author & Mystic

About Cynthia

Award winning author, Cynthia F. Davidson (née Fetterolf), became an overnight success at age 65 after publishing her first memoir, The Importance of Paris. But her lifetime of writing, travel, and truth seeking began at age eight when her family moved overseas in 1962. Since crafting her first poems in Arabia at age ten, she has never stopped writing. Over the decades, her work has covered many topics, but she often returns to what is nearest her heart, the challenges and benefits of belonging in a global world: culture shocks, adaptation, language barriers, xenophobia and wars.

Davidson spent the first half of her life as an expatriate, living and working in Saudi Arabia, Switzerland, Lebanon, England, Spain, Venezuela, and France. A graduate of New York University, her multilingual experiences encouraged her career choices: first as a journalist, at CBS News, and then as a businesswoman in the cross-cultural training arena.

In the 1980s she founded her own consulting practice, to specialize in the human side of globalization, and became a pioneer in the global management development field. For over twenty years she assisted in the screening, selecting and preparing of global managers at major companies. She designed and delivered multiple types of interventions, including customized six week programs for expatriating staff and incoming foreign nationals.

After developing her ground breaking Wisdom Wheel method, she retired from corporate work to concentrate on its’ perennial teachings, and other writing and publishing projects. These include memoirs and anthologies, as well as her unusual digital series 1,000 Days on the Wisdom Wheel. This carefully structured sequence, of daily emails and journal prompts, guides students on an intimate, three-year exploration of their most deeply held values and beliefs. Over the last two decades, hundreds of individuals and study groups have learned and taught the Wisdom Wheel, with its’ 36 Universal Laws, which synthesize the teachings of the world’s many wheels.  

The proud mom of three grown children, Davidson is happily married, and runs a spiritual retreat center in rural Rhode Island with her British born husband. The ceremonies they conduct are under the tutelage of their Mi’kmaq and Blackfoot elders in Canada. She also works as an expressive therapies facilitator.  

Active on social media, Davidson writes a bi-monthly newsletter, offers workshops on memoir writing, and facilitates writing groups and book club discussions. She is available for speaking engagements and fundraisers. 

Her primary focus is on human evolution and the wisdom traditions, which empower people to become wiser and less violent. She specializes in the intersection between values, beliefs and behaviors that lead to personal growth and development.

Her favorite quote: Knowledge divides the world. Wisdom makes it whole. Venacio, shaman of the Amazonian Makuna people.

Katherine Touafek
The Feminine Moveable Feast!
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The book is well written with detail intertwining personal experience and informative historical events that touch not only the world stage but shaped the author's incredibly interesting life. Fun to read, as well, and excellent for a book club discussion. Especially relevant now...a must read you will remember and reflect upon. Brava Cynthia!
Sheila Capece
Fabulous!!!!!!!!
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History of the Middle East embedded in a love story and search of self. A woman's perspective on life, love and cultural differences.
Yvette Nachmias-Baeu
A look Inward during war and love and growing up
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This is a long and varied account of the journey towards self-knowledge in a time of war. It is a treatise for peace and understanding under the historical background she documents with great care. The secrets of the middle-east to some extent open up in this very personal account of a particular time and a particular place. Ms. Davidson's voice is authentic and honest as she explores her own fallibilities and passions through love affairs, work and travel as an ex-pat, a neither/or --while seeking her truths in the City of Light with a fabulous and devastating cast of characters. You will learn things you thought you knew through the eyes of one who has lived it.
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Timeline

JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia: 1962-68
VERSOIX, Switzerland: 1968-70
BEIRUT, Lebanon: 1970-72
LONDON, England: 1973-74
CARACAS, Venezuela: 1975
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia: 1979
NEW YORK CITY, United States: 1976-79, 1980-83
PARIS, France: 1984-87
SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, Spain: 1987