Photo Credit: Mike Zanine (Header Image)
We believe that:
- The creative empowerment of women is a powerful tool for social, environmental, and personal transformation that is required for our world today;
- effective personal growth is a process fueled by continuity and a supportive community for inspiration, motivation and accountability;
- an established community of mentors and personal advisors provides a depth of growth that cannot otherwise be achieved;
- nature-based leadership development supports the development of collaborative and generative soul-based leaders who lead with their heart, spirit and hands, as well as their minds; and
- when women leaders are a part of a multigenerational and diverse professional community, they are more likely to be champions for each other’s work, creating exponential impact in a world that so desperately needs it at this time.
With gratitude and acknowledgment
The Center for Nature and Leadership and the women of the Generative Council acknowledge all who came before us: human beings and the natural world that sustains us.
- We acknowledge the places we call home, where we live, work and play, throughout the U.S. are located on unceded Indigenous lands. As an organization committed to nature-based leadership for women, The Center for Nature and Leadership recognizes the continual displacement of Native people by the United States and is committed to working to dismantle the ongoing effects of this colonial legacy.
- We acknowledge the Indigenous Peoples of the places where the Generative Council has gathered and held space: the Cayuga, Haudenosaunee, Susquehannock peoples of the Ithaca, NY region; the Kusso of Edisto Island, SC; the Shoshone-Bannock, Cheyenne, Eastern Shoshone of Moose, WY, home of Teton Science School; the Utes, Jicarilla Apache, and Pueblos of Abiquiu, NM near Ghost Ranch; the Anishinabewaki including the Ojibwe, and Sioux peoples of Land O’Lakes, WI; the Tillamook and Siletz of Lincoln City OR, home of Westwind; the Sioux, Northern Cheyenne and Crow peoples of northern WY; the Jicarilla Apache, the Cheyenne and the Ute of Crestone, CO; and the Huichol, descendants of the Aztecs near Sayulita, Mexico.
- We also acknowledge that this country’s prosperity, and in many cases, our own, is built on the backs of slave labor and the involuntary removal of Native Americans from their homes, as well as other culture-destroying, brutal colonial tactics.
- We commit to incorporating anti-racist and decolonial learnings into our teachings and to diversifying our membership by reaching out to communities of black, indigenous and people of color (BIPOC) to provide reduced or no-cost options (based on their personal circumstances) to enable their participation. We are also researching other ways we may be of service.
- We are eternally grateful in mind, body and spirit to our non-human ancestors and all beings with whom we share this beautiful Earth: the hoofed ones, the green-leafed ones, the ones who bear fruit, the winged ones, the clawed ones, the scaled ones, the flying, the swimming, the crawling ones, the flowing and blowing ones, and the unseen ones. They nourish us, energize us, and connect us. They refresh our spirits, delight our minds, and remind us that every breath is a gift.
- Finally, and most deeply, we offer heartfelt gratitude to the feminine: girls, women, mothers, sisters, and grandmothers throughout time, who gave us life, helped us grow, and continually sustain us through every triumph and despair. It is the women who hold the gift of life in their bodies, bring their gifts to their receptive communities in leadership of all types, and tend the hearth fires of their homes with nourishment, love, faith and hope. We seek to follow their countless examples, especially the example of Earth. She is the Sacred Mother of us All, and with many names from every place, humans have looked up, down and all around them, and said “Thank you, Mama”.