Inspired by Indigenous Wisdom & Right Relationship
Barbara Savage
Founder & Executive Director
In the mid 1990's, when I was at a crossroads in my life, I traveled to Nepal to source stones for a jewelry collection I was designing to honor Indigenous peoples. While waiting for Tibetan nomads to arrive in Kathmandu from Tibet, I explored a national park. Upon arrival, I was encouraged to go on an elephant ride in the tropical jungle of Chitwan in Southern Nepal. The Indigenous Tharu man, who led the elephant (by sitting on his neck and using his feet to direct the animal), enthusiastically shared his knowledge of the plants and animals with me while we chased rhinos in the bush and crossed a flowing river. He awakened me to the beauty of his culture, his ancestral land, and the suffering of his people. The Tharu stories opened my consciousness to realize that Indigenous people and ancient traditions hold important knowledge for all of humanity about how to live in harmony with nature and each other.
As my heart opened, I was inspired to help his community preserve their threatened culture. I founded the Tribal Trust Foundation as a way for me to give back to Indigenous peoples in gratitude for opening my consciousness to a new awareness, appreciation, and healing. Gradually, as I began to understand how I could make a difference in the world, I established the Tribal Trust Foundation as a nonprofit organization with a mission to support the preservation of indigenous cultures and wisdom through documentation, grantmaking, and education, to promote living in harmony with nature and each other. Through generous support from our donors and private foundations, we provide selected grants to indigenous cultures worldwide and continue to make a significant impact.
Since 1996, the Tribal Trust Foundation (TTF) has been identifying sustainable grass roots cultural preservation projects to support Indigenous people around the world. We partner with local organizations whose experience and existing relationships with specific tribes can sustain joint initiatives over the long-term to help preserve the living arts and traditional wisdom of Indigenous peoples. The focus is on capacity building and empowerment processes wherein communities are able to initiate the holistic change they wish to see manifested.
SAVAGE
An accidental philanthropist’s epic journey from living a life of wealth and ease to traveling the globe and befriending ancient hunter-gatherer tribes in the most remote areas of the world will motivate readers to remember who they are and why they are here. In Savage, Barbara Savage intimately shares her fascinating path over the course of twenty-five years. Her book will inspire readers to reflect on their own lives and the choices they can make in order to achieve happiness, peace, and purpose. Sacred knowledge from ancient indigenous wisdom keepers enriches the deeply personal stories shared by the author.
Barbara Savage set out on a courageous mid-life journey to teach us how to listen to the wisdom of our ancestors in order to heal the world and ourselves. Savage is the transformational memoir of a woman who, after a devastating divorce chose to accept her destiny and become a philanthropist. Part Indiana Jones, part The Celestine Prophecy, this riveting book recounts the great dangers Barbara Savage’s explorations often exposed her to as she literally follows—or obeys—her dreams and spiritual callings to transform herself and bring change to the world.
As Barbara retrieves her past-life memory and receives the profound spiritual callings from indigenous people living in the most remote areas of the world, her experiences challenge us to consider other dimensions of reality. She offers an inspiring example of the courage to say “yes” to our spiritual gifts, which include the power to read signs from our spirit guides, the importance of paying attention to our dreams, and the faith to act on them in order to live our life’s purpose. Savage empowers us to remember our connection to Mother Earth and the spirit world.
Her book details the extraordinary spiritual callings that led her to seek out, in a series of amazing journeys. But even more crucial, she writes of the struggle for the survival of indigenous peoples around the world and asks: What will we do if the world’s indigenous wisdom keepers, the people who hold powerful teachings for our survival and happiness are displaced, disenfranchised, and killed?
Savage describes a life of magical adventure, but one not without tests and challenges. It offers vital insight into the challenges of indigenous people, who both hold the wisdom the world needs as they face the extinction of their cultures and the loss of this wisdom—while also offering a message of promise for our times. This is her story.
IMAGES FROM SAVAGE
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
BARBARA SAVAGE
It took a dramatic personal crisis for me to begin to surrender to my destiny. It was a death of sorts. The breaking point. It was the moment when I chose to give up the only life I had known to step into my purpose. And, in retrospect, it was an awakening for which I will be forever grateful. I learned that I needed to make my own way through the darkness, without companions or mentors. I needed to be a “light unto myself.” I share my personal journey as a testimony for trusting life and opening to life’s magic, mystery and abundance. My guides and teachers are the indigenous peoples I have met on my journey through the work of the Tribal Trust Foundation. May this book inspire you to take the first step in discovering your indigenous spirit within and to consider supporting the preservation of indigneous culture and wisdom in support of nature and global healing.
Over the past 25 years, I have walked a path guided by incredible spiritual callings to become a messenger between worlds: Western and Indigenous; material and spiritual; privileged and excluded. Ultimately, my story is one of following my heart and intuition to find a renewed sense of belonging and purpose within some of the most endangered and disenfranchised tribes in the world. Medicine men and women have come to me in the dreamtime and in meditation. They called me to help them. I responded to the call, and my life has been a remarkable one.
My great hope is that, in my story, you will see the promise of something transformational, something honest, and most importantly, something that offers the gifts of healing, hope and unity, irrespective of class, race or culture. My memoir is an invitation to support the preservation of indigenous culture so we can learn from our ancestors about how to live in harmony with nature and each other.
My memoir is interwoven with a documentary in production called "The Future Ones." You can watch the sizzle reel here: https://vimeo.com/312342351 Password: Indigenous