Dear Friends and Relatives
I pray that you and your loved ones are in the best of health and happiness. Thank you for joining me here and for taking an interest in what I share through Substack. I deeply appreciate your presence, encouragement, thoughtful responses, and willingness to receive and share these reflections.
Over the past forty-four years, Four Worlds International Institute has gathered a vast body of wisdom, knowledge, experience, research, and practical approaches to healing and human and community development.
This foundation came through the guidance of my beloved parents, aunts, uncles, grandmothers, tribal elders, spiritual leaders, community leaders, families, and Indigenous peoples, as well as members of our human family from many parts of the world. It has also grown through decades of direct work with communities and through the lessons, struggles, relationships, and experiences of my own journey.
At eighty-two winters, I have reached a time in my life when I feel a deep responsibility to share as much of this accumulated knowledge as I can with those here today and those who will come after us. For fifty-eight years, I have consciously done my best to walk the Red Road and to live in service to the Human Family and Mother Earth. I have learned many things along the way, including how much I still have to learn, and how much of what has been entrusted to us must now be gathered, organized, preserved, and passed forward.
In recent months, I have found that these teachings, memories, insights, and experiences are coming forward with a powerful natural flow. I do not claim to be a psychic or to possess any special powers. It simply feels as though a great spiritual river has begun to move through my life. When something comes clearly to my heart and mind, I feel called to write it down and share it. I am enjoying this process very much, even though it sometimes means that I share a great deal of material within a relatively short period of time. Thank you for understanding the spirit in which I offer these writings.
The wisdom shared here does not belong to me. Elders, relatives, communities, and many people who have accompanied me throughout my life have entrusted it to me. I pray it will be useful to others. You are welcome to read it, share it, discuss it, and apply it in ways that serve healing, unity, justice, peace, and the well-being of all life. There is no cost or obligation. We deeply appreciate voluntary contributions, as they help us continue this work. Still, no one should feel these teachings are available only to those who can pay.
I am also sharing our Four Worlds International Institute Policy Declaration on the Responsible Use of Artificial Intelligence so that everyone clearly understands how these writings are being developed. Artificial intelligence may help me organize, clarify, refine, and communicate what has already been learned and created, but it is not the source of the wisdom. The source remains the Elders, the knowledge holders, the communities, the lived experience of our work, the Sixteen Guiding Principles, the Sacred Tree, and the spiritual and moral foundations that have guided Four Worlds since 1982. Wisdom leads; the people decide; technology serves.
We now have an enormous reservoir of writings, recordings, documents, curricula, photographs, research, community-development materials, and teachings that need careful organization, digitization, preservation, and accessibility for future generations. If any of you have time, experience, or a sincere interest in helping us with this important work, I would be deeply grateful to hear from you. Much remains to gather and much to do, and I know this work will be carried forward through many willing hearts and hands.
Thank you, dear friends and relatives, for walking with me during this season of my life. Thank you for receiving these offerings with an open heart, for sharing them with others, and for helping ensure that the wisdom entrusted to us continues to serve the Human Family and Mother Earth.
With Warm Love and Greetings,
Lala, Deksi, and Brother Phil
Hereditary Chief Phil Lane Jr.
**Member of the Chickasaw and Ihanktonwan Nations, White Swan Oyate **
Chairperson
Four Worlds International Institute
Compassion Games International
Member~AISES Council of Elders
Co-Founder~United Religion Initiative (URI)
Cell-801-800-1578