How we start the year and what rituals we welcome into our lives can have a profound influence on how we experience our year. That’s why Teddi Dean (and I) are excited to be offering our Start with Stillness: A New Year Silent Retreat at MEA Baja January 5-10. If you haven’t experienced the mindful magic of Teddi, Saul, and Amie (and me early in the week), I highly recommend you consider signing up.
The retreat begins the moment the world softens.
Phones tucked away, voices set down, we step into a quiet
that feels older than any of us.
It takes a little time for the mind to settle, for the breath to widen, for the nervous system to trust the stillness. But slowly, the silence gathers around us like a steady open hand.
Here in Baja, the setting does half the teaching. This is where the desert meets the ocean in a way that is felt by all 5 senses, warm sand giving way to deep blue ocean. Cardones stands watch while gray whales breach and play offshore, arriving in these waters to give birth. Our campus sits right in this meeting of elements, the kind of place that brings you back to a natural rhythm gently before you even notice it’s happening.
As Head of the Mindfulness and Movement department at MEA, I curated this week with the intention of a rhythmic stillness. Offering an array of embodiment practices throughout the week with a restorative sound bath, gentle morning movement that wakes the body slowly, and leading a Wisdom Pod focused on how wisdom and compassion are not just related, but woven together, each amplifying and steadying the other in a way that neither can do alone.
Twice each day we will lift the silence gently. First, in the mornings where we gather for Circle. An opportunity to speak from presence to share what is unfolding within the quiet. And again for a one-hour teaching, a daily Wisdom Pod, where wisdom teachings are offered and the stillness becomes something we can dissolve into, leaving behind concepts and sharp-edged knowledge.
Excited that the first two days, MEA Founder Chip Conley takes time from his busy schedule to bring the clarity that comes from many seasons lived fully. Offering his perspective and story sharing from his own rich lived experience. Chip reminds us how wisdom often hides in the simple things we tend to overlook.
Another magical touch will be offered by Shaman Saul, MEA’s own resident shaman, performing private cleanses, a way of clearing the dust of 2025 so we can step into 2026 with intention, a little lighter and a little more awake.
And throughout the week, MEA experience facilitator and author Amy Tullius brings her calm, skilled presence, guiding the week while lifting the room when needed with a sense of grace that helps people feel both held and capable.
In the very special MEA week you begin to notice everything underneath the blanket of silence:
a wider way of paying attention,
a steadier way of being with yourself,
a soft inner place you can return to
even when the world starts speaking again.
-Teddi
Teddi Dean is our Head Of Mindfulness and Movement for both Baja and Santa Fe.