Kindred's series on Centering Childhood in Activism continues this month with an interview with Tanu Biswas. This series marks the beginning of a new dialogue at Kindred around the promise of centering childhood in social justice education for the next generation of changemakers. Kindred is launching the Kindred Fellowship Program (see below) this summer to continue to explore this promise as we collectively imagine a world transformed from social justice beginning with childhood.  

Dr. Tanu Biswas is a Post-Doctoral Researcher, under the Junior Professorship of Political Philosophy at the Faculty of Cultural Studies -University of Bayreuth, and an advisor for University of Rutger's Childism Institute. Dave Metler, Kindred’s Social Justice Editor, and Lisa Reagan, Kindred’s Editor, talk with Tanu about the roots of oppression in childhood, and how they relate to social justice issues. 

Learn more about the Kindred Fellowship Program and support the initiative here: https://kindredfellows.org

Listen to part one of the series with John Wall, director of the Childism Institute, here: https://www.kindredmedia.org/2021/03/childism-where-does-empowerment-or-de-humanization-begin-where-is-sovereignty-learned/

See the term childism, and learn about its origins, in Kindred's New Story Glossary here: https://www.kindredmedia.org/glossary/childism/

Centering Childhood in Social Justice Series: Part 2 with Tanu Biswas

Meet Darcia Narvaez, PhD, an award-winning researcher who began questioning humanity's story as a bilingual/bicultural child. She is the founder of The Evolved Nest, and the new president of the American nonprofit, Kindred World. Her latest short film project, www.BreakingtheCycleFilm.org, launched in April 2021 and illustrates our capacity for breaking our current Cycle of Competitive Detachment and returning to the pattern of 95% of our human history: a healthy, peaceful Cycle of Cooperative Companionship. Breaking the Cycle is based on Narvaez's multi-award-winning book, Neurobiology and the Development of Human Morality: Evolution, Culture and Wisdom, by Darcia Narvaez, PhD. 


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 baseline is imperative at this time as the United States ranks 41st out of 41 developed countries in public policies that support families.

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.

Meet Darcia Narvaez: Founder of The Evolved Nest and Kindred World's New President

Darcia Narvaez and Mary Tarsha review Michaeleen Doucleff’s book, Hunt, Gather, Parent: What Ancient Cultures Can Teach Us About the Lost Art of Raising Happy Helpful, Little Humans. "We give this book two thumbs down in terms of it not being heart-centered and providing the evolved nest."

My name Dr. Darcia Narvaez and I’m here with Mary Tarsha. We are both at the University of Notre Dame’s Department of Psychology and the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies.

In these book review podcasts, we discuss books aimed at parents and how they align or not with humanity’s evolved nest and with child thriving. First a quick review of the evolved nest, which you can learn more about here: www.EvolvedNest.org. 

Humans evolved to be nested. Humanity’s nest for young children helps optimize children's development, fostering thriving, flourishing and resilience capacities in children of all ages. The evolved nest includes soothing gestation and birth, on-request extensive breastfeeding and positive moving touch (no negative touch), a welcoming social climate, self-directed play with multiple aged mates, warmly responsive nurturing from mother and others, Nature immersion and connection, and healing practices to repair miscommunication or hurts.

Child thriving includes Physical health; Happiness and wellbeing, Self-acceptance and appreciation; Self control; Emotional Intelligence; Sociality & social skills; Empathy; Perspective taking; Kindness; and Active curiosity.

Hunter, Gather, Parent - A Book Review

Read this interview on Kindred:
http://www.kindredmedia.org/2011/11/the-greater-good-an-interview-with-writer-and-producer-leslie-manookian/

About Leslie Manookian, Writer and Producer of the Award-Winning Documentary, The Greater Good

As a Wall Street insider in the booming 1990s, Leslie Manookian witnessed the routine prioritization of pharmaceutical profits over public and individual health.  In 2003, wrestling with a crisis of conscience, she left her lucrative and high-powered career at its peak to pursue a documentary investigation into the imploding vaccine safety issue.  In this candid interview, Leslie shares her journey from confusion to clarity through a labyrinth of interviews with players on both sides of the issue, ignored research gaps, marketing tactics she recognized from her Wall Street days, and intimate, bedside views of the wreckage families with vaccine-injured and killed children face every day.  Leslie believes the vaccine safety issue is a “sleeping dog now awakening” as part of a larger, global movement away from industry dictated choices and toward the more scientifically and ethically defensible respect for individual choice.

While the film’s stated goal is to educate and spur rational discussion, its final impact will not only lead the viewer to a greater understanding of the vaccine safety issue, but to the discovery of what and who is sacrificed when informed choice is exchanged for the promise of The Greater Good.

Greater Good Documentary with Filmmaker, Leslie Manookian

Who are the adults driven to bring a New Story, Practical Wisdom and Inner Sights forward at this time?  Social Scientist, Paul Ray, PhD was not looking for this emerging subpopulation in his marketing studies in the 1980s, but there they were: people who were questioning Traditional ways of thinking/non-thinking, rejecting the Modern materialist lifestyle, and in defiance of cultural norms "creating" a new way of life based on the integration of their inner and outer worlds.  Ray shows in his book, Cultural Creatives, the gift of this growing sub population isn't just a sustainable vision for the future, but the return to living according to Practical Wisdom.

We Are Cultural Creatives - With Social Scientist, Paul Ray PhD

Read the transcript here: http://www.kindredmedia.org/2013/10/bruce-lipton-on-the-honeymoon-effect-an-audio-download-and-print/

In this LIVE Q&A, Bruce Lipton covers his initial discoveries of the connections of biology to beliefs as a stem cell biologist, to the epic era of evolution we find ourselves in as the human race to his latest book, The Honeymoon Effect, which shows us how to override our unconscious programming to create heaven on earth. 

About Bruce's New Book, The Honeymoon Effect:
With authority, eloquence, and an easy-to-read style, Lipton asserts that if we use the 50 trillion cells that live harmoniously in every healthy human body as a model, we can create not just honeymoon relationships for couples but also a "super organism" called humanity that can heal our planet.

About Bruce:
Bruce H. Lipton, PhD is an internationally recognized leader in bridging science and spirit. He is a stem cell biologist, bestselling author of The Biology of Belief and Spontaneous Evolution, as well as the recipient of the 2009 Goi Peace Award.  Visit Bruce at www.brucelipton.com.

Bruce Lipton on the Biology of Belief, Spontaneous Evolution and The Honeymoon Effect

Darcia Narvaez and Mary Tarsha discuss their studies recent findings in this podcast.

KEY POINTS
- Adversity in childhood is associated with poor physiologic regulation, seen in measures of vagal tone.
- A system of socially supportive childraising known as the evolved nest is associated with healthy vagal tone.

Read about the study here: https://www.kindredmedia.org/2021/11/evolved-nest-experience-in-childhood-buffers-the-negative-effects-of-aces/

Evolved Nest experience in childhood buffers the negative effects of ACEs

Raven Brightwater Custalow talks with Lisa Reagan about her reclamation, revitalization, and educational work in America's colonization cradle with Virginia's eleven Indigenous tribes. Raven's ongoing work includes tribal reclamation and education of traditional ways of living, including restoring the tribe's original matriarchal orientation, and educating the public that Virginia's tribal peoples are still here. Raven's work is a counter point to decades of elementary school books featuring the Historic Triangle of Virginia - Yorktown, Williamsburg, and Jamestown - as a center stage in America's stories of colonization that often obscured the history of Native peoples. 

Look for an upcoming transcript and photo gallery on Kindred to accompany this article.

Reclaiming Indigenous Heritage In America's Cradle of Colonization: An Interview

Darcia Narvaez and Mary Tarsha review the book, Whole-Brain Child.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - More than 1 million copies in print! - The authors of No-Drama Discipline and The Yes Brain explain the new science of how a child's brain is wired and how it matures in this pioneering, practical book.
"Simple, smart, and effective solutions to your child's struggles."--Harvey Karp, M.D.
In this pioneering, practical book, Daniel J. Siegel, neuropsychiatrist and author of the bestselling Mindsight, and parenting expert Tina Payne Bryson offer a revolutionary approach to child rearing with twelve key strategies that foster healthy brain development, leading to calmer, happier children. The authors explain--and make accessible--the new science of how a child's brain is wired and how it matures. The "upstairs brain," which makes decisions and balances emotions, is under construction until the mid-twenties. And especially in young children, the right brain and its emotions tend to rule over the logic of the left brain. No wonder kids throw tantrums, fight, or sulk in silence. By applying these discoveries to everyday parenting, you can turn any outburst, argument, or fear into a chance to integrate your child's brain and foster vital growth.
Complete with age-appropriate strategies for dealing with day-to-day struggles and illustrations that will help you explain these concepts to your child, The Whole-Brain Child shows you how to cultivate healthy emotional and intellectual development so that your children can lead balanced, meaningful, and connected lives.

Whole Brain Child – An Evolved Nest Book Review

Kindred’s editor, Lisa Reagan, talks with Isa Gucciardi, PhD, about the seven life initiations needed to move into our full state of wholeness and our full potential for thriving – and what happens when these initiations are broken, interrupted, or culturally unacknowledged. Isa shares her considerable insight into how we are thwarted from completing our seven initiations, and how we can reclaim, and even heal, our innate paths to flourishing.

LINK TO POST: https://www.kindredmedia.org/2022/02/seven-life-initiations-for-human-transformation-and-how-to-reclaim-them/

Editor’s Note: Below are the seven initiations excerpted from Chapter 4: The Seven Initiatory Stages, from Isa’s book, The New Return to the Great Mother. This excerpt is edited for brevity. The complete chapter includes stories from women Isa has worked with over many years as they travel through each stage. We hope you will purchase and enjoy these rich, intimate stories.

Seven Life Initiations For Human Transformation: And How To Reclaim Them, with Isa Gucciardi, PhD

Four Arrows and Darcia Narvaez discuss their new book, Restoring the Kinship Worldview. Learn more about worldview and discover Four Arrows' Indigenous Worldview Chart on Kindred here: https://www.kindredmedia.org/glossary/indigenous-worldview/

Selected speeches from Indigenous leaders around the world--necessary wisdom for our times, nourishment for our collective, and a path away from extinction toward a sustainable, interconnected future.

Indigenous worldviews, and the knowledge they confer, are critical for human survival and the wellbeing of future generations. Editors Wahinkpe Topa (Four Arrows) and Darcia Narvaez present 28 powerful excerpted passages from Indigenous leaders, including Mourning Dove, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Winona LaDuke, and Xiuhtezcatl Martinez. Accompanied by the editors’ own analyses, each chapter reflects the wisdom of Indigenous worldview precepts like:
 

   • Egalitarian rule versus hierarchical governance

   • A fearless trust in the universe, instead of a fear-based culture

   • The life-sustaining role of ceremony

   • Emphasizing generosity and the greater good instead of pursuing selfish goals and for personal gain

   • The laws of nature as the highest rules for living
 
The editors emphasize our deep need to move away from the dominant Western paradigm--one that dictates we live without strong social purpose, fails to honor the earth as sacred, leads with the head while ignoring the heart, and places individual “rights” over collective responsibility. Restoring the Kinship Worldview is rooted in an Indigenous vision and strong social purpose that sees all life forms as sacred and sentient--that honors the wisdom of the heart, and grants equal standing to rights and responsibilities.
 
Inviting readers into a world-sense that expands beyond perceiving and conceiving to experiencing and being, Restoring the Kinship Worldview is a salve for our times, a nourishment for our collective, and a holistic orientation that will lead us away from extinction toward an integrated, sustainable future.

Restoring the Kinship Worldview: A Discussion with Four Arrows and Darcia Narvaez

One of the nine components of our Evolved Nest is Allomothers. Allomothers, alloparents or other nurturers support mother during pregnancy and throughout the life of the child, providing responsive care, positive touch and play. 

Learn more about Allomothers at the Evolved Nest's Self-Directed Learning Center: https://evolvednest.org/6-multiple-allomothers

Read about Allomothers on Kindred: https://www.kindredmedia.org/2019/05/allomothers-our-evolved-support-system-for-mothers/

About our Evolved Nest

Children are biosocial creatures such that their biology is constructed by their social experience. The evolved nest or evolved developmental niche (EDN) is the ecological system of care provided by families, teachers and communities that aligns with the maturational schedule of the child, satiating the evolved needs of infants and children, allowing them to flourish and develop compassionate spiritualities. The EDN consists of soothing gestation and birth, on-request extensive breastfeeding and positive moving touch (no negative touch), a welcoming social climate, self-directed play with multiple aged mates, warmly responsive nurturing from mother and others, nature immersion and connection, and healing practices to repair miscommunication or hurts. Well-nested children and adults demonstrate social and moral flexibility, adapting to situations and others with emotional and spiritual intelligence.

Evolved Nest Explained: What Are Allomothers?

We can all become self-protective when we feel threatened and downshift to our survival systems which affect our perceptions and actions.  This is part one of a two part podcast: 
1. What Is Downshifting?
2. The Scope of Healing

Stress or adverse experiences can negatively impact our brains, bodies and emotions.  To help restore our brains, bodies and emotions, we discuss different ways and methods that foster healing.  We discuss intrapersonal, interpersonal, imaginative healing, interpersonal co-regulation and structural healing.

Our Evolved Nest is our Evolutionary Pathway to Wellbeing and Thriving
Learn more about the Evolved Nest on Kindred Media: https://www.kindredmedia.org/topics/conscious-parenting/evolved-nest/

About Darcia Narvaez: https://www.kindredmedia.org/author/darcia-narvaez-phd/

About Mary Tarsha: https://www.kindredmedia.org/author/mary-tarsha/

What Is Downshifting? With Darcia Narvaez and Mary Tarsha

Lisa Reagan talks with Darcia Narvaez about the science behind the Evolved Nest’s new Baby Bill of Rights poster, available below.

In 1989, world leaders made a historic commitment to the world’s children by adopting the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child – an international agreement on childhood.  It’s become the most widely ratified human rights treaty in history, with 195 countries on board and only two abstaining: the United States and Somalia.  However, as Darcia explains in this interview, the convention does not reflect the basic needs of babies. Baby’s rights are really basic needs for brain, immune system, and even spiritual development (nature connection). If these basic needs aren’t meet when a baby’s biology expects them to be met, there may be a lifetime of compensating for these deficiencies as adults.

A version of the Baby’s Bill of Rights was first presented in Darcia’s 2018 academic book, Basic Needs, Wellbeing, and Morality: Fulfilling Human Potential. The 14 rights of babies presented on the poster reflect the science of the nine components of our Evolved Nest – a few components were broken down into smaller parts. You can listen to Darcia discuss each of these baby’s rights in the podcast interview. Visit the Evolved Nest’s Learning Center to discover more about our nine components for lifelong wellbeing.

In this interview, you will learn:

1. Why a Baby’s Bill of Rights is needed.
2. Why is the Baby’s Bill of Rights is written for communities rather than parents?
3. How are baby’s developmental needs different from a child’s needs?
4. How does a Baby’s Bill of Rights contribute to the creation of a Wisdom-based, Wellness-informed Society?

Buy the poster here: https://society6.com/product/babys-bill-of-rights_poster?sku=s6-26707336p66a213v756

Why Do We Need A Baby's Bill of Rights? Interview with Darcia Narvaez

Tyson Yunkaporta talks with Lisa Reagan, Kindred's editor, about his book, Sand Talk, released in 2019, and his ongoing studies of Indigenous knowledge, wisdom, and worldview. Sand Talk explores the connected methodologies of Indigenous thinking and how its application could help us develop new approaches to some of the world’s biggest challenges. 

Today, as a senior research fellow at Deakin University, Dr Yunkaporta is exploring how to create a space where Indigenous practitioners – not just academics – can come together and apply their thinking and their systems to different contexts around the world. 

In this interview, Tyson shares that, "Poetry, done right, is not about naming 'the thing' but about pointing to the thing without naming it. This is where Indigenous Worldview lives, in not naming or studying the thing, but the relationships and connections between the things. I don't want people to study Indigenous culture by looking at it - buying your rattle or whatever. I want people to see the world from inside Indigenous culture, to look out from this space, not into it."

Tyson Yunkaporta: How Poetry (Done Right) Reveals The Indigenous Worldview

Stephanie Mines, founder of Climate Change and Consciousness and the TARA Approach, moved to Hawaii this summer, days before the Maui wildfires broke.  The wildfire in Maui destroyed the historic town of Lahaina and killed over 100 people, making it the worst natural disaster in state history and the deadliest U.S. wildfire in over a century.

Stephanie is in a unique position to talk with about this current event, as her integrative and groundbreaking work as a researcher and scientist covers the neurobiology of climate change, trauma, and our innate capacities to return to our Original Brilliance and Resilience. Her most recent book is The Secret of Resilience: Healing Personal and Planetary Trauma Through Morphogenesis. Stephanie is a contributing editor to Kindred Media and the vice president of our parent nonprofit, Kindred World.

In this interview you will travel an arc from acknowledgement of grief, despair, and paralysis so many of us feel in the face of climate change to a practical, assessable plan of action ground in regenerative healthcare practices that can activate your own Original Brilliance. As Stephanie shares, “As our inner climate becomes congruent with Original Brilliance then our activism at this juncture, when all of us are needed, is in integrity to our Original Brilliance.”

In this interview you will learn:

1. How the current crisis in Maui is the result of an ongoing “rape” of the land for generations. Our inner climate is showing up in our outer climate.
2. Why vacationers in Hawaii are being offered a “gift” of an opportunity to awaken to the reality of climate change and begin to question their role in it.
3. How babies in utero now are aware of what is happening and how their prenatal experiences are shaping their neurobiology.
4. How a return to our “Original Brilliance” through regenerative health practices can help us prepare to face climate change disasters by healing our states of shock and trauma and building our resilience.

Facing Our Climate Change Fear With Our Original Brilliance: Stephanie Mines On The Maui Wildfires

Lisa Reagan, Kindred's editor, talks with Darcia Narvaez and Gay Bradshaw the authors of the new book, The Evolved Nest: Nature’s Way of Raising Children and Creating Connected Communities. Darcia is the founder of the Evolved Nest Initiative here at Kindred World and Gay is the executive director of The Kerulos Center in Jackson, Oregon. Gay is also the author of the Pulitzer Prize nominated Elephants on the Edge: What Animals Teach Us About Humanity. Their integrative efforts to produce this work is generating acclaim from many fields of science and sustainability.

Gabor Mate has written the foreword to the book, which you can read on Kindred. Gabor champions the book for being “rich in mind-boggling scientific observation, will leave the reader both humbled and grateful.” The book has received numerous enthusiastic endorsements from leaders in neuroscience such as Bruce Perry, Allan Schore, Dan Siegel, and Vandava Shiva.

You can also read the first chapter of the book at KindredMedia.org and read Darcia’s posts on the Evolved Nest exclusively at Kindred.

Read the foreword: https://kindredmedia.org/2023/07/gabor-mate-on-the-evolved-nest-foreword-to-the-new-book/

Read the first chapter of the book: https://kindredmedia.org/2023/08/34998/

Repairing the Primal Tear: How Our Evolved Nest Heals Us, Our Animal Kin, And Planet

Lisa Reagan, Kindred's editor, talks with Marilyn Milos about her 45 years of consciousness-raising "pro-baby" activism. Since her days as a hospital floor nurse, Marilyn Milos, RN, has been at the front of the fight to end forced circumcision in the U.S. She founded the National Organization of Circumcision Resource Centers (NOCIRC), now Genital Autonomy – America, and is a co-founder of Intact America, a member of its Steering Committee, and also serves as its Clinical Consultant. She is author of the book, Please Don't Cut the Baby: A Nurse's Memoir.

As Dr. Dean Edell writes in the foreword to the new book, "True pioneers are an unusual lot. They decide to give their lives to a cause and follow through. Many of us dream about changing our world in some way but few ever get even close. Marilyn Milos is one of those unique people who pulled it off.

"The devotion and passion she brought to her life’s work made it quite an experience to be around her. A furious tornado of energy swirled about her at all times. And, as the fastest talking human on earth, she never ran out of words. Marilyn’s commitment to her cause was a force to be reckoned with."

Read the foreword to Please Don't Cut the Baby: A Nurse's Memoir here: https://kindredmedia.org/2023/11/please-dont-cut-the-baby-foreword-to-the-new-book-by-dr-dean-edell/

Discover Kindred's posts on circumcision: https://kindredmedia.org/?s=circumcision

Discover resources to make informed choices for circumcision: https://kindredmedia.org/resources/circumcision/

Please Don't Cut the Baby - An Interview with Marilyn Milos About Her New Book

Lisa Reagan, Kindred's editor, talks with the authors of the book, Attached at the Heart. Lysa Parker and Barbara Nicholson share their insights from the third editor of their beloved and classic parenting book.

Read more about the interview and watch the video version here: https://kindredmedia.org/2024/01/normalizing-nurturing-a-discussion-with-the-authors-of-attached-at-the-heart/

Read the foreword to the book, by Darcia Narvaez, here: https://kindredmedia.org/2024/01/attached-at-the-heart-the-foreword-by-darcia-narvaez/

Learn more about the book here: https://kindredmedia.org/2024/01/35730/

“Our book encourages the nurturing care and emotional connections necessary to build strong, resilient brains for optimal mental and emotional health. It’s revolutionary because the information in this book isn’t found in most parenting books. It counters popular parenting advice in order to empower parents to listen to their babies and young children. These early years are critical to the development of trust and empathy, the necessary ingredients for developing a secure attachment,” said co-author Barbara Nicholson, MEd, CEIM.

Attached at the Heart is endorsed by parenting experts, pediatricians and luminary moms such as Alanis Morissette and Mayim Bialik, PhD.

“When we co-founded Attachment Parenting International, now known as Nurturings, nearly 30 years ago, we knew that new parents needed evidence-informed education and practical information about how best to nurture their babies. That’s how Attached at the Heart came about – as a guidebook for new parents to help them lean into their caregiving instincts and set their children up for success,” said co-author Lysa Parker, MS, CFLE, CEIM.

Attached at the Heart has been a key resource for the attachment parenting movement, encouraging parents to trust their instincts and provide responsive care for their children.

“Research has proven that early nurturing experiences transform lives. The Eight Principles of Parenting that are detailed in our book are supported by research and rooted in attachment theory. Attached at the Heart provides science and evidence-backed recommendations to guide new parents in their loving journey,” said Nicholson.

The 3rd edition provides new recommendations regarding infant sleep, how to help children and their parents maintain a secure attachment, and how parents can learn to be more emotionally self-aware in order to teach their children emotional regulation strategies.

Normalizing Nurturing: An Interview with the Authors of Attached at the Heart

Join the Earth Day Celebration Launch for The Great Physician on April 22 at 3 p.m. ET. Read the press release and register for the event here: https://kindredmedia.org/2024/03/the-great-physician-medicinal-poetry-for-the-anthropocene-earth-day-book-launch-announced/

Poetry Reading:
Who Are You? Timemark 15:30
American Waiting Room, Timemark 21:30
The Texture of Oppression, Timemark 34:40

Kindred World Publishing House is proud to announce the release of The Great Physician: Medicinal Poetry for the Anthropocene, the first major collection of poetry by the renowned neuroscientist, healer, and climate activist, Stephanie Mines, PhD. In The Great Physician, Dr. Mines unflinchingly and soulfully moves us beyond transgenerational trauma, war, oppression, planetary collapse, toward the truth of our birthright: our “Original Brilliance.”


Purchase your copy of The Great Physician from the publisher for a discounted price. These sales support the nonprofit work of Kindred Magazine and Kindred World.
The public is invited to join the live launch party on April 22, 2024 at 3 p.m. ET. The Great Physician will be launched on Earth Day 2024, with virtual poetry readings and a salon discussion with Stephanie Mines and Lisa Reagan, founder of Kindred World and publisher of Kindred World Publishing House. (Register for the live event here.)

In The Great Physician’s autobiographical poetry and prose, Dr. Mines shares how her personal and professional background shaped her insights into a fusion of trauma recovery and climate activism. In her global activism through her Climate Change & Consciousness nonprofit, Dr. Mines focuses on humanity’s forward moving direction where inner and outer climates meet. In that place of mystery is our connection with the natural world and the living systems waiting to communicate with us, to give us what data cannot record.

Poetry, Dr. Mines says, helps make possible “the spaciousness needed to match our inner experience to the outer catastrophe that is accelerating before our eyes.  It helps us to understand.” These poems are inner experiences through which she, and indirectly the reader, find a way to understand planetary experience, personal and generational cause and effect, and hopefully, the courage and energy to change organically—from war, intolerance, fear, ennui.

“The invitation I received from Lisa Reagan of Kindred World to assemble a collection of my poems as a chronicle of these times stopped me in my tracks. It led me to an internal retrospective of my life in which I saw that I was born to be a poet as well as a healing artist” writes Dr. Mines in the introduction to The Great Physician. “My life has been marked by irrevocable losses. This is underscored by the crushing impact of the Anthropocene. The loss that is the most brutal, the most devastating, is the loss of our children’s future. I am speaking of the children of the world, born and unborn, as well as my own children and grandchildren.”

In more than a dozen books that reflect her three decades of research as a neuroscientist and embryologist, Mines has investigated shock and trauma as a survivor, a professional, a clinical researcher, and a healthcare provider. Her work has resulted in her nonprofit, The TARA Approach, which provides practical means for the systemic change she promotes as a Regenerative Health paradigm. Her training and healing modality is used by individuals internationally and by professional counselors and organizations such as addiction clinics, abuse centers, and refugee charities.

The Great Physician Interview and Poetry Reading with Stephanie Mines, Phd

Kindred is honored to feature the award-winning, short documentary, Ministry of Surf, in recognition of National Autism Month. Ministry of Surf shares the "story of one perfect day" with world champion surfers and ocean waves "bringing the stoke" to children with autism and their heroic families. The short film illustrates the healing power of nature connection, which is a main focus of Kindred World's nonprofit work (www.KindredMagazine.org and www.KindredWorld.org).

Watch Ministry of Surf here: youtu.be/hItwb4-4skc?si=n2DabUZA89H_e4Lb

Ministry of Surf made the rounds at international film festivals in 2023 and 2024, where it won eight best documentary awards including the Best Humanitarian Short Film at this year's CANNES World Film Festival. You can learn more about the film at www.MinistryofSurfFilm.com.

In the interview with Danielle and Izzy, you will learn how Surfers Healing was inspired by their son's regression into autism and their family's discovery of the calming impact of the ocean, a phenomenon recognized as Blue Mind Theory. Izzy and Danielle share their vision for families impacted by autism to have "one perfect day" after many imperfect days of dealing with autism's traumatizing impact on children, their families, and communities.

Visit Surfers Healing for more information about their 25 years and thousands of families served by their nonprofit work: www.SurfersHealing.org

Visit www.KindredMagazine.org to learn more about Nature Connection and its restorative power through our Evolved Nest. Kindred World is a vision-holder for 26 years for a Wisdom-based, Wellness-informed Society. Support our nonprofit work at kindredworld.org/donate.

Ministry of Surf, Interviews with Surfers Healing Founders, Izzy and Danielle Paskowitz

Kindred World Publishing House is proud to announce the release of The Great Physician: Medicinal Poetry for the Anthropocene, the first major collection of poetry by the renowned neuroscientist, healer, and climate activist, Stephanie Mines, PhD. In The Great Physician, Dr. Mines unflinchingly and soulfully moves us beyond transgenerational trauma, war, oppression, and planetary collapse, toward the truth of our birthright: our “Original Brilliance.”

On Earth Day 2024, The Great Physician was launched with a celebratory poetry reading and discussion with the author, Stephanie Mines, PhD. In the recording of the Earth Day Poetry Reading below, you will find the timemarks here.

Beyond Traumatic Repetition: 5:25

The Black Madonna: 11:13

The Texture of Oppression: 17:38

1933: 34:54

Read the press release and watch the poetry reading here: kindredmedia.org/2024/04/earth-da…hanie-mines-phd/

Earth Day Poetry Reading of The Great Physician with Stephanie Mines, PhD

Read more: https://kindredmedia.org/2024/05/10th-anniversary-celebration-with-darcia-narvaezs-book-that-birth-the-evolved-nest-a-video-discussion/

Lisa Reagan, Kindred’s editor, and Darcia Narvaez, Kindred World’s president, discuss the book that started it all, Neurobiology and the Development of Human Morality: Evolution, Culture, and Wisdom. First published in 2014, the book received the 2015 William James Book Award from Division I of the American Psychological Association as well as the Moral Development and Education SIG at the American Educational Research Association. In 2017, the book was chosen from among more than 360 total entries from 170 universities and 30 countries for the Vatican’s Expanded Reason Award. 

Since 2019, Darcia and Lisa have worked to bring this book’s award-winning research and science to the public through the Evolved Nest Initiative and its many projects, including a trilogy of short films funded by the Vatican award monies. Kindred Magazine is a sister-initiative of the Evolved Nest Initiative. Both are collaborative, educational initiatives of the award-winning, American nonprofit, Kindred World.

In this celebratory podcast of Neurobiology and the Development of Human Morality’s 10th anniversary, Lisa and Darcia discuss the book’s challenges coming into publication, its unique transdisciplinary approach, and the ongoing work through the Evolved Nest Initiative and Kindred to unpack its far-reaching potential for our human family and planet’s return to our evolutionary pathway to wellbeing, our Evolved Nest.

10th Anniversary of Neurobiology Book with Darcia Narvaez

Read more about this interview here: https://kindredmedia.org/2024/05/wikipedias-first-ever-definition-of-stay-at-home-mother-presents-economic-cultural-reality-of-caregiving/

Last year,  Family and Home Network (FAHN) discovered the Wikipedia page for “Stay-at-Home mother” redirected readers to the pejorative term “Housewife.”  Supported by  forty years of advocacy for parents who wish to stay home with their babies and children, FAHN crafted the first ever Wikipedia entry for Stay-at-Home mother. The heavily cited entry exposes the culturally-engineered myth that pits working mothers and stay-at-home mothers against each other by sharing the economic reality that most women, 57%, do not have a choice to work or stay home but instead float between home and work out of necessity. Furthermore, labor statistics on Stay-at-Home Mothers are collected in such a way the dynamic and large population of SAHMs have been represented as small and ineffective, when the opposite is true. The Stay-at-Home Mother entry  launched on Wikipedia on May 7, 2024.


Find out more about how we were never meant to raise children alone, in isolation, and without robust community support in this science-based post by Darcia Narvaez, PhD
“Stay-at-home mothers are often ignored or stereotyped in cultural and political conversations. Although stay-at-home parents do essential work, they’re not considered part of the workforce and their work is not counted in the GDP,” says Willow Duttge Tepper, member of the FAHN Board of Directors and lead of the project.

“Though homemaking skills should never be denigrated, at-home mothers must not be misidentified as housewives,” says Catherine Myers, Executive Director of FAHN. “Most at-home mothers are focused on their children’s needs and on their own desire to spend time together with their children. Family and Home Network is happy to set the record straight.”

FAHN has four decades of experience listening to and speaking up to dispel misconceptions about at-home mothers, and the team brought that knowledge to the Wikipedia entry. It’s important because all families must be included in family policy, and many families with an at-home parent are economically vulnerable.

Unfortunately most U.S. family policy is crafted through the lens of “working families,” leaving out at-home mothers and at-home fathers, who are forgoing paid employment in order to care for their children by choice or by circumstance. FAHN found that stay-at-home fathers have their own Wikipedia page, and now stay-at-home mothers have one too.

“Care has value, whether it’s done by child care providers or by parents themselves,” says Myers. “At-home mothers, at-home fathers, and other unpaid caregivers must be recognized and their care counted and supported with equitable, inclusive family policies.”

Because Wikipedia is a publicly accessed site, the new entry has already seen changes, including elimination of some of the paragraphs that expand on the misrepresented labor statistics around SAHMs. Kindred has posted FAHN’s original definition of the term, complete with citations, in our New Story Glossary here.

Kindred is also proud to have Darcia Narvaez’s award-winning book, Neurobiology and the Development of Human Morality, listed as the first citation on the SAHM Wiki page. You can learn more about this book, and read its introduction and first chapter, in its 10th anniversary celebration interview with Darcia here. You can learn more about centering the needs of children as a path to cultural transformation in our Evolved Nest Initiative posts on Kindred and on the Evolved Nest’s website. Kindred Magazine is a sister initiative of the Evolved Nest Initiative through the award-winning nonprofit, Kindred World.

Wikipedia’s First Ever Definition Of “Stay-At-Home Mother” Reveals Economic & Cultural Realities

Dr. Darcia Narvaez and Dr. Mary Tarsha discuss their new paper, “Humanity’s Evolved Developmental Niche and its Relation to Cardiac Vagal Regulation in The First Years of Life.” In the paper several components of humanity’s evolved nest were reviewed (breastfeeding, positive touch, allomothers, responsive care, free play) in relation to cardiac vagal nerve regulation, a signal of healthy development, in young children. 

Here is the link to the paper: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/380329774_Humanity's_evolved_nest_and_its_relation_to_cardiac_vagal_regulation_in_the_first_years_of_life

Vagus Nerve Development and the Evolved Nest

Pam Leo, author of Connection Parenting, shares her new nonprofit initiative's holistic vision for meeting families where they are to support literacy and bonding. The Book Fairy Pantry Project's unique vision meets at risk families where they are by making lovingly curated children's books available in local food pantries. In this interview, Leo shares the BFPP's 10 ways of "solving for pattern" or holistically approaching literacy and bonding on multiple levels that are empowering for parents, children and communities. Visit the website at www.BookFairyPantryProject.com. Read Pam's work on Kinred at kindredmedia.org/author/pam-leo/

DID YOU KNOW?
☆ One child in four in the U.S. does not learn to read.
☆ The number one indicator that children will be ready to learn to read when they arrive at school
is age appropriate children's books in their home and being read to daily from birth on.
☆ ⅔ of the 15.5 million children living in poverty in the U.S. do not have even one book to call their own.
☆ There is no shortage of gently used, quality books in this country, only a shortage of redistribution of these books.

A BOOK FAIRY TALE
The Book Fairy's plea for help with literacy
BY PAM LEO

Wee fairies each have jobs to do.
The Book Fairy's job is to get books to you.
And to ALL the world's children,
Not to just a few.

Books are very heavy,
Even ones that are quite small.
A wee fairy cannot carry them
'Cause she is only five inches tall!

The Book Fairy needs "helpers,"
grownups short and tall,
to get books to children who love them,
And to children who have none at all.

The Book Fairy really needs you.
The children need you too.
If there are to be books for EVERY child,
We have a big job to do.

Don't disappoint the fairies,
That would never do.
If ALL the children are to learn to read,
It is up to me and you.

Literacy and Bonding: Pam Leo on the Book Fairy Pantry Project

Thomas Verny, MD, shares his experience over 34 years of "ducking pies" presenting the science of birth psychology that, today, finds mainstream audiences through an award-winning documentary and international universities promoting Verny's original wisdom of the foundation of human wellness beginning at conception. Dr. Verny first presented his insights in the best selling and internationally acclaimed book, The Secret Life of the Unborn Child in 1982 and was recently featured in the award-winning documentary, In Utero, now available for on demand viewing.
In this interview, Dr. Verny shares the meaning behind his well-known quote, "Womb Ecology Becomes World Ecology" and his hope for continued social and public policy change to support pregnant mothers and babies.
You can find a transcript of this interview at www.KindredMedia.org.
Learn more about birth psychology at the Association for Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology and Health, APPPAH, at www.BirthPsychology.com.
Visit Dr. Verny at www.TVernyMD.com

Ducking Pies Presenting Birth Psychology For 34 Years: An Interview With Thomas Verny, MD

Darcia Narvaez assumes the persona of a modern, medical model born baby to help us understand from a baby's perspective what this experience is like.  Here is the transcript to this podcast:

Read more of Narvaez's work here: http://kindredmedia.org/author/darcia-narvaez-phd/

Darcia Narvaez is a Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Notre Dame. Her prior careers include professional musician, classroom music teacher, business owner, seminarian and middle school Spanish teacher. Dr. Narvaez’s current research explores how early life experience influences societal culture and moral character in children and adults. She integrates neurobiological, clinical, developmental and education sciences in her theories and research about moral development. She publishes extensively on moral development, parenting and education. Recently she has been studying the Evolved Developmental Niche (nest) and how it influences moral development, moral capacities and preferences. She hosts interdisciplinary conferences at the University of Notre Dame regarding early experience, flourishing and evolution. In 2016, she organizes a conference on Sustainable Wisdom: Integrating Indigenous KnowHow for Global Flourishing. She is the author or editor of numerous books and articles. Her recent book, Neurobiology and the Development of Human Morality: Evolution, Culture and Wisdom (2014), won the 2015 William James Book Award from the American Psychological Association. She is executive editor of the Journal of Moral Education.

Heartseeds Sisters Babyheart

What Adults Did To Me At Birth: A Baby's Point Of View

Listen to award-winning neuroscience researcher, Darcia Narvaez, PhD, share foundational insights into the Evolved Nest.

DESCRIPTION: How can we maximize human flourishing? The answer—the Evolved Nest!  Learn what the Nest is and how it fosters human potential.

Visit the nonprofit initiative at www.EvolvedNest.org.

About Darcia Narvaez, PhD

Darcia Narvaez is a Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Notre Dame. Her prior careers include professional musician, classroom music teacher, business owner, seminarian and middle school Spanish teacher. Dr. Narvaez’s current research explores how early life experience influences societal culture, wellbeing and sociomoral character in children and adults. She integrates neurobiological, clinical, developmental and education sciences in her theories and research about human nature and human development. 

She publishes extensively on moral development, parenting and education. Recently she has been studying the Evolved Nest and how it influences wellbeing, sociality and morality. 

She hosts interdisciplinary conferences at the University of Notre Dame regarding early experience and human development (the talks and/or powerpoints are available online).  In 2016, she organized a conference on Sustainable Wisdom: Integrating Indigenous KnowHow for Global Flourishing (talks available online). 

She is the author or editor of numerous books and articles. Read her bio and blogs here:  https://kindredmedia.org/author/darcia-narvaez-phd/ 


About the Evolved Nest

Every animal has a nest for its young that matches up with the maturational schedule of the offspring (Gottlieb, 1997). Humans too! The Evolved Nest (or Evolved Developmental Niche; EDN) refers to the nest for young children that humans inherit from their ancestors. It's one of our adaptations, meaning that it helped our ancestors survive. Most characteristics of the evolved nest emerged with social mammals more than 30 million years ago.

Humans are distinctive in that babies are born highly immature (only 25% of adult-sized brain at full-term birth) and should be in the womb another 18 months to even resemble newborns of other species! As a result, the brain/body of a child is highly influenced by early life experience.

Multiple epigenetic effects occur in the first months and years based on the timing and type of early experience. Humanity's evolved nest was first identified by Melvin Konner (2005) as the "hunter-gatherer childhood model" and includes breastfeeding 2-5 years, nearly constant touch, responsiveness to baby's needs, multiple responsive adult caregivers, free play with multiple-aged playmates, positive social support for mom and baby.

Calling these components the Evolved Nest or Evolved Developmental Niche, Narvaez and colleagues add to the list soothing perinatal experience (before, during, after birth) and a positive, welcoming social climate. All these are characteristic of the type of environment in which the human genus lived for 99% of its existence. Below are publications and a powerpoint about the evolved nest.

Why does the evolved nest matter? Early years are when virtually all neurobiological systems are completing their development. They form the foundation for the rest of life, including getting along with others, sociality and morality.

1. The Evolved Nest: An Introduction with Darcia Narvaez, PhD

Pam Leo is an independent scholar in human development, a parent educator, a certified childbirth educator, a doula, a parent, and a grandparent. She is the author of the classic book Connection Parenting.

See the book Connection Parenting here: https://amzn.to/2JuWCea 

The level of cooperation parents get from their children is usually equal to the level of connection children feel with their parents. Connection Parenting is based on the Meeting the Needs of Children 7-week proactive parenting series that Pam Leo has taught for nearly 20 years. The premise is that meeting children's biological need for emotional connection creates the healthy, strong parent-child bond children need to thrive and that bond is also the key to effective parenting.

You can read Pam's work on Kindred here: https://kindredmedia.org/author/pam-leo/ 

You can follow Pam's nonprofit initiative, the Book Fairy Pantry Project, here: www.bookfairypantryproject.org 

"After my first child was born in 1972, it became my passion to understand human behavior. I began to study child development, psychology, sociology, and anthropology. I wanted to learn why we are each born as a tiny innocent being, and some of us grow up to be a Mahatma Gandhi while others become an Adolf Hitler. What determines the difference? I was determined to find out."

"My journey has been and continues to be a wondrous one. While raising my two daughters, I supported us by being a family child care provider for children ages two to ten, fifty hours a week, fifty weeks a year, for twenty-two years. During that time I homeschooled my daughters and continued my own independent study of human development. In 1989 I developed the seven-session parenting series, "Meeting the Needs of Children" which I teach publicly and in the prison system with inmate parents."

"The feedback I most often get from parents is, "I wish I'd had this information from the beginning." In response to this feedback I created a prenatal parenting class. I became certified as a childbirth educator and as a doula as preparation to teach my new class. The "Bonding with Your Baby" class draws from the works of Joseph Chilton Pearce, Jean Liedloff, Ashley Montagu, and James Prescott. The class focuses on supporting expectant parents in creating the best possible foundation for a strong parent-child bond. "

"If I had to put into one sentence all that I have learned about optimal human development and parenting it would be this: our effectiveness as parents is in direct proportion to the strength of the bond we have with our child. Securing and maintaining that bond is our primary work as parents and is the key to optimal human development."

"My passion to learn how to support optimal human development grew into a mission to share all I had learned. In addition to teaching my classes, I have been sharing this information through my "Empowered Parents" column in the Parent & Family paper here in Maine since 1994. When one of my articles was reprinted in the Empathic Parenting Journal I was invited to work with the group of people who have now become the Alliance for Transforming the Lives of Children."

"It's been a dream come true to have the opportunity to work in person with many of the people who have unknowingly been my mentors. Our common bond is our passion for and dedication to working together to make this information available to all people who either raise children or impact the lives of children. "

"I can think of no work more worthy of my time, energy, resources and love."

Connection Parenting with Pam Leo

When John W. Travis, MD, lauded as one of the founding fathers of the wellness movement, became a parent, he was shocked to discover how unprepared he was for coping with the emotional challenges of parenthood.

Here, his wife and colleague, Meryn Callander, shares the story of their confident plunge into parenthood and the subsequent unraveling of that confidence, as they discovered themselves floundering, exhausted, and struggling to deal with the challenges confronting them.

Why Dads Leave reveals the cultural and generational forces that are colluding to create an unacknowledged epidemic of disappearing dads—fathers leaving their families, physically or emotionally, soon after the birth of a child. Nearly twenty years in the making, this book provides insights and practical ways of preventing and healing the insidious and devastating impact of this dynamic.

Why Dads Leave: Insights and Resources for When Partners Become Parents, with Meryn Callander

In this interview with Robin Grille, we learn why it is important for us to spend time growing up our inner child before becoming an activist. “The wounded children are driving the direction of the planet,” says Grille. “And we need adults to show up as activists to do the work that needs to be done to make real change.”


Grille and Lisa Reagan, Kindred’s editor, walk through the process of forgiveness, befriending your triggers, and creating community on a path to bringing out our adult selves to be the activists the world needs right now. “We make public policy based on our inner child’s needs, and the sooner we wake up to that fact, the sooner we’re out of this mess.”

Please don’t think that Inner Child Journeys is a parenting book. It’s not. But it will help you to understand, through a series of interactive exercises, how to identify your own inner child’s needs instead of projecting them onto your child or a corporation.

You can read excerpts of Robin’s books on Kindred here: https://www.kindredmedia.org/author/robin-grille/

Why We Need To Grow Up Our Inner Child - Before Becoming Activists (or anything)

Riane Eisler talks with Kindred on Creating a Post-Pandemic Caring Economy and Culture. 

Riane is a social systems scientist, cultural historian, and attorney whose research, writing, and speaking has transformed the lives of people worldwide. Her newest work, Nurturing Our Humanity: How Domination and Partnership Shape Our Brains, Lives, and Future shows how to construct a more equitable, sustainable, and less violent world based on partnership rather than domination.

Riane is internationally known for her bestseller and seminal work The Chalice and The Blade: Our History, Our Future, which Ashley Montagu called “the most important book since Darwin’s Origin of Species” 

Currently, Riane is president of the Center for Partnership Studies (CPS), which is dedicated to research and education.

A transcript of this interview will be available on www.KindredMedia.org asap.

Visit the Center for Partnership Studies for more resources: https://centerforpartnership.org

Riane Eisler On Creating A Post-Pandemic Caring Economy

Welcome to EvolvedNest Interviews, a showcase of wisdom keepers who keep the wise ways in mind and guide the rest of us. My name is Darcia Narvaez. Today I’m here with Four Arrows, also known as Don Trent Jacobs.
 
Four Arrows is the author of 21 books, with more on the way--one he has kindly asked me to co-author on the precepts of the indigenous worldview that emphasizes kincentricity. For many years, Four Arrows has published books and essays relating to Indigenous world view, education, critical theory and wellness. He has been a professor at Fielding Graduate University for 17 years. He has an extremely interesting biography—from service in the marines, being an EMT and a horse whisperer and many other adventures. A book has been written about him by Michael Fisher called Fearless Engagement of Four Arrows: The True Story of an Indigenous-Based Social Transformer. I urge you to explore his work and ideas—they may save our species. For more about his work please go to www.fourarrowsbooks.com.

Darcia Narvaez is a contributing editor to Kindred and founder of the Evolved Nest Initiative. You can visit EN here www.evolvednest.org

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