MEA

Chip’s Editorial Comment: Stacy Peralta is a big deal in the film and adventure sports world, but you’d never know it by meeting him as he’s so down-to-earth and humble. We are fortunate to have him be one of our MEA faculty members.

“Just as some Westerners can’t conceive of life without running water, electricity, and commodities, indigenous people in tribal Africa can’t conceive life without ritual.” - Malidome Soma

We are living longer. Today, if we live to 50 in America, we can hope to live well into our eighties. This demographic shift in life expectancy and the fact that we have not only increased our lifespan but also our healthspan means we have to radically reimagine our lives. Beginning with midlife.

With my book "Learning to Love Midlife" coming out and MEA's Santa Fe ranch campus opening, we will have a bigger stage for influencing the societal lexicon on aging. My bet is that at least one of these five words or phrases will go viral this year. Which of these do you think is most likely to go mainstream?

Our lives are filled with rituals in the first thirty or so years. Baptism. First Holy Communion. Bar and Bat Mitzvahs. Graduation. Marriage. Bridal shower. Baby shower. These beautiful rituals act as a rest stop for the soul—an opportunity for your community to hold a mirror to you and say, "Hey, you're going through a big transition, and we're here to support you."

In a hurricane flurry, I recently returned from a week-long MEA Baja workshop beautifully led by Lori Schwanbeck. The topic for the week was Leadership During Times of Certainty, which, unfortunately, now seems even more relevant than ever.

“It’s strange how deserts turn us into believers. I believe in walking in a landscape of mirages, because you learn humility. I believe in living in a land of little water because life is drawn together. And I believe in the gathering of bones as a testament to spirits that have moved on. If the desert is holy, it is because it is a forgotten place that allows us to remember the sacred. Perhaps that is why every pilgrimage to the desert is a pilgrimage to the self.” ― Terry Tempest Williams, Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place

With the holidays coming up, we've been thinking about the perfect gift. The kind that makes you go, "Wow, this is exactly what I wanted!" None of those awkward moments when you're smiling on the outside but secretly wondering, "What am I going to do with this?"

You know how cranky you get around the end of January, right? You know how pale you look and how tired you are of being indoors. The first quarter of the year is the most popular time to be in southern Baja: warm days and cool nights, migrating whales breaching offshore, tiny baby sea turtles hatching on the beach, and the desert, farmland, and tropical forests in the area are still green from the October rains.

Only ten months have passed since we left MEA and we meet again.