Award-winning researcher, Kindred World president, Evolved Nest founder
Darcia Narvaez is a Professor of Psychology Emerita at the University of Notre Dame. She is the founder of the public and professional educational outreach project The Evolved Nest Initiative whose nonprofit mission is to share her science research into developing appropriate baselines for lifelong human wellness by meeting the biological needs of infants. This wellbeing baseline is imperative at this time as the United States ranks 41st out of 41 developed countries in public policies that support families.
Darcia is the current president of the award-winning, venerable nonprofit Kindred World, who has been "serving the re-generation since 1996." The Evolved Nest is an initiative of Kindred World. See all of Kindred World's strategies and initiatives for advancing a Wisdom-based, Wellness-Informed Society here.
In 2022, Narvaez was elected a fellow to the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the largest international body of professional scientists in the world and publisher of the prestigious journal Science. Narvaez was honored for her distinguished contributions illuminating typical and atypical development in terms of well-being, morality and sustainable wisdom.
For the first portion of her career, Narvaez investigated moral psychology and moral development in typical ways — through studying reason, cognition, and education. But several years ago, she grew deeply interested in cross-disciplinary insights into evolutionary issues. As she read deeper into neuro- and clinical sciences, she began to see all sorts of connections that sparked further research.
“I realized that all these fields bore on moral development. I was awakened to the fact that human beings are a particular species with particular needs that, especially in early life, need to be fulfilled in order to construct an individual’s sociality and compassionate morality,” she said. “The key insight was realizing that our species’ evolved nest is vital for fostering our cooperative human nature. When the evolved nest is degraded, as it is in industrialized countries, it can impair capacities for cooperation and compassion because early stress is toxic to species-typical neurobiological function.”
Her empirical, theoretical, and applied research now focuses on the kinds of characteristics notable in communities that provide the evolved nest to children from conception, societies that demonstrate wellbeing, heart-minded morality, and communal imagination.
In a 2020 analysis of top scientists, Narvaez emerged in the top 2% of scientists worldwide. Of the eight million scientists in the world, the analysis concerned those who had at least five articles published in scientific journals between 1996 and 2017-- over six million scientists. Individuals were ranked according to various criteria, including number of citations of their work.
Narvaez’s book, Neurobiology and the Development of Human Morality: Evolution, Culture and Wisdom, was chosen for the 2017 Expanded Reason Award from among more than 360 total entries from 170 universities and 30 countries. Narvaez received the prize, including a substantial monetary award, at the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in Vatican City on September 27, 2017. The book also received the William James Award from the American Psychological Association in 2015. She is former executive editor of the Journal of Moral Education.
Read her posts on Kindred.
Visit the Evolved Nest website.
Visit Darcia's website.
Darcia Narvaez speaking at the Humanity 2.0 Conference in NYC, Feb. 2022. Read the press release.
International Activist & Indigenous Worldview Scholar
Author of 23 books and numerous chapters, articles, peer-reviewed papers, and keynotes and the subject of a book by R.M. Fisher entitled Fearless Engagement of Four Arrows: A True Story of an Indigenous Based Social Transformer. Four Arrows ( Wahinkpe Topa) is internationally known for his work in cognitive anthropology ( worldview studies) , education, critical theory, and wellness.
In 2018, The Chicago Wisdom Project, selected Four Arrows's book, Teaching Truly A Curriculum to Indigenize Mainstream Education, as one of the top twenty education books of all time along side such distinguished authors as Neil Postman, Paulo Freire, John Dewey and others.
Four Arrows's work provides a path to the future, a path of peace, with signposts from Indigenous world views that recognize that we are interconnected and are all members of one Earth family. Our highest duty, our Dharma , is living in harmony with all our relations." - Vandana Shiva, Physicist, recipient of the Alternative Nobel Peace Prize, the Right Livelihood Award, author of over 20 books,
"Outstanding scholarship...giant first steps toward the goal in the truthful and constructive understanding of Indigenous Worldview."- Daniel R. Wildcat, Professor of American Indian Studies, Haskell Indian Nations University
On Four Arrows' book Teaching Truly:
"This enlightening book reminds us that the grim prognosis for life on this planet is the consequence of a few centuries of forgetting what traditional societies knew.. pay careful attention to their educational practices as brought to us in these thoughtful chapters."
—Noam Chomsky, Professor Emeritus at MIT
“Educators should be paying attention to what Four Arrows offers in this book.”—Bill McKibben, distinguished scholar and founder of 360.org.
Read Four Arrows posts on Kindred.
Four Arrows' Worldview Chart is a critical KFP tool as we reframe our approach to social justice.
Marilyn Schlitz, PHD
Worldview Literacy, Meta-Cognitive Anthropology, Human Consciousness Researcher
Dr. Schlitz is an acclaimed social scientist, award-winning author, and charismatic public speaker. She has conducted clinical, laboratory and field-based research into consciousness, human transformation, and healing. Her books include Living Deeply: The Art and Science of Transformation in Everyday Life; Consciousness and Healing: Integral Approaches to Mind Body Medicine; and Death Makes Life Possible (and companion film by same title). Having taught at Stanford, Harvard, and Trinity University, she is currently Professor of Transpersonal Psychology at Sofia University, CEO/President Emeritus and Senior Fellow at the Institute of Noetic Sciences. Schlitz has published hundreds of articles in scholarly journals and popular publications, and has lectured extensively in diverse venues, including the United Nations, Smithsonian Institution, Commonwealth Club, and community groups across the world.
Read Kindred's podcast interview with Marilyn here.
Read Marilyn on Kindred.
Visit Marilyn's website.
Kelly Wendorf
Integrating Indigenous Worldview In Corporate America
Kelly Wendorf is an executive and personal coach, published author, spiritual mentor, disruptor, and socially responsible entrepreneur.
Her early experiences were vitally and deeply shaped by the natural and ancient world around her where she learned a way of listening to forces within people, nature and moments. This unconventional education grants her a gift of perception that liberates untapped potential and hidden gifts within individuals and organizations, helping them to solve problems differently through a wisdom-informed and wholeness approach.
Throughout her life she has lived and worked around the world, studying with many spiritual and Indigenous leaders in India, Africa, Indonesia and Australia. Such immersion in multi-cultural perspectives has honed a passion for creating a new narrative in the human condition, empowering high-performing individuals, organizations, and their leaders to wield meaningful change in their families, communities, and in the world through servant leadership and innovative business development. She has worked inside a spectrum of clientele – from Amazon, to Microsoft to some of the most underserved communities. She has been called a ‘corporate shaman’ and a ‘CEO whisperer’.
Kelly founded, edited and published Kindred magazine (Australia), an evidence-based publication that explores the social, cultural and biological underpinnings of a compassionate society. Here she spent 15 years immersed in the field of neuroscience and neuropsychology and its relationship to social justice and transformative cultural change. Kelly also authored and Edited Stories of Belonging (Finch), an anthology from authors around the world, including the often excluded Indigenous voices. Her book,Flying Lead Change (Sounds True) was released in December 2020.
As founder of EQUUS she specializes in the liberation of robust leadership capacities in those who are most qualified — the empathetic, the conscientious, the accountable, the generous, and the kind.
As a gifted educator and facilitator, Kelly developed Wisdom Circles®, a group peer-learning and coaching model. An intuitive lifelong horsewoman, she also developed The EQUUS Experience® — an award-winning equine-assisted transformational learning process. Wisdom Circles and The EQUUS Experience® are recognized as a powerful differentiators in organizational change circles.
Together with her team, Kelly continues to develop and grow The EQUUS Experience, Wisdom Circles, and EQUUS’s other complimentary processes that curate various awareness-based frameworks that create breakthrough learning and discovery.
Read Kelly's posts on Kindred.
Read Kelly's Wendorf's work on Indigenous Worldview and Allyship, spanning two decades on Kindred.
Raven Brightwater Custalow
Indigenous Rights and Indigenous Women's Rights Activist
Raven Brightwater Custalow talks with Lisa Reagan about her nonprofit work and expansive vision for revitalizing Indigenous traditions in collaboration with Virginia’s eleven Native American tribes. Raven shares her inspiration for her work, growing up on one of the oldest reservation in the country, and being surrounded by family members who practiced and taught Indigenous traditions in crafts and drumming. Raven’s work today includes a documentary series of the eleven tribes’ elders, ongoing presentations and educational programs, and collaborations with many tribal members. She speaks frankly in the interview about her frustration with some of the tribes exclusion of women in their leadership, a colonial remnant necessary for communicating with the patriarchal settlers 400 years ago. Raven talks of her hope of returning to the matriarchal roots of her tribal heritage, and preparing her young children to carry their Indigenous traditions into the future.
Listen to and read the interview.
Visit the Eastern Woodland Revitalization on Facebook and on their website.
Read Kindred's interview: Revitalizing Indigenous Traditions In America’s Cradle Of Colonization
Lisa Reagan
Kindred World, Co-founder & Kindred Media, Editor
Introduced as a “force of nature” by Cassandra Vieten, IONS president, at the first Mindful Motherhood Conference in NYC in 2011, Lisa Reagan’s passionate dedication to empower American activists, professionals, and families to envision and create a Wisdom-based, Wellness-informed Society has led to the founding of multiple inspired nonprofit initiatives and collaborations since her transformative motherhood initiation in 1997.
Lisa’s Mother-of-a-Quest began with co-founding a grassroots organization of Wayfinders, Trance-breakers, and New Cycle Makers fiercely intent on protecting American’s children with educational initiatives to counter the country’s freefall to the bottom of all developed nations’ wellness indicators. Today, Kindred World is an award-winning nonprofit whose vision and mission are more relevant and critical than ever. (Read Kindred World’s Great Nonprofits’ reviews here.)
Integrating a quarter century of cultural transformation insights into grounded Wayfinder Wisdom, Lisa currently shepherds Kindred World in carrying out its ongoing nonprofit work through multiple initiatives and partner collaborations, including:
nature” by Cassandra Vieten, IONS president, at the first Mindful Motherhood Conference in NYC in 2011, Lisa Reagan’s passionate dedication to empower American activists, professionals, and families to envision and create a Wisdom-based, Wellness-informed Society has led to the founding of multiple inspired nonprofit initiatives and collaborations since her transformative motherhood initiation in 1997.
Lisa’s Mother-of-a-Quest began with co-founding a grassroots organization of Wayfinders, Trance-breakers, and New Cycle Makers fiercely intent on protecting American’s children with educational initiatives to counter the country’s freefall to the bottom of all developed nations’ wellness indicators. Today, Kindred World is an award-winning nonprofit whose vision and mission are more relevant and critical than ever. (Read Kindred World’s Great Nonprofits’ reviews here.)
Integrating a quarter century of cultural transformation insights into grounded Wayfinder Wisdom, Lisa currently shepherds Kindred World in carrying out its ongoing nonprofit work through multiple initiatives and partner collaborations, including:
The Evolved Nest, a virtual learning center featuring the award-winning science and research of Darcia Narvaez, PhD. Lisa and Darcia collaborate on the creation of virtual educational outreach projects of the Evolved Nest, including the short film, Breaking the Cycle, Mighty Networks discussion groups, as well as monthly live discussions. Darcia Narvaez is ranked among the top two percent of scientists worldwide. Her research into humanity’s Evolved Nest reveals our “evolutionary pathway to wellbeing”. Darcia currently serves as Kindred World’s president.
Kindred Media is an alternative media platform championing a New Story of the Human Family. Lisa serves as Kindred’s executive editor, working with contributors to create podcasts, interviews, special feature series, and the expansion of Kindred’s New Story Glossary (because a new story needs new language). Kindred’s innovative media platform allows the many Kindred World initiatives and partner collaborations to interact and integrate personal stories, shifting worldviews, and cultural transformation victories. Our challenge, to bring visibility and coherence to cultural transformation, is achieved through Kindred Media’s holistic storytelling strategies.
The Meet the Wayfinders Oral History Series was produced at the request of La Leche League International for their 65th Conference in 2021. This series integrates both Kindred’s many years of tracking unheralded victories of cultural transformation as well as introducing the concept of Kindred Activism, which explores both how the activists were successful in their quests and how their wayfinder advocacy can be duplicated. Kindred Activism is further explored in the Kindred Fellowship Program.
The Kindred Fellowship Program captures insights from Lisa’s 25 years of activism and explores the need for a more sustainable approach to social justice education and cultural transformation advocacy. KFP’s instructors are leaders in their fields of human development and consciousness. This live program integrates Lisa’s decades of allyship with minorities and women to change the lives of children, her Worldview Literacy Facilitator training from IONS, and her professional experience as an educational program director with multiple nonprofits. KFP’s work with college-level fellows and facilitators resulted in the creation of Kindred Activism, a childhood-centered, worldview-based activism that equips and empowers a new generation to create a Wisdom-based, Wellness-informed Society.
Lisa continues to shepherd Kindred World’s original vision of a Wisdom-based, Wellness-informed Society as the award-winning nonprofit serves Wayfinders, Trance-breakers, and New Cycle Makers, expands its collaborations with partners, and welcomes new board members. To see all of Kindred World’s initiatives, visit the site here. To volunteer or partner with Kindred World, please contact Lisa and Kindred World’s board at hello@kindredworld.org. And please support Kindred World’s ongoing nonprofit work with your tax-deductible donation here.
Read Lisa’s work on Kindred Media.
Read and listen to Lisa's two decades of posts and podcasts on Kindred Media here.
Welcome Trance-breakers, Wayfinders, and New Cycle Makers!
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