Nature, Culture and The Sacred: Reimagining Leadership For Women, with Nina Simons
My guest on the new episode of Wild Flow podcast is Nina Simons, Co-founder and Chief Relationship Officer at Bioneers, a nonprofit that features and connects practical and visionary solutions for transforming how we relate to ourselves, each other and the Earth. Nina is recipient of the Goi Peace Award, and throughout her career, she has worked with over a thousand women leaders who are diverse across disciplines, race, class, age and orientation to create conditions for mutual learning, trust and leadership development. She produces and speaks at large-scale events to work intimately to help small, diverse groups of women leaders knit together to strengthen each other’s work pursuing intersectional healing and ecological justice.
Circles As Ancient Medicine For Modern Times with Mitlé Southey
It’s safe to say that sacred women’s circles are making a big come back. No longer lost ancient forms of gathering in community, circles are now becoming increasingly available around the world as an opportunity to gather with shared intention, possibly to meet new friends, devote time to spiritual practice, to experience particular ceremony. Whatever happens and whoever you meet, you are sure to come home to yourself. The way of the circle offers us a very different form of connection and community in which we can come to understand ourselves and each other- and to find the magick and medicine we need at the time.
Circles are an ancient way of life, but are now being held in towns everywhere, in schools, board rooms, and online, and they have the potential to support healing and transformation of communities on many levels. I believe that when you attend your first Circle, you awaken to a new way of relating and being, and its addictive.
My first ever circle was with today’s guest Mitlé Southey in 2018, when I attended her 3 day circle facilitator training, and that immersive experience changed me deeply, and revealed a deeper path forward for me personally in my own healing, as well as in my work that I do. I’m overjoyed to welcome MItlé to the podcast, and to share with you a delicious conversation about:
What circles are, and what may happen in a circle,
Our first circle experiences, and how they shaped our lives,
How circles are medicinal, transformative experiences that can set deep healing in motion,
Why receiving guidance and training in how to hold circles is an important consideration as space holders,
How circles are available for all people, and how the circle process can be imbued into our work, lives, and relationships,
The role circles can play in rites of passage processes for all people, and how Mitlé is hosting Mother-Son circles, and I am host Mother-Daughter circles particularly. Listen in to Episode 60 of Wild Flow, and share with us 3 words that encapsulate your first ever circle experience! xxx
How to create a Spiral Ritual to honour the Winter Solstice
Winter Solstice….Archetypes of the Crone, Midnight, your bleed. In the Peak darkness, and the cusp of new light. The void, liminal space, the in-between, neither here nor there. A time of having one foot in the past and one in the future. The end of the cycle also brings with it new beginnings. The start of the new cycle ahead.
What happens in women’s circles? beyond the magick and mystery
Spells, crystal balls, and black magick: that’s what happens in circle, isn’t it? if you’ve not been to one yet, you might have some curious ideas about what really goes on at a women’s circle, your imagination running amok thinking of wild women letting loose, conjuring up all kinds of magic. so if you’re curious, intrigued, but unsure, and a bit wary, then i’d love to bust some myths and clear up what it’s all about, because circles are joy, and you deserve to join one.
Women have come together to share stories, wisdom, support and encouragement in circle for thousands of years, before slowly our way was lost, eroded, hidden. Modern women’s gatherings might look more like meetings in cafes, to sewing circles, mothers groups or going out for dinner and drinks. But recently, there has been a huge reclamation of women’s circle in its original sense. Now circles are coming back into the mainstream, you’ve got the chance to join us at your local circle here in the Southern Highlands NSW with me, Charlotte!
Because I know that we aren’t raised knowing what circles are, what happens, and how to simply be in circle, I want to help you feel confident and ready to attend your first one. So let’s get into it, let’s bust some myths and get to the heart of what circles are…