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Collective Effervescence and Moral Beauty


As I mentioned last week, Dacher Keltner’s research on awe found that the two most common pathways to feeling awe are experiencing “collective effervescence” (when your sense of ego separation dissolves and communal joy emerges) and “moral beauty” (witnessing the best humanity has to offer: courage, kindness, equanimity, love).

I’ll never forget when Dacher whispered to me that MEA specializes in creating awe in these two ways. I had no idea that this was part of our hidden success formula. 

Last week when I was teaching in Tecate, Baja, Mexico at Rancho La Puerta, I felt a firehose of awe when a contingent of 20+ MEA alums from our San Diego regional chapter made a 90-minute trek, crossing the border, to have an 8-course dinner with me in an improbable gourmet restaurant in this small, dusty town. It was such a joy to see this group (thank you, Jack Abbott, for organizing it) and feel the sense of connection with all of these beautiful people. MEA now has 58 regional chapters around the world with our alums partying, learning, and expressing themselves together.

And, the week before, I received the first logo (that I’m aware of) from any of MEA’s 165 workshop cohorts in Baja or Santa Fe. This mid-August cohort who were in my Santa Fe “Owning Wisdom” workshop created this lovely logo based upon their cohort name, OWLS: Owning Wisdom & Love. For those of you who are MEA-curious, now is the time to check out our fall workshop calendar and dip into our well of belonging. 

-Chip

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