In this letter, Bioneers co-founder Nina Simons reflects on the process of adapting to the pandemic, co-creating the Bioneers 2020 Conference, and discovering the “learning, sense of community and cross-pollinating of ideas are possible online.”

Get your tickets to the Bioneers Conference now!

These past six months have shaken me to my bones. I’ve looked deeply into my own patterns and considered what has greatest value to me. I’ve dreamt of how I can be most useful — in service to beloved community, Indigenous Peoples, healing alongside the natural world and the liberation of women and girls— the many causes to which I’m devoted.

I’ve learned to practice staying centered while being rocked by battering waves of uncertainty. This time is stretching my heart’s envelope. It’s a test of resilience to contain this wide spectrum of emotion, from immense gratitude and tenderness to outrage and loss.

My gratitude for Bioneers surviving to meet this time runs deep, as does my appreciation for Kenny’s and our team’s leadership. Thank you to everyone who’s contributed in so many ways.

Now, many have felt their illusions of democracy and equity in this nation’s institutions have been dashed. But the opportunity to reinvent how we live on Earth and relate to all of Life looms large. It’s a collective visioning that has lifted my heart. Nature shows us that diversity is essential to a system’s resilience after trauma, and the spectrum of topics, people and ideas we gather will strengthen our social systems’ resilience to revision our pathways towards regeneration, even after all this destruction.

I’ve been amazed to discover how much learning, sense of community and cross-pollinating of ideas are possible online. And I’ve never known a time when peoples’ minds were more open to new ideas, nor our hearts hungrier for innovative and practical visions we can collaboratively work toward, as we each contribute our own piece.

So when we realized we could co-create a Bioneers gathering for December, we went for it. With your participation, we hope to coalesce a multiverse of grounded possibility and abundant solutions to illuminate where we may be heading, and how we can get there.

Each time my heart’s boundaries must stretch again, to be able to contain the depth of emotional response I’m feeling, I am thankful that it is flexing to bridge the worlds — not breaking. While my heart is breaking over and over again, that’s just how the light gets in.

Join Nina Simons at the Bioneers 2020 Conference on December 5-6 and 12-13. Get your tickets now!