I have a great privilege of knowing and collaborating with people from many different cultures all over the world. I never dreamed I'd be given such a gift, how lucky am I!
One day I was in one of our old time local stores (I like buying from local vendors.) I got into a conversation with the clerk, who I know. He’s always wondering where I’m headed next. I told him about my upcoming trip to Rwanda (yes I’ll still be hearing clients by phone, as usual.) :) He voiced his concern because of the violence, war, and news in the past of people killing and maiming others over religion. I explaining that Rwanda, years ago, went through an amazing and agonizing, yet thorough, reconciliation process. (I often comment about how the United States would immensely benefit from this process.) Rwanda is now peaceful; with a government that is a majority of women.
Next, I told my friend that I’ve also been invited to Kenya. I’m really curious to observe the people and their cultural and family systems, which I work with in my professional practice. Some of the people where I would visit, have lived on their same homestead ancestral lands for almost 800 years. This is incomprehensible for us here in the United States. As a country, we haven’t even been in existence that long. We are so young. (It is possible that some of our native peoples, who are our national heritage, can recite their ancestral ties to their land. Let’s ask for their stories, and listen.) My friend commented about what African people still have to learn as a “Third World” country.
I commented about how we, in this country, have such a misinterpretation of the world at large; that Africa is an ancient (and immense) land. These people farm and provide all services that sustain their whole community. They coexist with monkeys, lions, elephants, giraffes, etc. and take care of each other. They have all basic needs met: home, food, education, energy, health care, and a shared and intimate connection with mother earth. They are healthy. They love each other. Their needs are met. Can we, with all our toys of technology say the same?
What I said, I could tell, was a lot of information for my friend to absorb. It was counter to what he has learned. There wasn't anything he could say in response. Right there, I admired him. At least he had the ability to listen and open his mind just a little….. with grace. Maybe we, in this brand new country, can give that gift to our planet co-inhabitants in 2020.
Don't be fooled and then trapped by a superiority rhetoric. Seek out others who are different than you and come from other places. Try to lift yourself up and comprehend the bigger picture. We, all of us together, are each a puzzle piece that make a whole picture. See through the eyes of wonder. You will be richer than you can imagine.

Last week I was sitting on an airplane for a ridiculous amount of time while the vice president's airplane, that showed up next to ours, decided when it was finally going to leave. This delay set up a chain reaction, probably all over the country, because so many people would now be missing their connections. Kids started begging for water and whining.The people on my flight were finally starting to ask some questions…… “Can we have some water? No….. it's against regulations.” The parents of the children behind me didn’t question any further. We are so used to this mindless authority. I said to the person next to me, ” When will those people in our government remember they work for us?” That question ignited a dialogue of people openly voicing their discontent. Our government acts like a monarchy. It serves a few privileged ( i.e. people who are corporations) who make rules for all of us to keep us enslaved and we’ve allowed it. It was refreshing to see people getting upset about being treated like chattel. We pay our government to take care of us and intelligently use our money to support us, not the other way around. Change.
Several of my clients and friends have asked me to share the audio transcript of an interview I did on 9/11 of this year (2011) with Alan Steinfeld, founder of NewRealities. At the urging of my beautiful friend Susan Burleigh, I took part in this radio broadcast in New York City during the memorial week commemorating the 10th anniversary of 9/11. 
A while back I met a man named Achai, a tribal elder from the Altai Mountain region in Mongolia. He is emphatic in his declaration that he and his people are neither part of Mongolia nor are they part of Russia. They are their own sovereign people, a horseman tribe. He is a tulku, of an ancient shamanic tradition said to bring the seeds of civilization to the world. Historical accounts credit these people with seeding the civilizations of ancient Greece, India, Tibet, even the Americas. In my experience of him, he is fiercely passionate about what he knows, has a ready smile, and loves to dance. He told me his wife is his equal in all ways and they have children.
I had the privilege of traveling to a remote region high in the mountains of Colombia, South America. That’s the back of my head in the photo. The people of this region have no written language, yet they carry tens of thousands of years of live planetary and human wisdom passed down generation to generation. This elder is asking me (there’s a translator) what the giant rift passing through the center of the U.S. is. He said they have been sitting in concura for a long time are very concerned about the Mother (Earth) and what is developing. In their “viewing” they saw a calamity, a bleeding of unknown and giant proportions, an unimaginable disaster for us all. He drew in the dirt what it looked like. I had to honestly say to him that I did not know. He begged that I take this message back and that we all help. Today I can say with 100% certainty that what he drew on the land and described to me was the Keystone Pipeline.