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Nature, Culture and the Sacred: A Woman Listens For Leadership
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
Bioneers co-founder Nina Simons offers practical guidance and inspiration for anyone who aspires to grow into their own unique form of leadership on behalf of positive change.
Join Bioneers co-founder Nina Simons 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. Inspired and informed by Indigenous wisdom keepers who are leading the way towards a regenerative future, Nina invites women and people of all genders to, as Joanna Macy suggests, “see with new and ancient eyes.” Weaving her own insights together with reflections from cutting-edge leaders such as Terry Tempest Williams, Jeannette Armstrong, Alixa Garcia and V (formerly Eve Ensler), she opens thought-provoking pathways for reflection and growth. Discussion guides for each chapter offer prompts for engaging with radical anti-racism and intersectionality, along with interactive practices for individuals and groups to deepen understanding and learning. In this essential handbook for navigating these perilous times with clarity and joy, Nina invites us to remember and reclaim our sacred relationship to the Earth by rebalancing our selves and our societies.
NINA SIMONS is a social entrepreneur, producer and culture worker passionate about reinventing leadership, restoring the feminine, establishing racial and gender equity and helping to heal relations within ourselves, among each other and with the Earth. She teaches engaged leadership, strategies for resourcing ourselves well to meet this time, and is dedicated to weaving connective tissue among issues, leaders and movements.
— GLORIA STEINEM, Co-founder of Ms. Magazine
Bioneers co-founder Nina Simons offers practical guidance and inspiration for anyone who aspires to grow into their own unique form of leadership on behalf of positive change.
Join Bioneers co-founder Nina Simons 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. Inspired and informed by Indigenous wisdom keepers who are leading the way towards a regenerative future, Nina invites women and people of all genders to, as Joanna Macy suggests, “see with new and ancient eyes.” Weaving her own insights together with reflections from cutting-edge leaders such as Terry Tempest Williams, Jeannette Armstrong, Alixa Garcia and V (formerly Eve Ensler), she opens thought-provoking pathways for reflection and growth. Discussion guides for each chapter offer prompts for engaging with radical anti-racism and intersectionality, along with interactive practices for individuals and groups to deepen understanding and learning. In this essential handbook for navigating these perilous times with clarity and joy, Nina invites us to remember and reclaim our sacred relationship to the Earth by rebalancing our selves and our societies.
NINA SIMONS is a social entrepreneur, producer and culture worker passionate about reinventing leadership, restoring the feminine, establishing racial and gender equity and helping to heal relations within ourselves, among each other and with the Earth. She teaches engaged leadership, strategies for resourcing ourselves well to meet this time, and is dedicated to weaving connective tissue among issues, leaders and movements.
352 pages, Paperback
Published June 20, 2022
16 people are currently reading
1352 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
October 16, 2022
With self-reflection activities, ancient storytelling and personal narrative, Nina Simmons shows us how we can work together to create a more sustainable society. Simmons demonstrates the power of feminine leadership and how opening up opportunities for women betters the planet. I absolutely loved how interactive this book is and how it made me reflect and consider my past and how I connect to the bigger environmental movement.
February 23, 2023
I realized I had to start speed reading to finish this book, not because it's bad or mediocre but because it gave me a lot to think about in parts.
Nina Simons has produced a book with a little bit of everything for a woman to start or continue the journey of unlearning the self-limiting beliefs that are pervasive in many of our societies.
I really appreciate that the discussion on intersectionality included indigenous peoples and environmental equality. I did find that I had already learned/thought of much of part 1 & 2 through my own journey in my career as an ecologist but I think these parts are still very helpful, particularly as a place to jump off from when you want to start this journey/if you haven't considered the need for indigenous allyship or equality of all kinds in habitat protection/restoration.
I was given a copy of Nature, Culture and the Sacred: A Woman Listens For Leadership in exchange for an honest review. I'm sorry I was slow to read it but will be mentioning this book to several friends.
Nina Simons has produced a book with a little bit of everything for a woman to start or continue the journey of unlearning the self-limiting beliefs that are pervasive in many of our societies.
I really appreciate that the discussion on intersectionality included indigenous peoples and environmental equality. I did find that I had already learned/thought of much of part 1 & 2 through my own journey in my career as an ecologist but I think these parts are still very helpful, particularly as a place to jump off from when you want to start this journey/if you haven't considered the need for indigenous allyship or equality of all kinds in habitat protection/restoration.
I was given a copy of Nature, Culture and the Sacred: A Woman Listens For Leadership in exchange for an honest review. I'm sorry I was slow to read it but will be mentioning this book to several friends.
December 13, 2022
Many life lessons to be had in this book. Nina write it beautifully and captures the voices of so many wise women. This book is for people of all genders. Though it would be most valuable to read this in a group and answer the prompts together. A great book for book clubs or classes
December 18, 2022
Wow! Nina Simon's weaving of her personal story with her research, travels, interviews, experiences and thoughts really moved me. I like the stories, followed by reflection questions to personalize the understanding from the book. As one who is struggling with how to lead in the current times, I love her thought that the important thing is to reunite our heads, hands and hearts in deep listening to those around us. It is especially important to listen to those whose experience is not like ours, and to recognize that our past experiences shape the truth we see.
This is a book I will be back to as I expect to get more out of it each time I read it.
This is a book I will be back to as I expect to get more out of it each time I read it.
June 19, 2022
In her book ‘Nature, Culture and the Sacred’, Nina Simons offers a refreshing and expansive perspective on the kind of leadership this time in human history is calling for. Nina’s personal experiences and thought provoking interviews throughout the book are insightful, and the well placed prompts for deeper learning constitute a roadmap for those wanting to further their own exploration, as well as share with others in their community.
January 29, 2021
This is an amazing book that made me rethink how I participate in groups. It helped me realize that I have leadership qualities already. It solidified my existing sense that there is resilience in diversity, humility in recognizing interdependence, and many things to gain (not lose) from having all parts of ourselves celebrated.
July 27, 2023
Nature, Culture and the Sacred: A Woman Listens For Leadership. Bioneers have some answers. Nina Simons has been absorbing, promoting and formulating them.
Published 22 June, 2023 in The Berkeley Times as “Bioneers: We ARE Nature,” Knox Book Beat.
Part memoir; part feminist, de-colonialist, anti-racist self-help workbook for activists, and a LOT of stories of her interactions with leaders in the ecology, spirituality and social justice worlds; this book is by a woman who not only listens, but pays attention, CHANGES and then expresses her life of growth and learning through sharing, ritual and action.
Unafraid of experiencing and admitting a lot of mistakes, “uncomfortable” discussions and “paradoxes” along the way; she threw herself into challenging situations, beginning with leadership in a still-very-gender-biased world of the 1970s. “A healthy system requires diversity to survive trauma and thrive,” however, and she knew they had to be “curious, brave and experimental.”
More thematic than chronological, Nature repeats her pivotal learnings that congeal and accumulate powerfully by the end, from personal to interpersonal to whole. Grounded in the body, she moves from inner balance to social biases; “breakthrough and breakdown” experiences, lists, prompts and questions; pulls through to “Gender Equity, Full Spectrum Leadership & Racial Justice;” Exploring Privilege, Allyship, Death, Grief and how Ritual Creates Relationship.
“We have to allow ourselves to feel the loss and the pain of witnessing as what we love is diminished and threatened,” she says. Friend Terry Tempest Williams replies “we really do have to stand in the center of authenticity and realize…community is very important…We cannot do it alone.” Simons replies “One of our deepest human needs is to belong.”
At Bioneers in Berkeley, we sang the “Warrior Woman” song for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women. We heard from McKenzie Long about This Contested Land: The Storied Past and Uncertain Future of America’s National Monuments; a brilliant younger rock climber, biker and hiker who writes like the wind, envisions like John Muir and tells truths “like a mountain.” We welcomed the words of gentle elder john a. powell of thOur Cal Othering and Belonging Institute, author of Racing to Justice: Transforming Our Conceptions of Self and Other to Build an Inclusive Society.
Storytelling, vulnerability, love, imagination. All part of the journey. “We cannot do it alone…” But I believe, together, we CAN…
Published 22 June, 2023 in The Berkeley Times as “Bioneers: We ARE Nature,” Knox Book Beat.
Part memoir; part feminist, de-colonialist, anti-racist self-help workbook for activists, and a LOT of stories of her interactions with leaders in the ecology, spirituality and social justice worlds; this book is by a woman who not only listens, but pays attention, CHANGES and then expresses her life of growth and learning through sharing, ritual and action.
Unafraid of experiencing and admitting a lot of mistakes, “uncomfortable” discussions and “paradoxes” along the way; she threw herself into challenging situations, beginning with leadership in a still-very-gender-biased world of the 1970s. “A healthy system requires diversity to survive trauma and thrive,” however, and she knew they had to be “curious, brave and experimental.”
More thematic than chronological, Nature repeats her pivotal learnings that congeal and accumulate powerfully by the end, from personal to interpersonal to whole. Grounded in the body, she moves from inner balance to social biases; “breakthrough and breakdown” experiences, lists, prompts and questions; pulls through to “Gender Equity, Full Spectrum Leadership & Racial Justice;” Exploring Privilege, Allyship, Death, Grief and how Ritual Creates Relationship.
“We have to allow ourselves to feel the loss and the pain of witnessing as what we love is diminished and threatened,” she says. Friend Terry Tempest Williams replies “we really do have to stand in the center of authenticity and realize…community is very important…We cannot do it alone.” Simons replies “One of our deepest human needs is to belong.”
At Bioneers in Berkeley, we sang the “Warrior Woman” song for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women. We heard from McKenzie Long about This Contested Land: The Storied Past and Uncertain Future of America’s National Monuments; a brilliant younger rock climber, biker and hiker who writes like the wind, envisions like John Muir and tells truths “like a mountain.” We welcomed the words of gentle elder john a. powell of thOur Cal Othering and Belonging Institute, author of Racing to Justice: Transforming Our Conceptions of Self and Other to Build an Inclusive Society.
Storytelling, vulnerability, love, imagination. All part of the journey. “We cannot do it alone…” But I believe, together, we CAN…
December 19, 2022
NATURE, CULTURE & THE SACRED provides guidance for individual leadership growth that also inspires positive change.
Nina Simons has set NATURE, CULTURE & THE SACRED in an engaging format, combining personal reflections, interviews, and stories of women in leadership positions with end-of-chapter discussion prompts to stimulate active participation whether reading alone or within a group setting. I really liked the varied format. I did not stop to complete any of the discussion prompt items while reading but did flag the items with a plan to return to them at a later date. There is a lot to unpack within this book and it will likely take several re-reads to work through the thought-provoking questions and prompts.
NATURE, CULTURE & THE SACRED would be recommended for those interested in women’s studies and leadership.
Thank you to Nina Simons for the giveaway copy.
Nina Simons has set NATURE, CULTURE & THE SACRED in an engaging format, combining personal reflections, interviews, and stories of women in leadership positions with end-of-chapter discussion prompts to stimulate active participation whether reading alone or within a group setting. I really liked the varied format. I did not stop to complete any of the discussion prompt items while reading but did flag the items with a plan to return to them at a later date. There is a lot to unpack within this book and it will likely take several re-reads to work through the thought-provoking questions and prompts.
NATURE, CULTURE & THE SACRED would be recommended for those interested in women’s studies and leadership.
Thank you to Nina Simons for the giveaway copy.
March 27, 2019
Terrific resource. Heartfelt and thoughtfully written. Highly recommend.
October 20, 2022
Gorgeous. From cover to cover
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews