To Hum is Human

Intuitive Leadership: Leading with Heart and Vision

• Donnabelle Casis

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What does it mean to lead not just from the head, but from the heart? To follow not only plans, but the pulse of something deeper, your intuition?

This week, I sit down with Executive Director Cassandra Holden, a visionary leader and culture weaver who is stewarding BOMBYX Center for Arts & Equity — a sacred and historic arts space in Florence, Massachusetts — into its next chapter of justice, beauty, and collective transformation.

We explore what it means to truly listen to the soul of a place, to lead a community with radical care and spiritual integrity, and to hold space for discomfort, healing, and joy, all at once. Cassandra shares what it looks like to trust your gut when the stakes are high, and why intuition is not just a personal compass, but a path to collective awakening.

Follow me on Instagram @ToHumisHuman and @sonorous.light555

Website: www.sonorouslight.com


SPEAKER_02:

Hello and welcome. It's Donabelle, your friend and host of To Hum is Human, the podcast where we explore the transformative power of tuning into our intuition to express our passionate purpose. Today's episode covers intuitive leadership, leading with heart and vision. We're talking about what it means to lead not just with strategy, but with spirit, to listen, to feel, and to respond from a place of rooted inner knowing. I'm so thrilled to introduce my next guest. Cassandra Holden is the executive director of Bombic Center for Arts and Equity in Florence, Massachusetts, a longtime producer of festivals and multidisciplinary arts events. Cassandra has brought public art into affordable housing communities with Wayfinders, created collaborative sculpture with students at the Care Center, and helped launch Roke House, a community art space in Holyoke. Her work sits at the intersection of art, equity, and intuitive leadership, creating spaces where culture, community, and spirit meet. Welcome, Cassandra. It's a pleasure to be here with you. Now, you've done such thoughtful, integrative work at the intersection of art and community. Your collaboration with Wayfinders brought public art into affordable housing developments, inviting beauty into everyday, often overlooked spaces. What did that experience teach you about the power of art to reclaim dignity, identity, and a sense of belonging?

SPEAKER_01:

The decade that I did that work was deeply meaningful. I think when we think of affordable housing, we often think of architecture that does not uplift the spirit. There have been generations of thinking about how we house low-income people, and there's a phrase in the industry, warehousing the poor. We all know what that looks like in terms of architecture, in terms of the grounds around those types of properties, in terms of the amenities that are offered on those sites. And I'm pleased to share that in recent decades, like the thinking around that has changed. And now we often see those projects that integrate market rate units as well as more affordable units. So understanding sort of like the New York subway, everyone in New York takes a subway regardless of income level. And it's really important that we have that kind of social mixing. And then my work was really working with artists to bring work into those spaces because they can be undecorated, right? And really we convey a sense of dignity, of possibility, of hopefulness when we bring art into those spaces. Like if you imagine any sort of swank apartment building, there's a Warhol, there's a DeSouvereau, There's a museum quality piece in the lobby. Yes. Right? Yes. Creating that kind of interaction with art and creativity when you first enter a space really says a lot.

UNKNOWN:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

So that work was like close to my heart. Also, one of the reasons that was deeply moving for me is that my mother, who recently passed, you know, she lived in low income senior housing. You know, one of the beautiful things that happened in that space is that they invited artists and members of the community to display paintings within the building. So this was artwork that would change routinely. And then my work was also deeply informed by the Bywater Arts Loft, where my sister lived briefly after Hurricane Katrina, which was this incredible project in New Orleans where the apartments themselves were very simple, but there were large spaces for artists to create work, to display work, to put together events. And that was such a powerful transformational project in that community, particularly as, you know, New Orleans was being rebuilt with a lot of very expensive condos, right? And a lot of artists who had lived there for generations weren't able to live in the heart of the city in the

SPEAKER_02:

same way. Creating artist residencies inside housing projects is rare. What did you notice when artists were invited into those spaces with intention? Like what shifted in the artists or in the residents or in the atmosphere itself?

SPEAKER_01:

So one project that comes to mind when working on Live 155 in Northampton, which sits right on Pleasant Street, it's that big multi-story yellow brick building. We worked with the artist project Paul Shule, who's a local photographer. And I collected oral histories from those residents. And he was in that space making portraits of folks who lived there. And then we displayed that work at Historic Northampton and had a series of talks and presentations. And it was an opportunity to capture the full humanity. I think we can project certain kinds of narratives onto the folks who live in boarding houses, in affordable housing. And instead, we were able to create these portraits that were incredibly nuanced and share stories that might not otherwise get out there. And now those portraits, those photographs actually hang in the lobbies. The amazing thing about that project, too, is that Wayfinders took a really sensitive approach. They relocated everyone when they demolished Northampton Lodging. And then all of those residents actually had the first opportunity to come back into the new building. They worked with this amazing transition counselor. And believe it or not, like for many residents, it was actually more affordable for them to come back into the new building that was better appointed and safer and more beautifully designed than it had been to be in this weekly lodging situation. There was actually one gentleman who had been living there for 30 years. Wow. you know, worked as a chef at the Blue Bonnet Diner. It was just incredible to hear these stories like and to be able to celebrate these folks. Right. And see their faces, like bring them into the day-to-day interactions with everybody in the building.

SPEAKER_02:

That must be so empowering for them too, because they probably would never imagine themselves being in portraits on the wall, decorating this beautiful new structure that they now are living in. That's something so meaningful in so many levels. And to get press coverage around that, right?

SPEAKER_01:

You know, during one of the interviews, someone said to me, like, I'm not famous. Why would why would a reporter want to talk to me? Why would anyone want to talk? Like, why would anyone want to take my picture? Yeah. No, actually, you are important. Your story is valuable. This is part of our community. You deserve to be here as much as you know. anyone who makes the news all the time. Absolutely. Now,

SPEAKER_02:

you also taught at the CARE Center, working with young mothers to build large-scale sculpture. What did those creative collaborations reveal about the power of art in non-traditional learning environments?

SPEAKER_01:

So one of the things that was super cool about that project was working at scale. So often, if we're in high school or whatever, we do work in a scale that fits on a table, what can fit in your art class. And particularly for these young women who have stepped away from a traditional high school, many of them express sort of feeling invisible. They're no longer connected to that experience that their peers had, that they had been moving through in their high school trajectory. And there were the cohort of other young moms, which is incredibly bolstering and meaningful. And so to work at scale in the first project I did is that we created a mobile that was installed at the Kittredge Center at Holyoke Community College. Interestingly enough, and I didn't know this until our installation site was all worked out and everything, it actually hangs adjacent to the classroom where students go to take the HiSET, which is the equivalent, the test for the GED. So to take up space in an institution of higher education when you have stepped back from the traditional track was another way of taking up space, having a presence. I get chills. I just

SPEAKER_02:

get chills listening to that because you're giving these young women an opportunity to see within themselves this power to create something that then can be installed and inspire others. And the fact that it's adjacent or across the hall from where you take your, I mean, that to me, there's like no coincidence, a next level transformation with that particular piece. Cassandra, you've moved fluidly across worlds from nonprofit systems to grassroots spaces, from youth education to legacy building. How do you reconcile the tension between imaginations and infrastructure between what the heart wants to create and what the systems will support?

SPEAKER_01:

Well,

SPEAKER_02:

that's a

SPEAKER_01:

really challenging

SPEAKER_02:

question.

SPEAKER_01:

So in my experience, there's a lot of will within systems. Individuals within systems want to make things happen. And it's about finding the other humans who are passionate about doing something a little bit different. I borrow the lottery slogan, you can't win if you don't play, right? So you might as well ask, Because you might get a yes. If you don't ask, it's a no. And just try, right? And so if 80% of the time something good happens, that's so much better than making no effort at all. Even if 20% of the time you get a yes, you just might as well give it a shot. Maybe some of that is about like developing a somewhat thick skin. Like no doesn't mean your idea is bad. It just means like that particular infrastructure won't support it. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. or won't support it right now, or that's not the right collaborator, you know, and just keep like, keep being a pest.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, I think too, it's like someone with a really strong vision, you know, there's this other impulse that's driving you that's not necessarily just, I want to do this thing because it means so much more than what you do as an individual. It's really to help support so many others. And so I think that, perhaps gives you a little more boost to ask the question. Whereas some people may not ask the question at all. It's like, oh, well, well, that was that. But you're like, no, wait, we will find somebody else who might have that same idea. Who knows? Now that brings me to Bombix, because this is now your current beautiful project in the world. And first of all, I wanted to know how the concept of Bombix Center for Arts and Equity came to be.

SPEAKER_01:

Sure. Without sounding too woo, the building spoke to me. She would not leave me alone. So describe to our listeners what that building is. Bombix is a historic church property. So there's the church structure, which was built in 1861. There's a parish hall that's connected by this middle sort of piece of mid 20th century architecture. We have a commercial kitchen. We have a preschool that's been here for 75 years. We are home to two congregations, both the original Congregationalist Christian congregation, and then the Reformed Synagogue, Beta Havah, has been here for about 30 years. I know, amazing. So I describe us as a chimera. We're all the things.

UNKNOWN:

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01:

And it's actually wonderful having all of that together. I will say my thinking around community, around mutual aid, about arts as sacred practice has really been informed by my interactions with our two faith leaders here.

SPEAKER_00:

That

SPEAKER_01:

would be Rabbi Ricky Kosovsky and Pastor Marissa Egerstrom. And there's this interesting synergy that happens because we're all in the business of uplifting the human spirit.

SPEAKER_00:

And

SPEAKER_01:

that can be through ritual, that can be through interactions with the arts, that can be through a shared community meal. And I think one of the things that's really come to the fore for me in my relationship with the two faith leaders is how do we process more difficult emotions? How do we hold grief? How do we work with that productively? You know, and church is like the New York subway, the church and the synagogue. It's one of those few spaces where folks of various socioeconomic and other identities interact on a regular basis.

SPEAKER_00:

Hmm.

SPEAKER_01:

and can come together around a variety of interests. So it's fascinating because actually most art spaces don't have that quality, right? Like you have a lot of performing arts centers that can feel othering, right? I have encountered this having done my work in affordable housing. People are like, oh no, that's, Like that gallery is not for me. That art center is not for me. You have to have a lot of money to go there or you have to have your master's degree in art history to understand what's on the walls. So church and synagogue are one of these places where you can just show up. And actually, if you're not together, you are encouraged to show up. Because there's something here to nourish you rather than you have to be perfectly okay to come in here. Could you tell us how you came to that name, Bombix? Yes. So I'm going to rewind a little bit and talk about how I came to be here, how the building stalked me. So a dear friend of mine, Priscilla Ross, was the music director for the Florence Congregational Church for about a decade. And she was aware that the congregation was getting older. that they were having a difficult time maintaining the building. You know, they'd had a couple of offers because they'd realized they needed to sell But there wasn't an offer on the table that they really wanted. They didn't want to sell to a developer who would turn it into more expensive condos or whatever. And they also didn't want to sell it to another congregation who would basically evict the two congregations and the preschool. They were clear that they really wanted the building to remain. They wanted the building to remain a resource to the community and they wanted to be able to stay and they wanted everyone else to be able to stay, which probably made this a terrible real estate deal. You're like, I wonder, hmm, Wow, that's a lot of limitations. Take it. You wouldn't normally buy a house if the other people get to live there with you. So Priscilla, this was in 2019, she got together a group of folks to begin forming a board and writing bylaws and doing all the work of forming a nonprofit to then essentially buy the church, buy the property from the congregation. And then along came COVID. And she works in healthcare. And as you can imagine, she didn't sleep. Like she was working a ton and had to step back from the project and turned to me and said, would you like it? And I said, oh, absolutely not. Like in the spring of 2020, a gathering space. This is a terrible idea. It's worse than buying a house where the people live in it. Right. But so I sat with it and then this thing would happen. Every time I drove by this building, it would it would shimmer. There would be weird things that happened with light, like clouds would part or there would be this ray of sunshine, like something would happen every time. And, you know, I'd be like, no, no, no, not for me. No, thank you. I don't see that. Go away. And then the building started showing up in my dreams. Boy, yeah. It's like, wow, you are really persistent. And in January of 21, I reached out to the congregation, like, you know, Priscilla facilitated an introduction and I reached out and I said, okay, like, I'm willing to explore this. This is not a yes. This is, we're going to take a few steps. I'm going to hire an architect to evaluate the building. Like, let's actually figure out what this is. Yeah. And then lo and behold, we opened in October of 21. And the

SPEAKER_02:

rest is history. And the rest is history. Well, speaking of the building, so Bombeck sits on sacred ground. Once a gathering place for abolitionists and visionaries, what does it feel like to steward a space with that kind of ancestral and political charge? Like, how do you listen to the spirit of the land and the building

SPEAKER_01:

itself? That's been a really interesting process. So Pastor Marissa has this expression that she uses to describe the energy here called the bright light of Bombix. So before there was ever a church, this land was a place where abolitionists gather to debate issues, you know, to meet, to organize. We don't have precise history, but it is my understanding that prior to that in Indigenous folks met here. I mean, the land sits at the top of a plateau. So there's about a 30-foot drop down to the Mill River. This was the physical high point in the community. And you could, if you imagine that the buildings in the neighborhood weren't here, you would really have this incredible expansive view. The land has a spirit. It has an energy all of its own. If you go and you sit outside under the pines, or if you sit in the sanctuary in the afternoon and you're bathed in that golden light that comes through the windows. I mean, my experience of it is anytime that I'm having just like the worst day and, you know, life feels like a lot. There's this energy that comes through the ground. Artists who performed here have described feeling that like you're on stage and there's an upsurge. There's a thing that happens. You can feel it. When you stand on stage, you can look out the doors and you see the statue of Sojourner Truth in the parklet across the street. I feel as though I am the imperfect steward of this place. My job is to begin. My job is to get the plane in the air. We're in the process of purchasing the building from the congregation, which means we've stabilized the lives of the folks who have been here for decades. You know, we're bringing in the arts programming. That's my goal. I don't want to be one of those founders who dies at her desk. I also don't think that I have the best ideas that last forever. I have this weird practical skill set. I can probably do 10 years of this and stabilize the building, stabilize my congregations. Yeah. Which is kind of like opening the door. There's something that's going to come after my time here. I don't know what that is, but There's a lot of nuts and bolts stuff that needs to happen, and I like that.

SPEAKER_02:

You're definitely a problem solver. You definitely go in there and you're like, all right, I'm a fixer. I could do this. Yeah. Absolutely. And the tenacity, which I think, you know, the tenacity and grit has to come with that because you can have a vision, but not have the drive and the grit to keep it going through. And it's something about when you think about the Bombix moth. I'd love to speak about that if you could.

SPEAKER_01:

That whole origin story was leading up to the fact that in choosing a name for this place, Bombix refers to Bombix mori, which is the silk moth that was imported to this area in the 18th by a group of radical abolitionists who were really looking to create a different solution for sourcing fabric. so that they weren't relying on southern slave-grown cotton. These folks also started a sugar beet farming operation, you know, again, rejecting slave-grown sugar. So that fusion of like art and ecology and economy was really interesting to me. To import silk moths meant you also had to import mulberry trees because that's all those little critters will eat. And when you walk around the valley, you see them everywhere, right? Every third yard has a mulberry sapling in it. And those plants are here Because of this desire for social change and the social change, like the mechanism for that was about introducing a new fiber. So I just love that, like the landscape change, because we're trying to implement new social way of being in the world. Well,

SPEAKER_02:

it's interesting because you work with artists, faith leaders, housing advocates, and youth educators. What have these cross-sector collaborations taught you about what communities truly need from their cultural institutions right now, like Bombix?

SPEAKER_01:

The big thing is a sense of belonging. I think we certainly needed that before the pandemic, but after we all spent far too long in isolation, we have needed to re learned the fundamental tools of interacting with people who are different from us or just interacting. I'll put a period there. Yes. Well, I mean, I think about young people whose early educational experiences were online and how they're needing to catch up on that social development that would have happened had they been in school, but also for adults. I think in a lot of professional arenas, like work has become very screen oriented

SPEAKER_00:

and

SPEAKER_01:

And that was, again, reinforced in the pandemic. As we've emerged, people still work remotely or hybrid a lot, which is really good, actually, I think, for many families and individuals. And yet, there is something about being in person in your workplace where you have to interact with the people around you and negotiate conflict or difference. I mean, not just negative things. There's also accomplishment and joy to celebrate. But Mm-hmm. Whatever. It's really easy to choose your subgroup and stay with people who are like-minded. And again, the thing that's really interesting about spaces of worship, there can be a spectrum of belief, there can be a spectrum of economic diversity, there can be a spectrum of life experience. And so that's, in this project, what feels really different about bringing arts into a space where we are also setting up the conditions for everybody to be together. whether that's the Sunday potlucks or any of the different things that are happening, to try to re-knit the fiber of the community and maybe give us some tools for handling that friction. It's not bad or wrong for people to be different, right? And when we meet someone for the first time, how do we... How do we navigate a conversation where we are moving toward like shared experience or passion or what have you instead of navigating toward difference, which is really easy to do online. And you're still

SPEAKER_02:

honoring the initial purpose of what you have called a vessel. Bombix is just not a venue, but a vessel. And so as a place of gathering and community and speaking like this was a this was a stump. for some, a place to express ideas and to inspire others to act. towards certain injustices, perhaps, or certain concepts that may be challenging to some. When you program for Bombex and you curate events that perhaps challenge social norms or hold spiritual weight, how do you discern the difference between a good idea and a necessary

SPEAKER_01:

one? I might frame the distinction a little bit different. I think good ideas and necessary, they might be rather closely aligned. One example is when we show films, we always have a talkback afterwards. We screened Julia Mintz's documentary Four Winters a little over a year ago, which it was really important afterwards to have a conversation about the different dimensions of the Holocaust and talk about some of the really challenging things that were expressed in that film. And Like create a space for process, because I think it's not enough to raise really challenging material and then kick people out. When we screened Kama Ennis's film, there was actually a fascinating conversation. Her piece was around how about 2% of doctors in this country are Black women. and what that means in terms of the quality of care that people of color are receiving. And in particular, focusing on Black maternal health. And if you don't have a practitioner who looks like you and who has had your life experiences, you're just at this tremendous level of risk. So be able to share that in this community was really important, particularly as healthcare is one of the top three industries here. And then have a really meaty community dialogue, like not everyone sort of virtue signaling and saying what they feel they should, but sharing experiences and sharing that maybe that's not something that they were aware of and how that has reframed their understanding. I find

SPEAKER_02:

as I look through the programming and I've experienced the programming myself at Bombex on how you bring so many different perspectives, either through music, through spoken word, through film, through visual, through dance performance, through through working with children, through working with the community. There's so many different perspectives that you open up in this space, which in itself is like a gateway or portal for transformation because it allows people to experience it in what you would consider a safe space. You're being held in this space in a way where there's no worry. You know, all is well. We are here to support you and to hear you. And to see you. And I think very few places do that nowadays because it's usually like you were saying, exclusionary. We're like, well, do you have this criteria? Okay, welcome in. Do you have this criteria? Okay, we'll welcome you in. Bombex has now become this open space where all is welcome. And it's such a beautiful community asset. I feel like all communities should have a Bombex in the center of their village. Like I really do. It's the heart of the village, right? Bombex is a place of conversation. So if you think about honoring the past while holding open space for what's next, what kind of legacy are you consciously trying to shape both as a leader of this organization and as a human being in this moment in history?

SPEAKER_01:

It's really making sure that the container endures, that some days it is heartbreaking that the container You know, the folks who built this structure were abolitionists. They were working for racial justice as they understood it in the 1860s, right? And the congregation was radical in its moment because women were full voting members. It also took nine Christian denominations to come together to form the congregation to get this project to happen. You know, 160 years ago, there was a group of people who were concerned with racial equity, gender equity, and religious tolerance. And we are still banging away at that. We're not done. And we also understand that very differently today than 160 years ago, right? Those issues are still real and potent and they show up differently in contemporary society. So it is my hope that 160 years from today, we will have a fuller and more nuanced understanding and that hopefully we will have moved toward equity. But I suspect that like as human beings, if not those issues, we'll be chewing on something like the project of human evolution and understanding. Like it's not done. I don't think there's an end point.

SPEAKER_02:

No, we're constantly evolving. And that's kind of the beauty, right? In that evolution, we learn and grow. I mean, that's really why I feel like we're here to do that.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. And we get comfortable with non-closure. We are going to do this work in our brief lifetimes. And then after us, some folks will come along and they will continue those things forward. And can we be okay with the fact that we have a few decades to do something meaningful and that we're not going to finish? Like we're going to do as much as we can and then we're going to hand it off and then the next generation takes it after us. So I feel like my stewardship of the space is like to create the container, the physical container, but also like the community container for that. Like some of it is about, you know, setting the tone and social norms for how we have challenging conversations here. inviting you know a wide array of artists and thinkers and filmmakers and dancers and speakers and everybody to be here and just like uplift the multiplicity of human experience like it's not binary there's no like right or wrong and can we just hold it all and appreciate it in its kaleidoscopic beauty or kaleidoscopic ugliness that's in there too like That's the work. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02:

And you're doing it in this way that has touched so many and that offers so many opportunities to consider these ways. Cassandra Holden, thank you for the depth, the heart, the clarity you brought to this conversation. The way you lead with intuition, integrity, and really deep listening is a powerful reminder that cultural work is soul work. Thank you. Thank you. do incredible things.

SPEAKER_01:

It's my honor to do this work. It's my honor to be in conversation with you. I also want to call out that it was an absolute delight to work with you bringing your first mobile project into the Wayfinders headquarters in Springfield. That was

SPEAKER_02:

incredible. I still think about that project. It was a beautiful process the entire time and the fact that it still moves on is

SPEAKER_01:

And the kismet of like, you picked a color palette, and lo and behold, like, that's the thing that was in the highway overpass of the building next door. And like, there's something about art that's just magic. Like, yes, when we're in that intuitive space, we pull in all these things without being aware in our conscious or left brain planning mind. And that's part of what makes things so deeply moving, right? We're just artists and the work that is created. It's just so in it. It's all knit together without being able to articulate like, I chose this because. It just

SPEAKER_00:

comes into being.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, this episode is a beautiful reminder that when we lead with heart and trust our inner hum, we don't make good choices. We make meaningful change. Thanks so much for tuning in today. I'm so glad you spent this time with me. If something in this episode resonated, feel free to share it or pass it along to someone who might need that little spark. I'd also love to hear what came up for you. Send me a message or drop a comment on Instagram at tohumishuman. You can also find more episodes and updates at sonorouslight.com or on your favorite podcast platform. Until next time, keep humming.