It also means that all of us have ancestors of every color and creed.
Those of us whose ancestors were owned and bred like animals know that future all too well, because it is, in part, our past.
Perhaps fortunately for us, our ancestors managed to pull the rabbit out of the hat and produce increasingly premature babies so as to allow us to evolve ever-larger brains.
Frankly, I have no idea if they arrived in full conformance with legal requirements of the time, and I expect that this is true for many of us whose ancestors arrived in that era or before.
Dwelling on that ugly stuff in your past isn't good for you and your children and is especially unpleasant for those of us whose ancestors weren't here when it happened".
Like most of us, its ancestors came from elsewhere (Croatia, in its case), but now Americans are the only people who make it and it deserves a special place at the Thanksgiving table.
Yet it's hard to deny that most of us have ancestors that emigrated from other countries.
The Shamans we met radiated love: love for the rainforest around us, for their ancestors, for us as curious visitors, and a palpable love of life with all its mysteries.
We are standing here today, people from all over the planet, and each of us carries with us all our ancestors, all our traditions, all our grandparents, all those who struggled in the past to create a better future.
But it also made us vulnerable to inferring the existence of invisible agents – whether they took the form of a benevolent god watching over us, an unappeased ancestor punishing us with a drought or a monster lurking in the shadows.
