Tribal Women Leaders Summit

February 22-26, 2027

Ancestral Homelands of the Mohican/Munsee People

Women Who Carry the Nation: Leadership, Balance, and Belonging

In many Tribal communities, women carry leadership in ways both visible and unseen, holding families together, strengthening programs, guiding decisions, protecting culture, and sustaining relationships across generations. Women Who Carry the Nation honors that leadership while creating space for renewal, reflection, connection, and forward visioning.

The Summit is grounded in the universal themes often represented by the Medicine Wheel: wholeness, balance, connection, movement, and the interrelationship of all parts of life. While the meanings and teachings associated with the Medicine Wheel vary among Tribal Nations and cultural traditions, its four directions offer a meaningful framework for considering the many dimensions of leadership.

The North calls us for strength, responsibility, accountability, and action. It invites participants to honor what they carry, recognize the values that guide their decisions, and consider how they turn purpose into meaningful action.

The East represents vision, possibility, and new beginnings. Like the first light of day, it asks women to look toward what is emerging, reconnect with their larger purpose, and imagine what may be possible for their Nations, organizations, families, and future generations.

The South centers relationships, belonging, and the heart of leadership. It reminds us that leadership does not happen alone; it is sustained through trust, reciprocity, collaboration, cultural connection, and the people who walk beside us.

The West invites reflection, deep listening, learning, and renewal. It creates space to draw wisdom from experience, release what no longer serves us, restore our energy, and adjust our path with intention.

Held at Art Omi in upstate New York, the Summit’s winter landscape becomes a metaphor for this journey around the Medicine Wheel. The open fields, bare trees, wooded paths, and outdoor sculptures invite new ways of seeing leadership and ourselves. The art reminds us that perspective changes as we move, while the land reminds us that even when growth is not visible, important work is taking place beneath the surface.

Winter carries particular wisdom for women who are often expected to keep moving, solving, supporting, and holding everything together. In nature, winter is not an empty or unproductive season. Beneath the frozen ground, roots are strengthening, energy is being conserved, and the landscape is quietly preparing for what comes next. Winter reminds us that leadership is not only about movement and action. It is also about tending the fire, listening carefully, protecting what matters, and allowing time for restoration.

Through conversation, storytelling, creative expression, reflection, and connection to the winter landscape, participants will:

  • Reconnect with their sources of strength, wisdom, and balance.

  • Explore leadership as a relationship with community, culture, place, and future generations.

  • Reflect on the responsibilities women carry within their Nations, organizations, and families.

  • Consider what they are called to carry, what can be shared, and what may be ready to be released.

  • Strengthen networks of trust, belonging, and mutual support with other Tribal women leaders.

  • Create space for restoration, renewed purpose, and forward visioning.

  • Practice leading in all directions by integrating action, vision, relationships, and reflection.

This Summit invites Tribal women leaders to step briefly out of urgency and into a circle of belonging, renewal, and shared strength. By moving through the four directions and drawing upon the wisdom of winter and the Art Omi landscape, participants will consider how to lead as whole people grounded in what has shaped them, supported by those who walk beside them, attentive to what the present season requires, and prepared to carry their communities forward with clarity, balance, and care.

At a Glance

  • February 22-26, 2027 (Monday-Friday)

  • $2,500 per person

  • Full cost to be paid by November 1, 2026

  • Cancellation Policy: full cost reimbursed through December 31, 2026

  • The fee covers: accommodations, all meals, scheduled airport transfer from Albany, NY, to our Summit location (Art Omi Inc, a non for profit arts organization). It also includes a variety of activities, classes, a personal journal, and other thoughtful essentials!

Info Webinar Recording

SLIDE SHOW FROM THE WEBINAR

Location

  • Art Omi, a 501 c3 non for profit arts organization in upstate New York, our host, sits on the ancestral lands of the Mohican, whose main people are nowadays known as the Stockbridge-Munsee, and they primarily live in Wisconsin

  • Art Omi is 3 hours north of New York City or 1 hour south of Albany

  • We offer pick ups at Albany’s airport in New York State

How do I get there?

Questions? Write to us

Art Omi Land Acknowledgement

It is with gratitude and humility that Art Omi acknowledges that we are learning, speaking, and gathering on the ancestral homelands of the Mohican people who are the Indigenous peoples of this land.

Despite tremendous hardship in being forced from here, today their community resides in Wisconsin and is known as the Stockbridge-Munsee Community. We pay honor and respect to their ancestors past and present as we commit to building a more inclusive and equitable space for all.

Knowing that we are on the land of the Mohican compels us to take action beyond land acknowledgment. We continue to learn and to explore ways to create change, build meaningful relationships, and work towards a more just and thriving future.

Resources to learn more:

  • Stockbridge-Munsee Community website

  • Fact sheet created by the Stockbridge-Munsee Community

  • Resource Guide, including a list of actions you can take to support the work of the Stockbridge-Munsee Community