Rejuvenation and restoration are not just about self-care—they're also integral to our capacity for service in our communities. This was true for Heidi Hutner, one of 36 recipients of the Omega Women's Leadership Center's (OWLC) Juno Women's Leadership Residency in 2016.
Heidi, whose work is focused on the topics of caring for Earth, animals, and people, is the director of the Sustainability Studies Program at Stony Brook University. Her TEDx talk, Eco-Grief and Ecofeminism, traces her journey of personal loss and healing into environmental studies and activism. During her time on Omega's Rhinebeck campus, Heidi found herself surprised by how easily her agenda for her residency slipped away, and how she was able to attend to deeper needs. "I thought I would write a lot at Omega, but instead, I rested. Attending the nurturing program at Juno gave me the time to breathe. To exhale. To relax. To heal. The result of this healing surprised me greatly. I was so recharged, that my first article for the New York Times would soon be published in the weeks after I left Omega."
That article, "A Conservationist’s Call for Humans to Curb Harms to Our Animal Kin," highlights a conversation between Heidi and Carl Sarafina first conducted for her web interview series, Coffee with Hx2. Carl is the author of Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel, which explores the scientific research and cultural reasoning around reassessing human's relationships to the natural, sentient world. Heidi has also written several pieces on women climate scientists and women's indigenous activism related to the Dakota pipeline.
Heidi was able to bring the restoration of her time at Omega home to re-examine aspects of her life that needed clearing and cleansing. "I am more focused and able to narrow down my interests and help others in a more beneficial way. My heart is more open because much has cleared—the Juno Women's Leadership Residency helped me to declutter my insides! This decluttering has also helped me in my activist community projects. I left Omega healed, whole, and wide awake."
