Big news here. I am leaving the egalitarian commune in Wyoming to move to Guatemala tomorrow! And this time (once in a lifetime) I am ahead of the game in terms of packing (I usually pack at 8pm the night before).
I have such a jumble of thoughts I don’t know where to begin. I have sadness about leaving this extraordinary natural beauty, along with a physical living situation and a climate that suits me perfectly, even in winter (it’s my first time living in an RV, and it works). This place has been very good to me. There have been some relational challenges, but this is to be expected in a commune, and I have learned a great deal about myself and about living in communes (I call myself an “intentional community activist” but the truth is I only lived in one commune before, and that one I ran). A lot of what I learned had to do with my own asshole-ness, but that has turned into significant insights which I share in the video below. In this place I found a real “home” in almost a decade, and also started offering programs in Authentic Relating that are going very well. In this place my retirement finally came through, which means that moving forward I can dedicate my life 100% to public service, entertainments and enlightenment (a dream I have had for 40 years). In this place my passion for living in intentional community has increased, and the social/political orientation of my work has also deepened. I am a very lucky man.
I never thought that I would resume the digital nomad lifestyle, and so soon. I thought I was done with that lifestyle when I left India (via Nepal) in the spring of 2016. I was terribly lonely there, my experience is what we call a “successful failure”. But an opportunity arose that I could not refuse. I will be initially joining a group of other digital entrepreneurs in a rented house near San Marcos La Laguna, Lake Atitlan Guatemala. San Marcos is a kind of hippy / new-age paradise, tons of yoga schools and related modalities. On the surface it looks very similar to Koh Phangan, Thailand, where I spent almost a year total. There is no ocean, but the weather is nice all year around. I expect the prices to be similar as well, although accommodation is in short supply in the winter, just as in Koh Phangan. I have booked a place with my buddy Jacques Martiquet for February and March (Jacques is the instigator here, God bless him. We are sharing a one-bedroom AirBnb for two months, which is a bit edgy, we’ll see). In April I am already booked-in to a 3-week yoga retreat in Mexico, a place called Hridaya Yoga, in which I intend to achieve my enlightenment đ . After that… who knows. My hunch is that I will just continue the road trip by truck, continuing my intentional community journey and leading programs on the road (the truck and the RV are staying here for now). Ooh la la…
New video: Relational leadership, developmental trauma and characterology
I have made a 25 minute video that is something like my “manifesto”. I have tried to summarize everything I have learned in the last 5 years about the acquisition of emotional intelligence (or “EQ”), largely through experiences I have had in the Authentic Relating community and through my own tortured process during this time. The production quality is not great but I am very proud of this video, as I think I am demonstrating the Authentic Relating process even as I speak about it. Let me know if you like it.
If you want to give a public comment that would be here.
With love,
Marco
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