I was born a Ayisyen (i.e., Haitian) in Belgium. I acquired my parents' nationality, and, in many ways, I was raised as a Haitian child, too, partly in Belgium and France, partly in Senegal, moving "back" to Haiti as a young adult.

Later on, as an adult living in Ayiti, it felt natural and easy for me to dive deep into the world of Vodou ceremonies, close encounters and intimate communications with spirits, and to embrace the underlying Shamanic mindset that honors the great mystery through which everything that exists on the visible and invisible dimensions is interconnected.

Our habitual dependence on, and fixation about money in American life-practices and society is increasing in strength. People of color are drinking the poisoned well water to their own, and our collective spiritual detriment.

When people of color tell our own stories, each story bestows this common remembrance: The driven aims and ventures encouraged by and for the benefit of those who have held power and who work at funding “progress” at the expense of all else in mind, will continue to fail at an unprecedented rate of acceleration. The fallen privileged will turn to us and ask for wisdom and guidance that we will have been positioned over many centuries of struggle to offer. And I think that, my dear family, is poetic equity, stability, growth, and justice, indeed. Just claiming it so feels healthy to me, just as my sharing with you holds out an opportunity for transformative healing for all of us, haves and have nots alike.

When I look back on my memories on the city of Santiago, Chile in the 1960’s, every person in our little town really shared the same values because they reflected the cultural customs of our town.  I call the values that we shared  there the “colectivo,” (i.e., commonly held interests) mostly because the ways we were taught to act, the things we were taught to believe, and connections that endured in our community were a part of the fabric that wove us together and enhanced our lives, even when we were not aware that this way of our being drawn together was happening.