Jennifer Machiorlatti

L. Tell us something about your background, your career and educational history.

J. My background is in broadcasting and I went to school for that. I worked in the Chicago broadcasting markets for 6 or 7 years. I found that to be crazy and stifling and just too much. So I left public relations. I had not studied the great literature of the world or history and I missed learning, so there was a point in 1987 where I had two choices - either I was going to pack a van and travel around the United States and write or go back to school and get my masters. I went back to school and studied literature and history and from there I realized I could teach for a living. Currently I am a professor of communication. I worked all over southeast Michigan, and I studied in London, England. I teach communication, film and media. Image making is part of what I do. I do my own creative work and research work. I do a lot of film reviews; and I do articles on all kinds of filmmakers; and I'm working on some initial research work for a book on aboriginal women filmmakers. I have also created a film series on women and wisdom focused on women's experiences of their life cycles and work.

L. It's my understanding that you recently completed your Ph.D.

J. I completed that 2 and half years ago. It was a 6 -year process. It was long while I was in it, but it was challenging and great; and one reason I was in it was because I love school. The reason I love school is because I get to ask why. I was raised catholic and went to both catholic academy and public schools and many of those places did not allow me to keep asking why.

L. So part of what has compelled or motivated you is your curiosity about other cultures, other people and countries which very much mirrors what you just recently did.

J. Definitely. I am very much interested in what happens here in the world. Before I toured in the fall, I was very curious exploring the why of the universe. Why do we do this or that, and is there a God. But then I realized by teaching in cultural communications how vastly different are different parts of the world. I was very tired of my job at U of M Flint. I said to myself, ten years ago I wanted to travel, and instead I went back to school. I have a Ph.D. I've got to be able to get money from somewhere. So I got on the web, and found this program called semester at sea, and I said, "This is for me." A hundred days at sea on a big ship with about 5 to 6 hundred graduate student, and you visit 6 countries as you go around the globe for one semester. I got the job; and I took it; and it was wonderful. I learned a lot about being in a community with a lot of young people, who were seeing very intense things and learning a lot at a very young age, and wondering who they could turn to talk about it. I was the youngest professor and many professors had brought their families and were tied up with spouses and children. I could be someone to listen to them and what they were going through. The community aspect of that voyage was just as interesting and profound as visiting the other countries.

L. How has your affiliation and experience with EarthWalk influenced what you did on that cruise?

J. When I first started doing work with the Changing Women Sisterhood Circle I was very afraid to use what I was learning and practicing and processing in my life. I had the illusion that they were separate and what I now know is that they are not. I am who I am in all realms of my life and it is just up to me to keep living that. One of the things that I read in Jamie Samm's "The Thirteen Clan Mothers" was about the Clan Mother "Becomes Her Vision" who is able to walk, do and be her beliefs. So what I did is finally take the opportunity I had on the ship to do whatever I wanted, from all my teachings, sharing and knowing and I didn't have to worry about getting reviewed or tenure. It was an experiment to use as much as I could from my spiritual and metaphysical studies and the process work I do with the Changing Women's Circle and bring it into the classroom. It was more successful than I can tell you. It worked better than how I normally conducted my classroom. We talked about the medicine wheel, and the web of life, what it's like to be with other people and spirituality. We talked about your shadow and your light side, and what mirroring was all about. We had really heart to heart communication in and out of the classroom. I will conduct my classrooms from now on using all of that. I thought it was separate and different and it wasn't. What it did was to take a lot of the dryer theoretical material in communications studies and make it real for people. In EarthWalk what it really comes down to is, we learn how to be with each other. We learn how to listen, communicate, and support each other through our walk on the earth.

L. What originally led you to become interested in EarthWalk?

J. I had a serious illness, 1991 to 1993 and was referred by Ellen Miller who said that I needed to come and do the Changing Women Initiation; and this got me involved with the larger community EarthWalk.

L. Circumstances led you in that direction?

J. Yes, they weren't nice circumstances. Illness has a certain consciousness to it, and certain lesson to it, so I used those nine months to figure out why I got ill and what my body was trying to tell me.

L. So what you're saying is that there is a teaching in everything, even things that have a negative feeling connected to them?

J. Yes, negative feeling probably have the most profound teaching to them. That which appears to hurt us the most, or we are the most anxious or nervous about, contains huge teaching for us. When we are having a good time, of course that's nice, but those are the interludes between the bigger more meaningful parts of life. These are the places we move more towards our wholeness

L. So what kind of teachings did you get out of your travels around the world?

J. There was a lot of things that I learned, but it wasn't all nice. People say, "Oh that must of been great and you must of had a great time", but I usually respond with, "Well, I had a time." I walked on the Great Wall of China; I went to India; I went to the most fabulous places; and I still feel like it was a dream. In each place I saw and each land I walked on, I picked up lessons along the way about who I have been throughout time. But there were some very sad things I had to deal with. One of the saddest was realizing how many American's have poverty in them. If you were to travel like this, you would realize that we do not have poverty at all when it comes to money. One dollar can get you a room for 2 nights and 6 meals in some of these countries. When I looked into the eyes of some of the people, there was no poverty in their spirit. Especially the children of India. They were poor and maimed and it was very hard to be with them on a physical level, but when I looked at them it was as if they said "Auntie everything is fine". So I became very disturbed at the waste American's participate in. I watched my students wasting food, littering, buying, buying, and buying. I watched money being thrown around in an unconscious way, and people running around from city to city, just to say they had been there. When I came home we had just started bombing Iraq, the president was being tried to impeach him, and it was Christmas with all the ads to buy. I was appalled. As a culture, we can't seem to satisfy ourselves with stuff, without buying more, bigger, and better. It was very sad. I saw the image of the ugly American, who is the person who can not find riches inside themselves but keeps looking outside. That was one of the biggest lessons I learned.

L. What you found on your travels was the American tourist, both materialistic and impoverished spiritually. Does this also include their ability to connect?

J. The young people could connect with the children, but it was very momentary. They could be very moved, but once they were around their friends they would forget. I see this deep need for the young to learn more, but I don't know if they know how. I don't know if their parents knew how to teach them how to do that. There is a need to connect but the skill isn't there. I think in EarthWalk that's what we're doing. We're re-teaching people and remembering how to do that. For some reason, particularly in this culture, we distance ourselves, we stay away, protect, and have our fences in our yards. No public squares, just malls, and if you travel other places there are public squares where thousands of people gather and have their coffee, tea, etc. and we don't have those here as much. So there is a lot of healing to be done in this particular country. A lot.

L. Do you think Jennifer it is because we make judgments about how it should look. That we as Americans are fortunate and all those that don't have the same material opportunities that we do are unfortunate. We set ourselves above other as a result.

J. Yes, it is very much about judgment. What is the ethic of peace, what is it all about, does it come from within? Not projecting how to live onto others. It is very hard to do that. You go somewhere and there is one toilet in the whole village and we think we are so lucky, and why it is simply a convenience. We can say we are lucky to have (things) that makes it a presumption that we are supposed to have those kinds of things. What's wrong with going to the bathroom in the fields. We learn to say my way is the right way, everyone should be like this and want the same things. Coming from this country, everyone should have his or her jeans, Marlboro cigarettes. That may come from your own insecurity that your way is the right way because you really don't believe it yourself.

L. It may be even bigger then that. It may even encompass what we perceive, that you have to have to be "successful" to be happy. Is it possible that we believe that without these things, people can not possibly be happy?

J. That's very true. We define happiness a lot of different ways. I think people who are happy have good relationships, good family, friends, and community. I don't know what's happy for other people. For me I came home and immediately started going through my closets getting rid of things. I was appalled at how much stuff I had. I love stuff. I am very much in the paradoxes of loving things and then realizing that I don't need them to be happy or to live. So when you travel you learn that everyone walks very differently. You do yours and they do theirs and there is some place where you meet and you begin to learn from each other. The size of my laundry room is the size of someone's home in Vietnam and they didn't mind it, they were nice, welcoming, and generous. I let the history that I held about that country go.

L. Do you think that your affiliation with EarthWalk influenced your experience on this trip?

J. Absolutely, I was awake. I tried to get a feel energetically and that was the training and the teaching I got from EarthWalk community. I tried to get a feeling for what the land and the people felt like. Its ancientness. I touched and smelled the ground. I think I had more facilities to experience what I was experiencing because I was trained to do that. I also was very much into jumping right into the ship community and help out in any way I could. This was the result of my training in how to be involved in conscious community. Mentoring and teaching is something that EarthWalk has given to me so I'm trying to develop that in myself.

L. You have used two words - awake and conscious community. What do these words mean to you?

J. Being awake to me is not going through life not knowing what I'm doing, seeing the choices I have, and making those choices. Setting intentions and being dedicated. Although when I got home I was thrown into immediate chaos trying to reintegrate into this culture.

I was not as awake. Consciousness is seeing the bigger picture of why we were all together. It's no accident that we all chose to do that particular voyage at that particular time. We had an agreement to do this trip all together. That's what I mean by being awake. A heightened sense of the world - smell, touch, sight, feeling things. It is a higher level of consciousness, expanded consciousness. With the death of one of our community we had a ceremony at sea; and it was one of the most beautiful community activities I had ever been to. At that moment we were consciously involved in the same thing. This did not happen often.

L. So you see community as something you can move in and out of, as something important to have in order to be connected into it when you need to and give what you have to offer to it?

J. Yes, that's a personal way I live my life. I have communities, family, groups of friends, EarthWalk, but I don't put all of my energy into any one community. I can't do that because I have several. My role is to link different communities. Like an ambassador I carry information from one group to the other. But a home base, whether that's a physical or a spiritual home base, is very important. While I traveled I had a lot of letters from people in my community. I knew everything was grounding me back here while I was doing my work out there. I drew from my community here, in my prayers and thoughts. My work is very much about going out and doing my work in the world and then coming back to my community to replenish.

L. When you say "community" do you mean EarthWalk?

J. Yes, I would say that EarthWalk is my primary spiritual community. EarthWalk is where I feel most challenged, most honored for what I know, recognized, listened to; and I learn there, I'm aligned there most in my psychological and emotional needs.

L. Did you see yourself as an ambassador of EarthWalk?

J. I really did! I talked about EarthWalk all the time, what we do. While looking for the Internet cafes I found our web page and I said, "This is my community." I was so excited. The neatest thing was that I was clear across the planet and I found us and I started yelling, "This is me, these are my people, this is my tribe."

L. Do you see EarthWalk as being unique?

J. No, I believe there are lots of communities that are conscious around the world, but we are relatively unaware of each other. I think we are starting to at least connect energetically if not through direct talking.

L. Is there anything else you would like to share or a message you would like to offer our readers?

J. Yes, there is something I have to offer. We are so busy with our lives, but what I have learned as the way to grow and to keep touching people, is to keep getting involved, talking to other people, doing what you do, so that in every moment you remember what contributed to getting you to where you are today. There are so many people who are resistant or unwilling to get involved in community. There are so many opportunities to take action and fulfill your vision. Even if it's tiny, it's important to do something for your community. Doing something is all that community really is.

L. This reminds me of an expression that I have heard in EarthWalk and the Changing Sisterhood Circle, "JUST KEEP SHOWING UP."

J. And if you just keep showing up, you are also not left out.

Thank you so much, Jennifer, for your time, your words of wisdom, and for sharing some of your experiences and feelings. I truly see you as an ambassador of EarthWalk and I hope that continues for a very long time.