred leadership ignite within each reader the power to help concrete a healthy, peaceful, just and sustainable world.
Part 1
Knowing Our Selves, Our Inner Landscape, and Our Sense of Purpose
Heart To Heart: Womens Leadership In Transforming Culture
All too often, there’s a disconnect between how women are portrayed in popular culture and the media, and how women see and portray themselves. Sarah Crowell, Joanna Macy, Susan Griffin, Sofia Quintero and Akaya Windwood take apart gender politics and put them back together with an emotional intelligence that is shifting the definition of power and fostering new models of women’s leadership.
They Don’t Call Her Mother Earth for Nothing: Women Reimagining the World
This astounding conversation among diverse women leaders provides a fascinating window into the soulful depths of what it means to restore the balance between our masculine and feminine selves to bring about wholeness, justice and true restoration of people and planet. In this one hour special, join Alice Walker, Jean Shinoda Bolen, Nina Simons, Sarah Crowell, Joanna Macy and Akaya Windwood to imagine a future where women, children, men and the planet can thrive.
Glora Flora: Defending Our Forests
Nine out of ten Americans strongly favor wilderness protection, but federal policy actually threatens such preservation. In her decades of work at the U.S. Forest Service, Gloria Flora faced threats and harassment as she tried to protect the forest commons. She tells us that in order to sustain landscapes, we need to sustain ourselves, and in order to sustain ourselves we need to sustain landscapes.
Rha Goddess: Who’s Got Next
Young women are rising up to take their power, and in doing so they are re-weaving a web of relationship that promises to rock the world. Performing artist, activist and hip-hop entrepreneur Rha Goddess, renowned for her spoken-word dexterity and feisty political consciousness, explores how this generation’s daughters are branding their own movement of love, power and freedom.
Lily Yeh: The Rwanda Healing Project
From the inner city of Philadelphia to the genocide-ravaged countryside of Rwanda, Lily Yeh depicts her experiences creating art that’s rooted in communities.
Terry Tempest Williams – The Open Space of Democracy
Celebrated author Terry Tempest Williams elegantly blends language with landscape and regales the audience with deeply personal stories of transformation, both personal and political. She challenges us to bypass political rhetoric and opt for a deeper conversation about democracy. For her, the test of true patriotism is not what we are willing to die for, but what we are willing to give our lives to.
Part 2
Leadership Sourced from Inner Authority
Archetypes in Every Woman
How might our culturally inherited myths and symbols be limiting—or expanding—our stories, options and realities? Explore this dynamic terrain through a multicultural lens. Hosted by Anneke Campbell, author, activist, filmmaker. With: Jean Shinoda Bolen, author, Jungian therapist, activist; Luisah Teish, teacher/storyteller/priestess in the Ifa Orisha tradition; Sri Swamini Svatmavidyananda, teacher of Vedanta and Sanskrit, resident Acharya of the Arsha Vijnana Gurukulam.
Indigeneity: Becoming Native, Staying Native
What would life be like if we could hear the land ask us to be a certain way, a way that leads us and the Earth back to wholeness and health? Native American activists, educators, and leaders Jeannette Armstrong, Leslie Gray, and Katsi Cook share an inspiring Earth-honoring vision of what it means to “re-indigenize” ourselves.
Value Change for Survival: All My Relations
In these ecologically dangerous times, many call for a fundamental change of heart if we are to restore vital ecosystems. Oren Lyons, Leslie Gray and John Mohawk remind us of the values that sustained people for thousands of years in a balance that supported the land. They offer direction toward nothing less than a value change for survival.
An Oil Spill Runs Through It: Corporate Power and the Sliming of American Democracy
Constitutional attorneys Jeff Clements and John Bonifaz join with biologist and democracy advocate Dr. Riki Ott to explore new strategies to overcome the relentless fight put up by big oil and big business. Could it mean a 28th Amendment to the Constitution?
LaDonna Redmond: The Color of Sustainability
LaDonna Redmond tells her very personal story of searching for answers in her struggle with her son’s food allergies and finding a need for the African-American voice in the food and farming industry. She also discusses the difficulty of finding healthy food in her neighborhood, linking food and racial justice.
Jensine Larsen with Sister Zeph – Crowdsourcing the Feminine Intelligence of the Planet
World Pulse founder Jensine Larsen and Sister Zeph, an award-winning Pakistani digital crusader for girls’ education, illustrate how their global network is harnessing the power of digital communication into a powerful force for change by connecting women from more than 190 countries – including those reaching out using Internet cafés and cell phones from remote rural areas and conflict zones.
Part 3
Reweaving the Web of Connection
Rachel Naomi Remen, M.D. – Becoming a Blessing
Dr. Rachel Naomi Remen draws on ancient Jewish traditional wisdom to propose that the future is determined by the potential of the present. A doctor and storyteller from a long line of Jewish physicians, she explores healing as an exercise in resetting how we view our lives.
Judy Baca: Tatooing the River
Award-winning painter Judy Baca describes how art can reconnect people to place, revive disappearing history, and repair cultural root systems. While working with at-risk youth to create The Great Wall of Los Angeles, the world’s longest mural, Baca realized that restoring a disappeared river also meant restoring disappeared cultures.
Women and Entheogens | Kat Harrison, Annie Oak, Carolyn Garcia and Mariavittoria Mangini
The worlds of psychedelic research and culture have historically been heavily male, and the stories of some of the great women pioneers in these domains have not received the attention they deserve. This historic panel discussion brought together some of the most extraordinary women who have contributed to this field in their own very diverse ways.
Jeannette Armstrong: Human Relationship as Land Ethic
At the En’owkin Centre, a First Nations-directed educational center, educator Jeannette Armstrong illustrates how the community organizes itself by the “Four Societies” practice in relationship, action, tradition and vision societies.
Indigenous Peace Technologies: The Ancient Art of Getting Along
From North America to the Kalahari, Jeannette Armstrong, Marlowe Sam, Evan Pritchard, Kxao=Oma and Megan Biesele share powerful stories of how indigenous social technologies have succeeded in resolving conflict, and still are.
The Art of Relationships: From Ecology to Healing
From North America to the Author and physicist Fritjof Capra, Native American educator Jeannette Armstrong, and medical researcher Jeanne Achterberg describe the complex and interconnected relationships inherent in living systems that can help heal our environment, our societies, and us.
Ecological Medicine: Healing Health Care
Did medicine’s separation from nature propel our health care system into its current crisis? Join Dr. Andrew Weil and nurse and health activist Charlotte Brody as they describe how Ecological Medicine reunites the interdependence of medicine and nature, and restores the feminine principle in healing.
From Slavery to Stardust: What Would Healing Look Like?
What might happen when the descendants of a white slave trader and of black people who were enslaved meet? That is the brave and wrenching journey embraced by Thomas DeWolf, whose white ancestors were once the nation’s biggest slave traders, and Belvie Rooks and Dedan Gills, descendants of African people who were enslaved. Together they depict their remarkable journey to discover what healing looks like.
Mourning into Daybreak
From North America to the Author and physicist Fritjof Capra, Native American educator Jeannette Armstrong, and medical researcher Jeanne Achterberg describe the complex and interconnected relationships inherent in living systems that can help heal our environment, our societies, and us.
Part 4
Renegotiating Power: Generosity, Mentorship, and Respectful Relations
Judy Wicks: Local Living Economies
The fabled entrepreneur and activist Judy Wicks tells her story of moving beyond responsible business practices to working cooperatively with other entrepreneurs and citizens to build whole economies based on love of nature and community.
Lateefah Simon: Girl Power for Social Justice
Describing her profoundly effective work with the Center for Young Women’s development (CYWD), a group run by and for previously incarcerated young women, Lateefah Simon traces the justice system’s impacts on communities, children, and young women. She also shares CYWD’s strategies to address these inequities.
Making Tomorrow Today: The Power of Youth
Dynamic young people are surmounting considerable social and economic obstacles by following their dreams to create a better world. Jessica Rimington, Rhummanee Hang, Thenmozhi Soundararajan, Manuel Francisco, Caleb Ryen, Amalia Anderson and Lily Dong are enlivening the horizon of positive possibilities with grace, courage and boundless creativity.
Education for Action: Reinventing Everything
Join ecoliteracy leaders David Orr and Dr. Anthony Cortese and young educational social entrepreneur Jess Rimington for an inspiring teach-in on how educators and students are creating a living curriculum for an engaged society that’s solving problems while studying them.
Janine Benyus: Biomimicry as a Cooperative Inquiry
Our species is finally turning toward other species for their embodied wisdom, borrowing these insights to solve challenges such as delivering nutrition in a way that nourishes both planet and people. Biomimicry author and visionary Janine Benyus shows how nature-inspired breakthroughs in agriculture are evolving from plant-focused “silver bullets” to system-savvy healing.
Sharkskin, Hippo Sweat and the Wood-Wide Web: From Flat Earth to Whole Earth Thinking
Biomimicry masters Janine Benyus and Jay Harman illuminate the forefront of nature-inspired design, including human organization and the power of networks.
Part 5
Restoring the Feminine in our Strategies, Institutions, and Culture
Eve Ensler: V to the 10th
Can art and activism help unravel the cultural underpinnings of violence against women? In this presentation, Eve Ensler speaks on the importance of translating powerful private stories into unstoppable public movements.
Charlotte Brody: The Sea Around Us, The Environment In Us
A seasoned organizer for civil rights, women’s rights, workers’ rights peace and environmental health since 1964, Charlotte Brody explores how chemicals are creating disease and disorders, and how solutions are being innovated to regain health and democracy.
War, Earth and the Soul: The Warrior’s Path of Redemption | Edward Tick
Is high-tech war that can annihilate human civilization and nature on a global scale really a viable response to conflict in the 21st century? The traumatic wounding of war is so deep that it calls for more than antidepressants or stress management. Dr. Edward Tick’s heart-rending experience shows us that transforming the demons of war can lead to a redemptive path of healing and reverence for life.
Greening the Inner City: Jobs, Health, Justice and the Environment | Omar Freilla
Omar Freilla is a founding board member of Sustainable South Bronx and launched Green Worker Cooperatives, an inspiring initiative dedicated to the creation of worker-owned, environmentally friendly manufacturing cooperatives in the South Bronx. Freilla describes how his enterprises in skill training, energy-efficient construction, and equitable planning and policy are harnessing the value of both people and materials to regenerate entire neighborhoods.
Green-Collar Justice: Another World is Possible
One person’s trash is another person’s treasure, as the saying goes. Entrepreneur and activist Omar Freilla and “deconstruction” business owner Justin Green are solving for pattern: By working to eliminate waste, they are creating green collar jobs and improving the environment in some of the nation’s most underserved communities.
Eco Schools: Educating for Sustainable Communities
Fritjof Capra, co-founder of the Center for Ecoliteracy, and leading environmental educators Cheryl Charles and David Orr explore what’s working for the A+ schools that are successfully integrating ecological awareness, understanding and practices through the curriculum and the community.
Sofia Quintero: Women Telling Our Stories and Promoting Justice
Sofia Quintero, the Bronx-born writer, activist, educator, comedienne and self-proclaimed “Ivy-League homegirl” of Puerto Rican-Dominican descent shares how she has married her activism with storytelling in the critically acclaimed Black Artemis novels and in other socially conscious entertainment in many media.
Heart To Heart- Womens Leadership In Transforming Culture
All too often, there’s a disconnect between how women are portrayed in popular culture and the media, and how women see and portray themselves. Sarah Crowell, Joanna Macy, Susan Griffin, Sofia Quintero and Akaya Windwood take apart gender politics and put them back together with an emotional intelligence that is shifting the definition of power and fostering new models of women’s leadership.
Wallace J. Nichols: I Wish You Water
The cognitive and emotional benefits of healthy oceans and waterways have been celebrated through art, song, romance and poetry throughout human history. Marine biologist, activist, community organizer and author Wallace J. Nichols will dive deeper and explore our blue minds through the dual lenses of evolutionary biology and cognitive science, reminding us that we are water.
Shakti, Shanti, Sangam: Power, Peace and the Politics of Change | Kavita Ramdas
Kavita Ramdas, the President and CEO of the Global Fund for Women, among the most effective international leaders empowering women globally, explains how listening to, and learning from, women community leaders are the keys to building sustainable and effective movements for social justice, equality and peace.
