The Modern Elder Academy is where people learn to embrace their age, their gifts, their wisdom.
MEA's workshop cohorts offer a powerful sense of connection-a "collective effervescence" that's growing into a new kind of worldwide web, led by a man who has lived some hugely successful corporate mantras for happiness and inclusion:
Joie de Vivre's "Create joy!"
Airbnb's "Belong Anywhere!"
MEA's "Minting elders who are curious, wise, playful, audacious, and generous."
THIS NEW PATH IS NOT TOWARD RETIREMENT, BUT RENEWAL.
Having spent a week at your Modern Elder Academy in Baja, it struck me that a big step to becoming a modern elder happens when we stop resisting who we are and come out and embrace it. That’s when the fun begins. And that got me thinking about two of my best friends from high school and college who are gay. They were in considerable discomfort for years because they were closeted. But there was a point when they came out—and then a point where I got jealous because they were having more fun than I was. I’m wondering how this analogy works for you? Coming out—and coming out as a modern elder.
Good question. I think there’s something to your analogy in the sense that there’s a taboo, obviously, in society around being gay. There’s also a taboo around being middle-aged or being in midlife. No one’s ever brought this up to me before, but it may be part of the reason I’m so attracted to midlife. It’s something that has a besmirched reputation that limits life or is painful for a lot of people—but it’s the best time of my life.
This story is from the May/Jun 2023 edition of Spirituality & Health.
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This story is from the May/Jun 2023 edition of Spirituality & Health.
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ONE WORD TO BEAT WINTER BLUES: BIOMIMICRY
CREATURELY REFLECTIONS
THINKING ABOUT RESTITUTION
THE HEART OF HAPPINESS
WAITING IN LINE
OUR WALK IN THE WORLD
ENTER THE SAUNA
Journalist Emily O’Kelly shares some uplifting research on the benefits of sweat bathing, a global healing practice not just limited to Northern climes.
the trail of ATONEMENT
One Ashkenazi Jewish family escaped pogroms in Russia and then flourished in South Dakota, but the “free land” of their new homestead had been unfairly taken from the Lakota by the United States. Generations later, a celebrated investigative journalist set out to tell the truth of the Lakota and her family, calculate The Cost of Free Land—and pay it back.
STALKING YOUR Mind
Stalking the Mind is part of an ancient Indigenous American Medicine Way to tame your guilt, fears, and shame. What we’re “stalking” are our thought patterns and beliefs that seem to create the opposite of happiness and wellbeing. It’s a powerful psychotherapeutic journey of healing without the diagnosis or labels.
LEAVING MESA VERDE
After 21 years of service at Mesa Verde National Park, RANGER DAVID FRANKS recently guided his last tour of the pueblos and cliff dwellings. He says he was fortunate to assist the archeologists with a variety of work and never lost his amazement with their ability to figure out how and when things happened. The question he still wrestles with is much deeper: Why they left?
BECOMING YOUR OWN LEAD RESEARCHER IN HEALTHCARE
PEGGY LA CERRA, PHD, downloaded a health app to aggregate her medical records and was stunned to see the phrase \"aortic atherosclerosis.\" What she did next is a helpful model for all of us.
ARCHETYPAL ASTROLOGY
\"Is astrology true?\" is the wrong question, writes RABBI RAMI SHAPIRO. He suggests that the truth is out there, but out there is really in here.
WELLNESS IN THE WILD
Spa aficionado MARY BEMIS takes the [cold] plunge at Mohonk Mountain House.