A New Space Bridge to Russia
For the Future Generations of our Human Family
The 99 Days of Peace Through Unity Ceremony, Choose Peace. Live Peace. End War. offers a timely and sacred opportunity to lift up before the world a positive, healing, and unifying alternative to the adversarial spirit that has caused so much suffering among the human family.
At the heart of this iniative is the creation of Seven Online-Talking Circles for Peace Through Unity, bringing together peace-loving members of the Human Family from Russia, Indigenous Peoples, and other relatives from Canada and the United States.
These online circles will not be political debates. They will not be partisan discussions. There will be no space for blaming, shaming, attacking, or arguing about the negative.
The online circles will be sacred, respectful, and carefully guided spaces designed to foster feelings of safety and trust, where people can speak from the heart about their dreams, prayers, hopes, and visions for a world of peace, love, compassion, justice, and unity.
The purpose is simple and powerful: to allow people who have been separated by fear, propaganda, conflict, and misunderstanding to see one another again as human beings, as relatives, as mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, elders and youth, all longing for the same peace and a better future for the children of the world.
This proposal also draws directly on the historic work of Rick Lukens, who was centrally involved in one of the most visionary communications breakthroughs of the Cold War era: the U.S.–Soviet Spacebridge, which symbolized hope and connection across divides.
This Spacebridge was not a space mission. It was a live, two-way satellite television bridge between people in the United States and people in the former Soviet Union. At a time when fear, suspicion, political hostility, and the threat of war were shaping global consciousness, this initiative opened a human channel across the Iron Curtain.
Beginning September 5, 1982, through music, culture, media, and direct human communication, people were able to see one another, hear one another, and begin to recognize one another beyond the walls of ideology and national conflict.
Rick Lukens helped show the world that communication itself can become an instrument of peace. He helped demonstrate that live events and new communication technologies can create a shared human moment in which barriers begin to fall, and understanding begins to grow.
That same gift is now being called forward again-During the Compassion Games 99 Days of Peace Through Unity Ceremony, we propose a new kind of Peace Spacebridge. This time, the bridge will not depend only on satellite television. It can now be supported by online platforms, AI-driven translation, live facilitation, and the Indigenous circle process.
A relative may speak in Russian and be understood in English. A relative may speak in English and be understood in Russian. In this way, technology becomes not a weapon of division, but a living instrument of understanding.
This new Peace Spacebridge is not being created to debate governments, ideologies, wars, or political blame. It is being created to ask a deeper and more sacred question:
What do we want for our children and grandchildren?
Purpose of the Dialogue
The purpose of the Seven Online Four Talking Circles is to demonstrate that, beneath the noise of conflict, propaganda, fear, and division, the hearts of ordinary people carry the same dream of peace and understanding.
We want our children to be safe. We want them to be loved. We want them to have clean water, nourishing food, healthy families, meaningful work, spiritual freedom, cultural dignity, friendship across peoples, and a future without war.
The dialogue will help people from Russia, Indigenous Peoples in Canada and the United States, and other members of the Human Family recognize that we are not enemies. We are human beings. We are relatives. We are members of one Human Family living together on Mother Earth.
This initiative will offer a positive alternative to conflict. Rather than fighting against darkness, we will be lighting a fire of understanding. Rather than arguing over who is wrong, we will be asking what kind of world we are praying for, what kind of future we want to build, and how we can choose peace, live peace, and help end war in the hearts of humanity.
Why Talking Circles?
The Talking Circle is an ancient Indigenous process rooted in respect, listening, equality, patience, and truth spoken from the heart, serving as a sacred space for healing and genuine connection, free from argument or debate.
Beginning in 1975, this Indigenous healing circle process was carried beyond Indigenous communities and shared more widely with the world by Four World’s as a practical and spiritual method for healing, learning, consultation, and reconciliation.
Since that time, Talking Circles and Healing Circles have been used in many places throughout the world to help people get to know one another, hear one another, restore trust, resolve conflict, and build relationships across differences.
This is why the Talking Circle is especially appropriate for this Peace Spacebridge. The challenges facing humanity will not be solved by more hostility, more accusations, or more adversarial debate.
The world now needs spaces where people can remember how to listen, how to speak truthfully without attacking, how to honor difference without creating separation, and how to recognize one another as relatives.
Each circle will be guided by a simple, heart-centered question and held in accordance with clear sacred protocols.
The Seven Online Talking Circles for Peace Through Unity
The Seven Online Talking Circles for Peace Through Unity will provide a sacred, respectful, and nonpartisan pathway for members of the Human Family from Russia, Indigenous Peoples, Canada, the United States, and other relatives to meet one another heart to heart. These circles will not be political debates. There will be no room for blame, accusations, disrespect, or arguments. They will be carefully guided spaces where people can speak from the heart, listen with respect, and remember that we are one Human Family living together on Mother Earth.
Circle One: What Is Our Dream for Peace?
Participants will be invited to speak from the heart about their deepest dream for peace. What does peace mean in their own life, family, community, culture, and nation? What does peace mean for the children of the world? This first circle will help establish the positive vision we are gathering around, not by focusing on fear, conflict, blame, or division, but by naming the world we are praying for and willing to help bring into being.
Circle Two: What Do We Want for Our Children?
Participants will be invited to reflect on the kind of world they want the next generations to inherit. This circle will focus on children, grandchildren, elders, families, safety, dignity, education, cultural respect, spiritual life, clean water, healthy communities, and freedom from fear and war. This question goes beyond politics and speaks to the heart of every person, because the love of children is one of the deepest bridges among all members of the Human Family.
Circle Three: How Can We Recognize One Another as One Human Family?
Participants will be invited to share stories, memories, cultural teachings, songs, prayers, or reflections that help reveal our shared humanity. This circle will help dissolve false images of “enemy” and replace them with relationship, respect, and human recognition. The purpose is to help people see one another not as distant nations or political labels, but as mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, elders and youth, all carrying hopes, griefs, responsibilities, and dreams.
Circle Four: What Wisdom Do Our Cultures, Faiths, and Traditions Offer for Peace?
Participants will be invited to share the wisdom of their cultures, spiritual traditions, moral teachings, ceremonies, stories, and lived experiences. This circle will honor the truth that every person has received teachings about respect, compassion, humility, justice, hospitality, forgiveness, courage, and responsibility. It will help participants understand that peace is not owned by one nation, religion, culture, or ideology. Peace is a sacred responsibility placed in the heart of the whole Human Family.
Circle Five: How Do We Heal Fear, Mistrust, and the False Images of One Another?
Participants will be invited to reflect on how fear, propaganda, historical wounds, stereotypes, and misunderstanding have separated people from one another. This circle will not be used to blame or accuse. Instead, it will ask how we can heal the images we carry of one another and begin to replace suspicion with listening, hostility with respect, and separation with human relationships. This circle will help participants speak honestly, but gently, about what must be healed so that peace can grow.
Circle Six: How Can Communication and Technology Become Instruments of Peace?
Participants will be invited to explore how online platforms, translation tools, artificial intelligence, media, music, storytelling, and live dialogue can serve understanding rather than division.
This circle will directly honor the spirit of Rick Lukens’ historic U.S.–Soviet Spacebridge and carry that work into the present moment. Just as the original Spacebridge helped open a human channel across the divisions of the Cold War, this new Peace Spacebridge can use today’s technologies to help people see, hear, and understand one another beyond borders, languages, fear, and conflict.
Circle Seven: How Do We Choose Peace, Live Peace, and Help End War?
Participants will be invited to identify simple, practical, spiritual, relational, and community-based ways to carry peace forward.
This final circle will focus on commitments, next steps, continued communication, and the building of a living Peace Through Unity network. It will not be about making political declarations or adversarial demands.
It will be about asking how each person, family, community, organization, and nation can become a living instrument of peace.
Together, these seven circles create a natural path of healing and unity. First, we name our dream for peace. Then we center the children. Then we recognize one another as one Human Family. Then we listen to the wisdom of our cultures and traditions. Then we heal the fear and false images that divide us.
Then we use communication and technology as instruments of peace. Finally, we commit ourselves to choosing peace, living peace, and helping end war in the hearts of humanity.
These Seven Online Talking Circles for Peace Through Unity will serve as a living offering during the Compassion Games and the 99 Days of Peace Through Unity Ceremony — Choose Peace. Live Peace. End War.
They will demonstrate to the world that the peoples of Russia, Indigenous Peoples, Canada, the United States, and the wider Human Family are not enemies.
We are relatives. We are human beings. We are all longing for a world where love, compassion, respect, justice, and peace guide our relationships.
Suggested Guiding Questions
The following questions can guide the circles:
What is your dream for peace?
What do you hope for the children of our world?
What do you want people in other countries to understand about your heart, your family, and your hopes?
What does it mean to recognize one another as members of one Human Family?
How can we choose peace in our homes, communities, businesses, nations, and relationships?
What kind of world are we praying for?
What can we do together that would help end war in the hearts of humanity?
Nonpartisan and Sacred Protocols
These Talking Circles will be conducted under a clear, nonpartisan, respectful, and spiritually grounded process.
There will be no disrespect allowed toward any person, nation, culture, people, religion, or community.
No one will be permitted to use the circle for political attacks, accusations, hostile debate, propaganda, or adversarial argument.
Each participant will be invited to speak from the heart, listen with respect, and share their own hopes for peace without diminishing anyone else.
The principles that will guide the Talking Circle:
Only one person speaks at a time.
Everyone else listens in a patient, respectful, and non-judgmental way.
Participants speak directly to the guiding question, not against another participant.
Negative comments about another person’s sharing are avoided.
Silence is honored, and no one is pressured to speak.
No one is shamed for passing.
Everyone is invited, but no one is forced.
No comments that put down another person, community, nation, culture, religion, or oneself are permitted.
Each person is encouraged to speak positively from the heart.
Participants may share through personal stories, prayer, reflection, cultural teachings, metaphors, songs, or simple words of hope.
The facilitator’s role is to protect the sacred space, hold the process with humility, and ensure that the circle remains respectful, safe, and focused on peace.
Format for Each Circle
Each online circle may follow a simple format:
The circle opens with prayer, a moment of silence, or a shared intention for peace.
Participants are welcomed with respect as relatives and members of one Human Family.
The Talking Circle guidelines are clearly shared.
The guiding question is introduced.
Each person is invited to speak briefly from the heart.
AI-supported translation allows Russian and English speakers to understand one another.
The facilitator ensures that the process remains respectful, nonpartisan, and heart-centered.
The circle closes with gratitude, prayer, silence, or a shared commitment to choose peace, live peace, and help end war.
Talking Circle Leadership and Indigenous Facilitation
The Seven Online Talking Circles for Peace Through Unity will be guided by trained and certified Indigenous Talking Circle leaders with deep experience working across cultures, communities, faith traditions, generations, and nations.
These facilitators will not come into the circle as political actors, debaters, or representatives of any adversarial position. They will come as trained circle keepers, peace builders, cultural bridge-builders, and servants of the sacred process.
Indigenous Peoples are uniquely prepared to help hold this kind of dialogue. We do not come from a history of colonizing other peoples of the world. We do not come carrying a mandate to dominate, conquer, convert, or control.
We come from people who have endured colonization, displacement, broken treaties, forced assimilation, cultural suppression, and great suffering.
Because of this, we can feel others’ wounds deeply. We understand what it means for families, languages, lands, cultures, and sacred ways of life to be threatened by forces larger than themselves.
This is why Indigenous Peoples are especially suited to help facilitate peace dialogues among peoples who have been separated by fear, conflict, propaganda, and mistrust. We are not gathering to take sides against anyone.
We are not gathering to blame one nation or defend another. We are gathering because our prophecies, ceremonies, and spiritual instructions call us to help restore balance, heal relationships, protect the children, and bring peace among the members of the Human Family.
For many Indigenous Peoples, peace is not merely the absence of war. Peace is a right relationship. Peace is respect for the sacredness of life. Peace is a balance between people, nations, cultures, generations, and Mother Earth. Peace is the restoration of kinship.
This understanding gives Indigenous circle leaders a special responsibility and a special capacity to help create safe spaces where people can speak honestly without attacking, listen deeply without judgment, and remember that we are relatives before we are opponents.
Since 1975, Indigenous Talking Circle processes have been formally shared, taught, adapted, and carried into wider human development, education, healing, justice, and community-building work by Four Worlds and others.
Over these decades, thousands upon thousands of Talking Circle leaders, facilitators, trainers, and community workers have been prepared to carry this process into the world.
These leaders have helped people learn to listen, speak from the heart, heal conflict, build trust, and restore human dignity through the circle.
This trained circle leadership is one of the greatest strengths of this proposal. The Peace Spacebridge will not be an unstructured online conversation. It will be held within a proven Indigenous process refined over decades of experience.
The facilitators will know how to protect the sacred space, invite each voice, prevent domination by any one participant, stop disrespect when necessary, honor silence, and guide the circle back to its purpose whenever needed.
Indigenous Talking Circle leaders are ready to serve this moment. We are ready because our people have carried the teachings of respect, patience, courage, humility, compassion, and spiritual responsibility through generations of hardship.
We are ready because we know that healing begins when people can see one another as human beings again. We are ready because the world needs a process that is not based on winning an argument, but on restoring relationships.
At this time in human history, Indigenous Peoples can help offer the world a different way. Not a way of domination. Not a way of blame. Not a way of partisan division. A way of listening. A way of healing. A way of remembering. A way of choosing peace, living peace, and helping end war in the hearts of humanity.
With trained Indigenous Talking Circle leadership, the Seven Online Talking Circles for Peace Through Unity can become a living demonstration that peace is possible when people are guided by respect, sacred protocol, and recognition of our oneness as one Human Family.
Participants
Participants may include peace-loving members of our Human Family from Russia, Indigenous Peoples, business people, cultural representatives, elders, youth, community leaders, spiritual representatives, artists, educators, and others from Canada, the United States, and beyond.
The inclusion of businesspeople is important because the world also needs people in the economic and professional sectors to think deeply about humanity’s future, children’s well-being, and the practical responsibilities of peace. Peace is not only a spiritual ideal. It must become a living principle in education, technology, culture, commerce, governance, and daily human relationships.
Communications and Access
This dialogue can be hosted online from Canada, with support for participants who may face communication barriers, restrictions, or difficulties. There are communication platforms to use when others are closed due to adversarial, propaganda-based politics.
With careful preparation, trusted relationships, and appropriate technology, the circles can become a bridge to re-bridge many other broken bridges.
AI-assisted translation offers a new possibility. It allows people to speak in their own language, from their own heart, while still being understood by those who speak another language. In this way, technology can serve the sacred purpose of unity.
**Expected Outcomes: **
The Seven Four Worlds Online Talking Circles will help demonstrate to the world that the peoples of Russia, Indigenous Peoples, Canada, the United States, and the wider Human Family are not destined to be enemies.
A visible example of nonpartisan, respectful, heart-centered peace dialogue.
A renewed form of the historic Spacebridge, updated for this time through online platforms and AI translation.
A living demonstration that ordinary people across nations share similar dreams for their children.
A practical model for future Peace Through Unity dialogues.
Strengthened relationships among peace-loving people across cultures and countries.
A contribution to the global call to Choose Peace. Live Peace. End War.
Conclusion
This proposal is a sacred, humble, loving act of peace.
It honors the historic work of Rick Lukens and the original U.S.–Soviet Spacebridge, while carrying that same spirit into the present moment. It draws upon Indigenous Talking Circle traditions, which have been shared more widely with the world since 1975, as a proven pathway for healing, listening, respect, and relationship.
At this critical time in human history, the world does not need more division. The world needs living examples of another way.
Through these Seven Online Four Worlds Talking Circles for Peace Through Unity, we can help people remember that we are one Human Family.
We can help demonstrate that our dreams for our children are the same. We can help light a fire of understanding where fear has created separation.
Together, during the Compassion Games and the 99 Days of Peace Through Unity Ceremony, we can help open a New Peace Spacebridge for the Children of the Human Family.
Choose Peace. Live Peace. End War.
With Warm Love and Greetings,
Hereditary Chief Phil Lane Jr.
Chickasaw and Ihanktonwan Nations
Chairperson Compassion Games
Four Worlds International Institute
Continental Indigenous Council
Council Member-Union of the Condor, Hummingbird, Quetzal, and Eagle
Elder’s Council-American Indian Science and Engineering Society
