Change

Bestselling author Bruce Feiler’s terrific book, “Life is in the Transitions,” came out at a fascinating time: last summer when transition defined all of our lives. One of his insights from his public surveys was the fact that all transitions can be categorized into collective vs. personal and involuntary vs. voluntary. The rarest transitions are collective involuntary, and, yet, that’s what we’ve suffered through with the Covid-19 pandemic. The most common transitions are personal voluntary ones.

One of our revelations at MEA has been the pattern consistency of transitions. They often start with the end of something, move to the often-awkward liminal period, and then crescendo with a new beginning. Once you understand those three phases, you can witness your life as a series of transitional episodes and, with some experience, you can plot out a roadmap that gets you through that messy middle.

Victoria Labalme explains in her book “Risk Forward: Embrace the Unknown and Unlock your Hidden Genius:“In each of our lives at various points along the way, we find ourselves in the Fog of Not Knowing—a period of transition, when the path, the plan, or the project is not yet clear. This period in between—whether for minutes or for months—is to be respected and honored; it is fertile and full of promise. If you can meet this void without grasping for the most convenient way out, what you discover will be beyond your expectations and imagination.

Wikipedia defines “stalemate” this way: “a situation in the game of chess where the player whose turn it is to move is not in check but has no legal move. The rules of chess provide that when stalemate occurs, the game ends as a draw.”

Dr. Laura Carstensen and the Stanford Center on Longevity are doing an in-depth, multi-disciplinary study on A New Map of Life. Here are their six principles to guide long lived societies:

Easter is important to me as a Christian. That said, I believe it contains a powerful message for all people, no matter your religious beliefs or if you have any at all. All great teachers and prophets, even those who rely on science and psychology for their inspiration, contain a similar positive life view if we chose to see it.

You were first introduced to Lisa Carmel a few weeks ago when she wrote a guest post called, “How Do You Use Your Voice?” She’s a very active member of the MEA alumni community having come to Baja for both a workshop and Sabbatical Sessions while also participating in MEA Online.

I’ve known Eddie Dobbins for more than two decades and have admired his evolution from a savvy City Hall politico and activist to becoming a spiritual avatar who loves Bali as much as I do (and, in fact, he’s led and facilitated mindfulness retreats/ trips to Bali for friends and colleagues who are spiritual seekers).

It was exactly one year ago when MEA had to close for business. It all happened so abruptly, with the World Health Organization announcing that we’d slid into a global pandemic on March 11, 2020. We had our 50th MEA cohort of 18 mid-lifers on campus at the time, scheduled to leave on March 15, with another cohort scheduled to arrive that same day.

Two-time MEA alum Pat Whitty has been leading a 12-week course based on Julia Cameron’s book, The Artist’s Way. While doing his morning pages exercise, this poem just appeared, as Julia predicted, and I started writing it down.