MEA

“To invent, you have to experiment, and if you know in advance that it’s going to work, it’s not an experiment.” - Jeff Bezos, Amazon Annual Report, 2015

Joined at the hip, head, and heart, my co-founders Christine, Jaff and I have been dreaming about this day for maybe a half-dozen years. We imagined we might grow beyond our Baja beachfront campus one day.

Chip’s Note: I love Thérèse and it’s been quite enlightening to see her evolution over the past three years.

A few times a month, I hear this innocent question.

Once a year, MEA offers an experience of unadulterated joy that suggests we’re the tip of the iceberg for a global movement.

When we shortened our Modern Elder Academy name to MEA, we didn't expect we'd have to do a "mea culpa" to Spanish and Portuguese-speaking people as "mea" is the third person for urinating. Not exactly a great word association.

Grace Lee Boggs said, "You cannot change any society unless you take responsibility for it, unless you see yourself as belonging to it and responsible for changing it." But, it’s hard to do that on the margins when you’re not part of the dominant demographic of a society. We are all mirrors for each other, but that mirror isn’t color blind.

Chip's Editorial Comment: I think you’ll enjoy this spirited post (in English and Spanish) from the MEA alum who gave us the incentive to create our first public Spanish-speaking MEA program that happens in Baja in a month.

Change can be scary, but it’s also exciting. Life, deprived of breath, is anxiety. With breath, it’s exhilarating. I can say this is an exhilarating time for me and MEA and I’m breathing my way through it.

MEA has chosen Baja and Santa Fe as the locations for our Academies and Regenerative Communities for a variety of reasons. There's a raw realness to both places where nature is a profound teacher. Both have communities of artists, makers, and creators, and both attract the modern elder crowd as a place to retire. Additionally, our two locations are magnets for seekers of all stripes—people curious about life's meaning. And they both have vibrant culinary communities, so we eat well!