Welcome

I work with systems both big and small that are in fundamental shift and in transformation. I accompany and co-create with those who are on the edge of what we do not know. Those who are willing to lead, live into, and learn through, the deep changes that are being asked of us now.

Transitions, transformation, this is my work.

I do this locally, globally, and online. How? By co-creating collective practice and processes to navigate times and places of chaos, crisis and regeneration. Tending the inner and outer work of our leadership, and exploring how we are complicit in the systems we want to transform. This includes the rite of passage of hospicing what is dying whilst hosting the newness that is emerging.

We will find the turning points, and become the turning point.

This is artful work. It’s the work of cultivating courage. This yields new harvests, new stories. We make poetry of public policy, find beauty in the broken and carve landscapes of belonging. We are the stories we tell.

You can follow these stories, along with the series and the book I am writing, The Wild Life of Dying. Click on the links below to dive in and find out more.

The website, much like my life, is a work in progress, but soon it will be ready to share with you. In the meantime, you can reach me at vanessa.reid@the-lwi.org

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PRACTICE LEADERSHIP

My foundational containers, laboratories, and collaboratives.

Co-Founder | The Living Wholeness Institute

Co-Principal | The Ecological Imagination Lab

Co-Instigator | The Steadying

Co-Host | The Writing House

Initiator & Maestro | The Imaginarium (Wolf Willow Institute)

Co-Initiator | The Art of Hosting-Athens & The Systemic Innovation Zone (the SIZ)

Watch | TEDx Conscious Closure and the Wild Life of Dying

SYSTEMIC DESIGN

Designing cross-cultural complexity processes with the Wolf Willow Institute for Systems Learning

• Indigenous Knowledge Systems Lab @ Shingwauk Kinoomaage Gamig | Systemic Designer

• Positive Deviants Fellowship (Years 1–3) | Design & Lead Faculty

• Cafe at the Edge of the World | Producer & Faculty

• The Imaginarium | Initiator & Maestro

• Niigani Miinigowiziiwiin (We Give These Gifts to the Future)

  • Role: Design & Lead Facilitator

  • The Work: A 3-year cohort braiding complexity thinking with Indigenous knowledge systems to shift the culture of science education, decolonize science, and deepen cross-cultural fluency. A partnership with Canadian Science Centres, The Presencing Institute, Shingwauk Kinoomaage Gamig, and Wolf Willow.

• The Indigenous Changemakers Systems Studio

  • Role: Design & Host

  • The Work: A 6-month initiative bringing Anishinaabe gikendaasowin (ways of knowing) and systemic design to the opioid crisis. A partnership with the Binesiwag Center for Wellness, gathering Elders, artists, and changemakers from the Treaty Three region.

SYSTEMIC TRANSFORMATION

Co-creating cultures and communities of practice dedicated to systems transformation amidst complexity, collapse, and chaos with the Living Wholeness Institute.

• Global Transformative Initiatives

  • The Work: Across Greece, the Middle East, Europe, including the Finance Innovation Lab (UK), and the European Commission.

• Accelerated Depth Learning

  • The Work: Activating land and place, multiple intelligences, individual/collective capacities, and the inner/outer work for emergence.

• Land-Based Immersions

  • The Work: Regenerative futures and climate adaptation field practice hosted with the land of Axladitsa (Greece).

PUBLICATIONS & PORTALS

A collection of frameworks, media, and offerings to help you dive deeper into the cycles of transformation.

Watch: TEDx Conscious Closure and the Wild Life of Dying.

Read: Secret Guides and Weird Waymarkers — ‍published in the Stanford Social Innovation Review.

Savour: My writings from ascent magazine —bringing a depth of spiritual and awareness practice to inner and outer work.

Explore: The Four-Rooms — A learning ecology framework for systemic transformation.

Read: Conscious Closure — Stewarding organizations through the cycles of life.

Listen: The Collective Imagination Toolkit / Creaturely Portals — A visualization for traveling unknown territories.

Interview: Transitions and Systems Change — A dialogue with with the Systems Sanctuary.

FACULTY & STEWARDSHIP

Process Design & Faculty: The Hedge School (Trailblazery, Ireland)

Navigator: Ever/Was — An endings hotline for organizations

Designer & Facilitator: The Art of Public Dialogue —hosting conversations on race and identity @ Anima Leadership

Global Steward: The Art of Participatory Leadership

Editorial Board: Timeless Books

Board of Directors: Stand Up Dance

"be softer with you.
you are a breathing thing.
a memory to someone.
a home to a life."

~nayyirah waheed