“We are stuck in the wrong story.” — Riane Eisler

“The Evolved Nest helps us remember what being human really means.” — Darcia Narvaez

(from the recorded conversation below) 

 

---

In this powerful conversation, Riane Eisler and Darcia Narvaez explore the synergy between Eisler’s Partnerism framework and Narvaez’s Evolved Nest model. Narvaez’s and Eisler’s lifelong scholarly works intersect in their call for a shift towards nurturing, relational, and balanced models of existence that revalue the feminine and kinship bonds, seeing these as essential for creating a sustainable, compassionate future. Their work advocates for a profound cultural transformation, grounded in the rediscovery of ancient values and practices that honor interconnectedness and the sacredness of all life.

In defining the complimentary relationship between the Evolved Nest and Partnerism, Riane points out in the video below that alloparenting, one of nine key components of our Evolved Nest, isn’t possible without economic shifts toward gender parity and valuing caregiving. Her insight provides critical guidance for cultural creatives and Nesting Ambassadors who may risk burnout in an effort to create a modern village based on a Cycle of Cooperative Companionship in a decaying culture based on a Cycle of Competitive Detachment. While Narvaez’s work restores our baselines for typical species wellbeing, Eisler’s work expands  practical guidance/insights that protect activists from entering into draining Hamster Wheel Activism (acting unconsciously from the Dominant Worldview to engender social change).

Together, Eisler and Narvaez show that healing our world begins with changing how we raise children, support families, and reimagine human society. Lisa Reagan contextualizes the conversation by highlighting Kindred’s nonprofit mission to author a New Story of the Human Family, and to expose the bio-cultural conflict families face: an engineered, trauma-inducing non choice between our biological needs for nurturing and our economic need for survival. This discussion moves us closer to creating coherence for a New Story of the Human Family, exploring relevant and urgent questions like:

Can we create the village in a capitalist culture? Can we create a village that centers the needs of the child, our Evolved Nest, just for the time we are parenting? Where do we begin? asks Lisa Reagan in the video. (All of Kindred’s posts, podcasts, resources, and free materials are dedicated to answering that last question.)

In response to how the Evolved Nest and Partnerism complement each other, Narvaez says, “What the Evolved Nest adds to Partnerism is the move away from anthropocentrism and towards partnership with the rest of nature, with the plants, animals, the waterways, the mountains, with the cycles of the Earth, and not just thinking about human needs and interests, but that we are part of Earth. We are Earthlings and to have that kind of consciousness.”

“And if you read Marx or Adam Smith there is nothing about caring for nature because that is feminine, right? In their view, nature is there for one thing: to be exploited,” replies Eisler. “Today, of course, we are in a period of regression worldwide towards domination. But at the same time there are thousands, or millions, of small groups working on partnership in one way or another. But we lack the frame: the emphasis on family and gender.” (Timemark 14:30)

The deep discussion in this podcast, exploring Eisler’s caring economy components (Partnerism) and Narvaez’s neurobiological pathway to wellbeing (Evolved Nest) is one aspect of the ongoing nonprofit partnership between the Evolved Nest Initiative (Kindred World) and the Center for Partnership Systems.

Kindred World was founded 25 years into America’s 50 year slide to the bottom of all international wellness indicators. Kindred World’s trance-breakers, wayfinders, and new cycle makers champion a growing consciousness-raising movement dedicated to Welcoming a Wisdom-based, Wellness-informed World. Read more about our award-winning advocacy, initiatives, and statements of impact here.

---

Watch the Conversation & See Highlights and Time Marks Below

Listen to the Audio Recording

About the Contributors

Riane Eisler is a systems scientist, attorney, and author internationally known for her bestseller The Chalice and The Blade, now in 26 foreign editions and 57 US printing, as well as for other award-winning books. She keynotes conferences worldwide, with venues including the United Nations General Assembly and the US Department of State. She is President of the Center for Partnership Systems and has received many honors, including honorary Ph.D. degrees, the Alice Paul ERA Education Award, and the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s Distinguished Peace Leadership Award, and is featured in the award-winning book Great Peacemakers as one of 20 leaders for world peace, along with Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Teresa, and Martin Luther King.

Riane Eisler’s Center for Partnership Systems is a nonprofit partner with Kindred World. Find out more about Riane’s work on Partnerism.

Darcia Narvaez is a Professor of Psychology Emerita at the University of Notre Dame. Narvaez’s book, Neurobiology and the Development of Human Morality: Evolution, Culture and Wisdom, was chosen for and won the 2017 Expanded Reason Award from among more than 360 total entries from 170 universities and 30 countries. The book also received the William James Award from the American Psychological Association. In a 2020 analysis of top scientists, Narvaez emerged in the top 2% of scientists worldwide. She is 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. In 2025, she was the recipient of a Presidential Citation from the American Psychological Association’s Division 24.

Darcia Narvaez is the president of Kindred World and the co-founder of the Evolved Nest Initiative. Watch the Evolved Nest Film Trilogy here (in English, Spanish, and German). Visit the Evolved Nest Learning Center. Download the free Evolved Nest Curriculum. Read Evolved Nest posts on Kindred.

Lisa Reagan is the founder and executive director of Kindred World. She is the editor for Kindred Magazine, publisher for the Kindred World Publishing House, and the co-founder of the Evolved Nest Initiative. Introduced as a “force of nature” by Cassandra Vieten, IONS president, at the first Mindful Motherhood Conference in NYC in 2011, Lisa’s passionate dedication to empower activists, professionals, and families to envision and create a Wisdom-based, Wellness-informed World has led to the founding of multiple inspired nonprofit initiatives and partner collaborations since her transformative motherhood initiation in 1997. Explore over two decades of her family wellness advocacy posts and podcasts here.

---

Highlights and Time Marks 

 

1. Foundational Frameworks

• Partnerism (Riane Eisler): Emerged from Eisler’s transdisciplinary research after surviving Nazi persecution and observing social injustices in Cuba (00:01:07–00:03:19).
• The Evolved Nest (Darcia Narvaez): Based on neurobiology and anthropological studies of hunter-gatherer societies that reveal how ancestral caregiving practices shape moral development and wellbeing (00:17:36–00:18:44).

2. Biocultural Conflict and Modern Parenting

• Parents are forced to choose between biological imperatives and cultural necessities (00:00:23).
• U.S. systems do not support the “nesting” needs of children and parents (00:05:35).

3. Domination vs. Partnership Continuum (00:07:09–00:11:23)

• Domination Systems: Characterized by rigid hierarchies, gendered power imbalances, violence, and control (e.g., Taliban, Nazi Germany).
• Partnership Systems: Based on mutuality, equity, and care. Gender and caregiving are central organizing principles, not marginal ones (00:08:47–00:10:12).

4. Gender as an Organizing Principle

• Gender is not just a women’s issue; it structures all social institutions (00:09:10).
• Cultural systems that code care as feminine devalue it—undermining both caregiving and nature (00:11:58–00:12:14).

5. Reclaiming the Human Nest

• The Evolved Nest reflects humanity’s original wellness pathway (00:17:36–00:18:44).
• Early nurturing rewires the brain for compassion and cooperation (00:17:36–00:18:44; 00:34:08–00:35:08).
• Babies especially need constant physical, emotional, and social care; boys are particularly vulnerable to early stress (00:33:36).

6. The Role of Story and Worldview

• Dominator systems are upheld by fairy tales and media that normalize violence and hierarchy (00:28:06; 00:45:08).
• Lisa Reagan shares rewriting the narrative to one of coherence and visibility is essential (00:16:02; 00:56:01).

7. Cultural Creatives: The Missing Frame

• Lisa Reagan shares Paul Ray and Sherry Anderson identified the “Cultural Creatives”—a growing group interested in holistic living, needing coherence and visibility (00:15:35–00:16:14).
• These people are not supported by mainstream systems and often feel isolated (00:16:14–00:16:39).

8. Alloparenting and Village Care

• Cooperative childrearing is biologically and anthropologically rooted (00:21:30–00:22:04).
• Alloparenting is a practical step toward restoring partnership (00:30:10–00:31:10).

9. The Four Cornerstones of Partnership (00:27:12–00:28:00)

          Eisler outlines four areas needing transformation:

1. Childhood and family
2. Gender
3. Economics (valuing care work, including unpaid labor)
4. Stories/Language/Beliefs

10. Shifting the Economic Paradigm

• Both capitalism and socialism ignore caregiving economies (00:27:12–00:28:00).
• Nordic nations are examples of partnership-oriented economic policies (00:29:10–00:29:42).

11. Trauma and the Domination Trance

• Domination systems are trauma factories—especially in childhood (00:39:22–00:40:02).
• Punitive parenting and lack of nurturing distort neurodevelopment and emotional health (00:40:00–00:41:10).
• Peace begins at home: ending family violence is foundational (00:42:32).

12. Kinship Worldview and Cultural Shift

• Darcia Narvaez shares Indigenous and kinship worldviews offer models of partnership with both people and nature (00:50:50–00:51:10).
• Darcia Narvaez shares Four Arrows’ 51 precepts highlight contrasts between Dominator and Kinship worldviews (00:53:15).

13. Urgency and Hope

• Trauma, denial, authoritarianism, and environmental collapse are symptoms of dominator systems in crisis (00:38:52–00:39:22).
• Eisler emphasizes shifting from rebellion to reconstruction, and from “power over” to “power with” (00:38:00–00:38:36).

Final Thoughts (00:56:01–End)

• Coherence and visibility are essential to support professionals and parents in moving toward a new story.
• Eisler and Narvaez affirm that a humanizing, partnership-based world is possible, rooted in care, connection, and community.
• The challenge is not biological but cultural—and the story can be rewritten.