Restoring Our Kinship Worldview with Worldview Literacy
Worldview Literacy Project Resources
Why We Need Worldview Literacy
“To shift from the dominant worldview to the original Indigenous worldview takes some ‘decolonizing’ of the mind. Our minds have been suckled on the milk of civilization’s domination and coercion of life with industrialization and capitalism increasing disconnection and alienation from earth consciousness.” – Four Arrows, Restoring the Kinship Worldview, (co-authored with Darcia Narvaez, PhD)`
Learn more about Worldview Literacy below, or visit the website at www.WorldviewLiteracy.org.
The Evolved Nest and the Kinship mindset that accompanies it are wellness promoting. They represent the ways all our deep ancestors lived and understood the world and their place in it. They arise from a planetary consciousness, which is sorely needed today. You can take up this consciousness, participating in the planet’s arising immune system as a Nesting Ambassador.
How Do We Restore the Kinship Worldview?
Learn more about the 28 precepts introduced in the Worldview Chart in the book, Restoring the Kinship Worldview, by Four Arrows and Darcia Narvaez. This book was selected as one of the “most thought-provoking, inspiring and practical science books” by UC Berkeley’s Science Center for the Greater Good.
ENORSEMENTS
UC Berkeley’s Science Center for the Greater Good selected this books as “one of the most thought-provoking, inspiring and practical science books of 2022.” (Read the SCGG’s interview.)
“This book is the perfect place to start the foundations of good relations…”
— Tyson Yunkaporta, Deacon U., and author of Sand Talk
“A richly creative approach to teaching Indigenous wisdom…”
— David Abram, author of The Spell of the Sensuous
“An invaluable bundle of tenets and templates for the urgent project of decolonizng and rewilding our minds…”
— Bill Plotkin, Ph.D., author of Soulcraft
What is the Worldview Literacy Project?
The Worldview Literacy Project (WLP) is a nonprofit educational initiative of Kindred World that offers a 90‑day, self‑directed or community learning guide to help people recognize and shift their underlying worldview toward an Indigenous, nature‑centered, kinship orientation in order to rebalance life on Earth.
Use the Worldview Chart by Four Arrows to notice how beliefs show up in everyday systems (education, economics, religion, science, media, parenting, childhood). You can also complete a survey designed to gather stories and insights about worldview shifts.
Worldview Literacy is a Doorway to Choosing a Nature-Conscious Way of Living
WLP builds on Indigenous/Kinship Worldview scholarship revealing “two essential worldviews: one where Nature is conscious and one where it is not,” positioning worldview literacy as a doorway to choosing a nature‑conscious way of living.
With Worldview Literacy we discover how our dominant, Western, human‑separatist worldview is a driver of climate disruption, pandemics, social degradation, mental illness, and untilmately, human extinction. Worldview Literacy presents the Indigenous, nature‑based, kinship worldview as the antidote and “most urgent course of action” for rebalancing planetary life.
WLP’s educational purpose is integrative, both inner and outer: cultivating self‑directed neuroplasticity and reflection at the personal level, while nurturing a broader cultural shift towards relational, sacred, earth‑honoring lifeways.
How Worldview Literacy Is Nested In Kindred World’s Ecology of Initiatives and Projects
Within Kindred World’s ecosystem of initiatives, the WLP functions as the explicit “worldview” education arm that ties together Evolved Nest science, kinship worldview work, and storytelling. Kindred Magazine is our alternative media and storytelling hub.
Kindred World’s mission is “welcoming a wisdom-based, wellness-informed world,” and worldview literacy has been at the core of its work since at least 2010, when founder, Lisa Reagan, trained as a Worldview Literacy Facilitator at the Institute of Noetic Sciences, IONS. Today, Kindred’s worldview literacy resources feature the Worldview Chart by meta-cognition and Indigenous/Kinship Worldview scholar, Four Arrows and the book, Restoring the Kinship Worldview by Four Arrows and Darcia Narvaez.
At the meta‑level, WLP is one initiative within a nested structure:
· Kindred World as the nonprofit umbrella
· Kindred Magazine as a narrative and communications hub
· Evolved Nest Initiative is the home of the species-normal science of the communal evolved developmental niche, pioneered by Darcia Narvaez, PhD.
· Nested World Initiative, where Nesting Ambassadors are trained, certified, and file field notes on how their cultural transformation work is impacting their families, communities, professional fields, and inner work.
· Worldview Literacy Project, this site, provides resources and materials for exploring Four Arrows’ Worldview Chart and worldview shifting strategies.
You can also discover and watch the Evolved Nest’s trilogy of films here.
· Breaking the Cycle
· The Evolved Nest: Nature’s Way of Raising Children
· Reimagining Humanity
Get Involved
· Subscribe to our newsletters
· Join our online Mighty Networks platform at Kindred Community
· Join our monthly live Nested World discussions.
How Worldview Literacy Supports Our Nesting Ambassadors' Conscious Activism
The Worldview Chart’s Kinship precepts can orient and safeguard a Nesting Ambassador by continually returning them to relational responsibility, humility, and reciprocity as they share Evolved Nest science, ensuring that information is offered as part of a living web of obligations to children, communities, Earth, and Indigenous wisdom-keepers rather than as abstract, dominant-worldview “expertise.”
By explicitly contrasting dominant assumptions (separateness, control, hierarchy, individualism) with kinship assumptions (interbeing, cooperation, shared authority, reverence for more-than-human life), the chart helps ambassadors monitor their own stance in real time—shifting from “explaining” to co-witnessing, from fixing to co-regulating, and from persuasion to consent-based invitation. In a trauma-informed way, the kinship precepts encourage attunement to cues of overwhelm and power imbalance, prioritizing safety, pacing, and choice, and framing Evolved Nest practices as pathways to restore relational security instead of as standards to which already-burdened caregivers must conform.
This alignment supports the integrity of the Nesting Ambassador role: the messenger’s methods (gentleness, reciprocity, non-superiority, respect for local knowledge and Indigenous sovereignty) embody the very neurobiological and relational conditions of the Evolved Nest, so that how the science is shared is itself part of the healing nest rather than another source of shame, retraumatization, or domination.
Enjoy the Free 90-Day Study and Survey
Download a free copy of the Worldview Literacy Chart in color or black and white on the Worldview Literacy Project website.
The Worldview Chart is also provided in Spanish and German.
Please read Four Arrows guidance on How To Use the Worldview Chart and Seven Considerations for Using the Worldview Chart.
A 90-day study guide and survey are provided for self-directed or communal learning.
The Kinship Worldview is an integral part of our Nesting Ambassador Program and our nonprofit work on Kindred World.
What is a Worldview?
A worldview is a delocalized general sense of how the world works. It’s a cosmology about what humans are, what they should learn, how they should behave and their purpose; how humans relate to the rest of the manifest natural world; and what is our relation to the unmanifest, the spiritual?
Worldview and TEK
Worldview differs from traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) that is localized knowledge Indigenous/First Nation Peoples develops from deep experience in a particular landscape.
So, there are two kinds of Indigenous knowhow missing in the dominant culture that are apparent around the world in First Nation Peoples: the Kinship worldview and TEK. Our book focuses on the former.
How did we lose the Kinship worldview?
Our baselines for normality shifted over time in terms of child raising and cultural practices, downshifting human nature to primate levels. Allowing unfettered inequality has led to endemic Wetiko virus (cannibalistic greed). Modern societies operate trauma-inducing pathways instead of the wellness-promoting pathway we evolved.
How does the Kinship worldview differ from the dominant one?
See the Worldview Chart. Worldview” does not belong to a race or group of people, but Indigenous cultures who still hold on to their traditional place-based knowledge are the wisdom keepers of this original Nature-based worldview. All people are indigenous to Earth and have the right and the responsibility to practice and teach the IW precepts. All have the responsibility to support Indigenous sovereignty, dignity, and use of traditional lands.
“For non-Indians who are concerned about misappropriation, see the peer reviewed article,“The Indigenization Controversy: For Whom By Whom.”
The Worldview Chart and introduction was created by Wahinkpe Topa (Four Arrows), a.k.a. Don Trent Jacobs, Ph.D., Ed.D. and originally published in The Red Road (chanku luta): Linking Diversity and Inclusion Initiatives to Indigenous Worldview, 2020. The chart is featured in Restoring the Kindship Worldview, 2022, by Four Arrows and Darcia Narvaez, Ph.D.
Visit the Worldview Literacy Project
Visit the Worldview Literacy Project to download free color and black and white Worldview Charts, study guides, survey participation links, podcasts and videos, and more1
Learn More about Restoring Our Kinship Worldview
Restoring the Kinship Worldview—Jeremy Lent in conversation w/Four Arrows & Darcia Narvaez
In this interactive conversation, Jeremy Lent explores with Four Arrows (Wahinkpe Topa) and Darcia Narvaez some of the fascinating insights emerging from their recent book, Restoring the Kinship Worldview, covering an unusually broad range of topics—from gender roles to restorative justice, and from sacred competition to mutual dependence—that provide insights into the practices that have enabled Indigenous communities to live in harmony with each other and the nonhuman world for millennia.
Our Million Year-Old Embodied Wisdom: Indigenous Worldview, With Darcia Narvaez and Four Arrows
Listen to the authors of Restoring the Kinship Worldview talk about reclaiming our millions year-old embodied wisdom through Indigenous Worldview. Most philosophical positions are rooted in western enlightenment assumptions of human superiority to and separation from nature, the notion of human cultural progress, and individualism—all part of what anthropologist Marshall Sahlins called the ‘western illusion of human nature.’ Virtually all prior and contemporaneous cultures had a different orientation, one of human interconnectedness and partnership with the biocommunity and a cyclical panpsychism. Social anthropologist Robert Redfield concluded that there are essentially two worldviews—a set of implicit assumptions that guide one’s values, philosophy, and attitudes towards life. We name these the dominant and the Indigenous worldviews.
On Indigenous Voices and Restoring the Kinship Worldview with Four Arrows and Darcia Narvaez
Indigenous worldviews, and the knowledge they confer, are critical for human survival and the wellbeing of future generations. Author and Professor of Education, Wahinkpe Topa (Four Arrows), and author and Professor Emerita of Psychology Darcia Narvaez have both written and lectured extensively on the need to integrate Indigenous worldviews into every aspect of society—from education to sustainability, wellness, and justice.
Through their work and writing, Four Arrows and Darcia emphasize the 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.
Their most recent collaboration as editors of the anthology Restoring the Kinship Worldview, presents 28 powerful excerpted passages from Indigenous leaders including Mourning Dove, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Winona LaDuke, and Xiuhtezcatl Martinez. Four Arrows and Darcia explore the wisdom of Indigenous worldviews and how embracing these precepts can nourish our individual and collective lives in these challenging times. By embracing our kindship , we can realize an Indigenous vision and strong social purpose that sees all life forms as sacred and sentient. Discover how these ideals can provide a holistic orientation to lead us away from extinction toward an integrated, sustainable future.
All Our Relations–The Gratitude Deck
52 Gratitude Practices Rooted in Indigenous Ecological Wisdom for Kinship with the Earth – Pre-Order Your Gratitude Deck, Available March 10, 2026
From Indigenous author, scholar, and activist Four Arrows (Wahinkpe Topa)—cultivate your own earth-based gratitude practice with this 52- card oracle deck.
For readers of Robin Wall Kimmerer, Rae Diamond, Jessica Hernandez, and Sherri Mitchell
All Our Relations, a 52-card oracle deck, guides readers through a nature-based gratitude practice rooted in the Indigenous worldview. Author Four Arrows (Wahinkpe Topa) invites you to realign your heart and mind with the natural world—to reconnect to your truest self and the more-than-human world, and to move in kinship with the plants and animals that nourish and sustain all of life. This deck offers:
- Myths from 52 Unique Indigenous Nations
- A supporting guidebook to help you deepen your experience and understanding
- 52 woodblock-inspired plant and animal illustrations
This is the first card deck to honor the critical role that sentient non-human beings play in maintaining the ecological balance on Mother Earth through the lens of First Nations cosmologies. Whether you’re a spiritual seeker, nature lover, or mindfulness practitioner, this groundbreaking offering will reroot you in a sacred, healing awareness that has the power to bring new spiritual insights, daily wonders, and interconnected kinship to your life.
Read, Listen, and Watch Features on Kinship Worldview
on Kindred Magazine.
Kindred Magazine, as a nonprofit alternative media platform, plays a crucial role in shaping and sharing the New Story of the Human Family. Nested World and Kindred are part of the ecology of initiatives and projects of Kindred World.
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Read, watch, and listen to Kindred Magazine’s two decades of features and interviews that are weaving our New Story.
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