Born and raised in the San Gabriel Valley where citrus groves flourished then vanished. Tract houses and shopping malls grew over farms and fields. After graduation from the University of California, I felt I needed a more practical education. I got a job in Los Angeles County working with abused and abandoned children, followed by four years in the wilds of California. I returned to graduate school to earn a PhD in animal behavior at the University of Oregon.Moving to Cambridge University in England for research on primates.  I met like-minded people. The most important was David Bygott, finishing his PhD on chimpanzees. We married and went to Africa to find out how lion societies and ecosystems work. We wrote papers, lectured throughout USA, and had our book Lions Share published. Returning to Africa to establish a conservation education program and teach, we moved on to settle in a remote corner of Tanzania. There we lived and learned with native cultures which we have written about in a pair of books: Spirited Oasis and Beyond the Oasis. We returned to the USA at the mileniumwhere to live in an intentional community. I am still learning more about the ways of the world.