who are light-bearing leaders?

By virtue of being one myself, and in my experiences working in tech and 1:1 with people in my practice, I've had the honour of getting to know a particular kind of leader who I'm calling — the light-bearing leader.

Light-bearing leaders have a deep sense of responsibility and duty towards nourishing the collective, and taking action that supports others.

Perhaps you didn't even have a choice on being sent down this path at first. There might be stories behind these leaders around childhood trauma or experiences of neglect or anxious attachment styles with their caregivers, such that you are taking on out-sized responsibility, pretty early on in life.

Your sense of advocating for justice or equity possibly stems out of not receiving it, or seeing people around you being impacted, and taking on that role. You might be the de-facto group project leaders who also ends up doing all the work.

Lightbearers often don't get all the accolades and praise and recognition. Although it can be a part of it, a lot of times their role might be perceived as more behind the scenes. You are the people who will do the things that nobody else wants to do so that the whole collective team or group can move forward.

In doing all of this, you often are doing it from a place of really giving a shit about other people. Whether or not you have the title of leader, you might be somebody that is providing this kind of care-leadership labor unofficially — there's so often this story that, "I didn't get the kind of growth opportunities, or career development pathways, or learning opportunities that I wanted to have. And I want to make sure that as a leader, that I am creating it for other people."

So what happens often is that, being somebody that is willing to shine a spotlight on anyone else and support them in doing so — goes along with it being actually really hard to shine it on yourself, or to shine that light from within and really claim it.

You might be in roles of power or you may have the opportunity to claim power, but maybe you feel uncomfortable with the notion of power itself given how skewed our relationship with power has gotten in colonial capitalism.

So you know it creates this kind of complicated dynamic of being somebody.. that's why I say a light bearer. So you have the torch. You're in the front. So you're lighting up the way and people have to kind of get behind you so that they can get where they're going because you are the one that's shining the light.

But you need to be cared for too. Just because you're going first doesn't mean you don't get to take turns. Set the light down. Turn it off for a bit. Go to bed and sleep. You don't have to be on all the time. That metaphor is probably a bit too on the nose, but it's true. You don't have to be on all the time. And yet we might be also the ones that are overly hesitant to ask for help because we've had to do it on our own, and we kind of have learned to be self-reliant.

Being self-reliant and independent are great traits for leaders, and yet we also exist in collective contexts and we need to be able to receive and not just create or provide or lead. This binary between who is holding the container and who is receiving can feel like you have to only embody one or the other.

And if you're a leader, it often feels like the only choice is to be holding it up for everyone and be burning bright all the time. But, we can't do that. We need to rest and decompose and regenerate ourselves as well.

So I think that being light-bearers, it's a responsibility, because we are positioned to initiate certain choices and test out certain pathways that we are being called to. If we cannot be in right relationship with the light-bearer within us, that makes it really hard to create and lead sustainably.

Sometimes we need our independence and our space to be able to just go off and be free and just shine and dazzle and just be ourselves in our whole splendor and not have to be tending to everybody else all the time.

Sometimes we need to allow ourselves to be reflected upon, to have the light shone upon, to have space made for – so that we can learn and heal.

Sometimes we need to be able to say, "I would love some appreciation for all the work that I am doing here and the impact that that is having on the people around me."

What could be possible if we allowed ourselves to receive, just as much as we give?

The light-bearing leader's manifesto:

In my first retreat cycle at Seeda School almost a year ago, in November 2024, I wrote this manifesto as a response to Ayana Zaire Cotton's prompt to imagine the culture I was creating in my practice, and to pen a manifesto poem from this.

• We are bearers of light, in the dark crevices and caves. The light keeps glowing, just because we exist
• We compost our shadow to make way for the glow (Sojourner Truth)
• The way forward is by transmuting what is decaying/dead
• Dreams Once Buried Beneath The Dungeon Floor Slowly Sprout Into Undying Gardens — André 3000
• We are all okay — the light lives within us all — we are not here to fix ourselves or each other but to nourish ourselves, grow and cast spores for the future
• Nourishing ourselves is a practice of poetry — what is the form that gives light to all the rot that was?
• We grow in clusters by olive trees and oaks. We speak through our technology of light networks.. in our own spaces and when we are together
• We prepare for our togetherness through intention and reflection
• Our light needs oxygen/our breath/body
• Light bearers need love and to be cherished and cared for
• Our stories and the futures we seek are supported by life itself and ancestral technologies of life that are billions of years old
• Sensory joy and care is our fundamental right: rugs, trees, soft, caves, glow, warmth, touch, consent, music, food, seating, access.
• We laugh, through it all, our laughter is a priority. And tears are always welcome

Launching first week of November: Illumi9ate

Illumi9ate is a four-week 1:1 offering for light-bearing leaders who are leaping towards transgressive freedom. In this transformative four part journey, you are invited to inquire and release the illusory fears and thought prisons – that try to keep you stuck or small, so you can remember and reclaim your dream 🌙 playful ☀️ creative self. This offering weaves together Astrology, Tarot, Human Design and Poetry — tune in to the next three week's newsletters to learn more about Illumi9ate!