Grief & Gratitude

    Grief is the price we pay for love. Queen Elizabeth II – Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow. Melody Beattie –   This morning, a dear friend posted a photo of his 5-year-old granddaughter in honor of her birthday. Five!! Already. Earlier this month, the day passed that marked a year since the death of my friend and mentor, Roy… Read More

Mentor of the Highest Order – A Precious Elder has Passed

  An hour ago, this text message from my dear friend, Charles Hudson: Roy has passed. In immediate loving memory, I am reposting this blog from October 10, 2014. Before you read this, though, I want you to know this man is one of the very few about whom no one can exaggerate upon his death. Roy Sampsel is truly a Great Tribal Leader. Daily, he touched the world and its people… Read More

A Great Indigenous Leader Honored with a Public Award

Late yesterday, the longstanding and visionary environmental organization, Ecotrust, announced this year’s awardees for the Indigenous Leadership Award.  Among the five leaders named is Roy Hunter Sampsel, my dear friend and mentor.  What well-deserved recognition.  This man is a giant of leadership! I had a nagging sense of incongruence when my first move to announce how thrilled I am with this news was to put it on facebook – but such is… Read More

Rebuilding Native Nations – A non-Native Perspective

  For the past 10 years, I’ve had the opportunity to work closely with Tribal Leadership — elected and traditional leaders of Native American Tribes in the U.S. and Canada.  This work has provided more opportunities to learn than I could  have imagined or even anticipated as a woman raised non-Indian in the U.S. The way I was raised to make sense of the world has lots of overlap with the way… Read More