An excerpt from the introduction of Moonrise: The Power of Women Leading from the Heart. Edited by Nina Simons with Anneke Campbell

This book is dedicated to everyone who has ever felt powerless, experienced being the dissenting or minority voice, or felt unfairly judged, devalued, or dismissed for being different. It is intended for anyone who has experienced a culture that elevates some while denigrating others. As women in a society that privileges attributes and people who are ‘masculine,’ I believe we all have a particular empathic window on injustice.

Around the globe, women are rising up in creative and unexpected ways to defend what they love–protecting their families, villages, neighborhoods, homelands, and lifeways, while creating community and connection to strengthen resiliency and healing. Responding to urgent calls from the earth, and to  social harms that threaten the liveability and fabric of our world, women are leading efforts to defend what they love, reinventing and challenging facets of society everywhere. Recognizing the ineffectiveness of conventional approaches, we’re midwifing new models and ways of relating to the earth and each other that want to be born.

Women are inventing new forms (and reclaiming old ones) in every area of life, ranging from childbirth to education, and spanning peacemaking, healing, economies, and restorative justice. Many are also reimagining business, governance, and education. 

These women and men are leading as pathfinders, whose vision and passion for a.better world motivate others to act to help heal our collective home and advance the common good. We may choose to risk reaching for our dreams not only for the benefit of those around us, but because making a stand on behalf of what we most love, of the future we yearn for, is the most fulfilling, joyful, and meaningful way to spend our short and precious lives. 

Though people today often lament a lack of leadership, a new form is arising everywhere – largely from women – and is as unstoppable as grass that grows up through the cracks in concrete. Since it does not resemble what we were taught to expect leadership to look like, this emergence is largely unseen. 

In the new leadership landscape described in this book, women (and some men) are wielding power in different ways than what we have been taught to expect. Like Sarah Crowell, whose students keep her practice vulnerable and deeply honest, many are experimenting with collaborative, win-win structures, in which each participant is enriched and expanded by her engagement. Some, like Judy Wicks and her vision to improve upon business, what we eat, and how we treat each other, are sharing their accomplishments openly and freely, to better equip even their competitors in order to help transform a whole community. 

Leslie Gray’s story offers insight into an alternative use of power that comes from within, reminding us of the profound value of somatic and intuitive cues. Women leaders often opt to lead from behind or alongside their colleagues, and less frequently from out in front. As the stories here so amply illustrate, being a leader does not necessitate asserting dominance, but rather asks that we listen actively and inwardly, reach across the differences that tend to divide us, initiate and choose the hard work of collaboration, stay connected with our passion, and inspire enthusiastic engagement to strengthen and catalyze others into action,  often lifting up others into leadership. 

Nina Simons

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