The Way of Agnes: Living and Leading with Nature

Listening to Hamnet on audio, I found myself drawn to Agnes and how deeply attuned she is to nature and the unseen.

She carries a way of knowing that feels ancient and urgently relevant in the world today. Her connection to plants and land is ingrained in every aspect of her life. There is precision in it. She notices what is shifting and changing and holds trust in what she senses. She moves with nature and the seasons, feels them fully. She knows she is nature.

Her mothering reflects the same strength. It is loving and steady. She meets uncertainty without rushing to resolve, allowing what is difficult to exist, and in doing so, creates space for honest and meaningful connection. There is leadership in this - wise inner leadership.

I found myself reflecting on leadership as we see it today and what is failing so deeply. Through Maggie O’Farrell’s vivid sensory descriptions of the natural world, Agnes’s presence unfolds with instinctive knowing. Much of leadership today, by contrast, has become extractive, drawing from land and people, shaped by systems of pressure, urgency, greed, and continual output.

What is missing and failing is balance. More specifically, a deeper integration of the feminine. Not instead of the masculine, but alongside it. Listening, caring, kindness, empathy, presence, attunement, qualities often dismissed, yet essential for anything sustainable.

Agnes embodies these qualities in a way that feels elemental. At times, she feels less like a human and more like Mother Earth. Her way of being shows what living and leading are when in relationship with nature, not as an afterthought, but as something understood and felt.

This growing shift is being carried out by organisations and individuals striving to do good - ‘allowing nature a seat in the boardroom,’ yet overall nature still sits at the margins, drowned out by ego and noise, rarely truly heard.

How long will we lead as if the Earth is optional?