Nina Simons is co-founder of Bioneers and serves as its Chief Relationship Strategist. She is a social entrepreneur who is passionate about the power of women to transform the world, reaching racial and gender justice, indigeneity and rekindling a sacred relationship to nature, while co-creating a just transition that’s regenerative, loving and peaceful.
She speaks internationally and co-facilitates transformative leadership offerings that integrate Relational Mindfulness, Restoring the Deep Feminine and The Work That Reconnects. Interested in learning more about Nina’s past and upcoming speaking engagements? Want to book Nina for an event or interview her for your podcast? Click here to learn more.
Nina co-edited Moonrise: The Power of Women Leading from the Heart, and recently released the second edition of her award-winning book Nature, Culture & the Sacred: A Woman Listens for Leadership. She was named a recipient of the Goi Peace Award in recognition of her pioneering work through Bioneers to promote nature-inspired innovations for restoring (reciprocal relationships among) the Earth and our human community.
If you’re interested in Nina’s work, please check out the Everywoman’s Leadership program at Bioneers, which she founded and curates.
Email nina [at] bioneers.org
Upcoming Events:
Save the Date:
Bioneers 2024
March 28-30, 2023
Berkeley, CA
Nature, Culture and the Sacred: A Woman Listens for Leadership
Nina Simons’ New Book is Available Now!
We are excited to announce that the second edition of Nina’s book, Nature, Culture and the Sacred: A Woman Listens for Leadership, is now available to order!
Nature, Culture and the Sacred offers practical guidance and inspiration for anyone who aspires to grow into their own unique form of leadership on behalf of positive change. Join Nina on an inspiring journey to shed self-limiting beliefs, lead from the heart and discover beloved community as you cultivate your own flourishing and liberation.
Moonrise: The Power of Women Leading from the Heart
Through a tapestry of over 30 voices and stories, Moonrise (which was published to critical acclaim) illuminates how women and men are redefining the leadership landscape across a diversity of perspectives, generations and ethnicities.
The world seems to be divided into two kinds of people—those who divide everything into two, and those who don’t. Reading Nature, Culture and the Sacred is a step toward melting this false division into “feminine” and “masculine,” and allowing each of us to become fully human again and at last.
— Gloria Steinem, co-founder of Ms. Magazine
In Nature, Culture and the Sacred Nina Simons has woven a compelling and honest tapestry of hard-earned personal and collective wisdom, honoring the earth and igniting the revolutionary ways of women. It’s a book as much about the inside as it is about the outside, exploring where and how they can meet for a sustainable future.
— V (formerly Eve Ensler), founder of V-Day and author of The Vagina Monologues
This is the time when the power of women returns to us, as we reaffirm our relationships to each other and to our Mother Earth. Together we will doula the next economy into being, re-birthing ourselves and this world. Nina’s writing explores the path forward on this journey that we will make together.
— Winona LaDuke, Executive Director, Honor the Earth
May this book filled with the words of women still connected to their heart, in fact, still driven by the passion of its thought, be a guide to others for believing we can think and feel intensely at the same time, finding our way to balance with all that exists.
— Alice Walker, author and poet, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award
Reading Moonrise--or even scanning the names of contributors and titles--will make the reader very aware that there are many important conversations, thoughts, and feelings articulated here. It is affirming to find in the words of others, our own heart-felt knowledge expressed, or echoed. Within these pages, there is feminine wisdom and collaborative ways of solving problems that the planet sorely needs now.
— Jean Shinoda Bolen, M.D., author of Urgent Message From Mother
Writing
Interviews with Nina
Nature, Culture and the Sacred Podcast Appearances
Bioneers Talks & Other Videos
Weaving the World Anew
With sublime clarity and heart-warming passion, Nina frames Bioneers’ history and its core values rooted in reverence for the natural world and biological and human diversity and stresses the need to balance the inner and outer in our quest to give birth to a new civilization based on relationships rather than the possession of things.
Navigating the Nexus – Nature, Culture & the Sacred
“If you’re at all like me, you may be having trouble finding your way through the challenging confluence of crises we are facing these days.” In this presentation at Bioneers 2022, Nina explores how we can support each other to make our way through the maze we’re currently facing.
From Discipline to Discipleship: Cultivating Love, Collaboration, & Imagination
Nina’s keynote address at the 2021 Bioneers Conference, sharing her journey towards uncovering and embracing the role of discipline in service of cultivating our hearts’ capacity to love.
Why I’m Deepening into Indigenous Allyship
In her keynote address to the 2020 Bioneers conference, Nina shares insights into how she’s navigating this time of loss and dissolution, and then expands upon how her commitments to nature, the feminine and wholeness have led her to deepen her commitment to allyship with Native Peoples.
Bridging the Worlds
At the 2019 Bioneers Conference, still reeling from the recent loss of her mother, Nina offers this tribute to her with extraordinary tenderness, honesty, vulnerability and courage, ultimately helping us see that embracing loss and our woundedness can strengthen us in our resolve to persevere and thrive in the struggles we are engaged in.
Roots and Branches
In her keynote address to the 2018 Bioneers Conference, Nina explores what trees can teach us about rootedness in community, embracing light and “branching out” effectively, even in the midst of challenging conditions.
Cultivating Diversity, Intuition and Attention for Resilience
Nina’s keynote address at the 2017 Bioneers Conference.
Reclaiming Relationship & Tradition: Towards a Future that Works for All
Nina’s keynote address at the 2016 Bioneers Conference.
Shifting Guidance from Head to Heart
Nina discusses reclaiming the feminine in order to realign our personal and societal values and practices. This was her keynote address at the 2015 Bioneers Conference.
Loving Life Together Toward Wholeness
“How do we bring our best selves to loving the tattered and scarred fabric of this mysterious web of life back toward wholeness?” Nina offers her opening remarks for the Bioneers 2014 Annual Conference.
Walking While Listening
At the 2013 Bioneers Annual Conference, Nina describes her journey to discover her true self and her inner leader.
Lessons from Nature: Women & ReInventing Leadership
Nina’s keynote address at the 2011 Bioneers Conference.
Mourning Into Daybreak
What happens when we cultivate empathic connections towards ‘others’? Listen to Bioneers co-founder Nina Simons describe her vision of a beloved community that encompasses other people, all species, and the natural world. This presentation took place at the 2010 National Bioneers Conference.
Embracing a Community of Leadership
This speech was presented at the 2010 Bioneers National Conference.
Women, Purpose and Power
In this inspiring talk from the 2009 conference, Nina shares what 20 years with Bioneers, and years co-leading Cultivating Women’s Leadership workshops has taught her: Effective women’s leadership arises from natural feminine qualities (that are also present in men). By allowing the intelligences “in our bodies, hearts and bones” to guide us – generosity, intuition, vulnerability, fear and love – we can create relationships that make leadership the province of each of us, not just the few.What happens when we cultivate empathic connections towards ‘others’? She describes her vision of a beloved community that encompasses other people, all species, and the natural world.