State of Wonder
Highlights from my Fall Sabbatical
About a month ago, I returned from a five-week fall sabbatical—a glorious tapestry of magic, freedom, adventure, connection, art, nature, and sensory experiences that I am still unpacking
I’ve written before about the power of sabbaticals, most notably my 2018 “Eat Pray Self-Love” chapter, in which I restored the essence of who I am and changed my career and life for the absolute best!
I continue to honor taking sabbaticals, for they are a gateway to feeling my most alive, creative, spiritual, and inspired, and open up new pathways to growth by getting me out of my comfort zones and routines. (I also spent most of my career with the standard two or three weeks of vacation, so I’m making up for lost time!)
To kick off my fall sabbatical, I set off for New Mexico to experience the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta—a first! I woke up at 4am to get there in time for the Dawn Patrol, the first balloons floating like flickering Chinese lanterns against the indigo, inky, pre-sunrise skies.
When I arrived, I felt like a zombie, half-awake and walking among tens of thousands of bundled-up spectators, our breath creating clouds in the biting chill. Wandering in the dark among the warm glow of balloons being filled—with the first light of day illuminating their silhouettes—felt like an almost spiritual experience. Childlike excitement, even glee, saturated the air. As each balloons ascended, cheers erupted among the crowds.
It is breathtaking to witness thousands of hot air balloons dotting the sapphire sky, like a fanciful polka dotted pattern. I am dedicated to embracing awe and wonder, and this experience filled me with both. To be a part of something bigger than myself, among a crowd of people of all backgrounds, ages, and walks of life, is heart lifting.
“The best trips, like the best love affairs, never really end”
From Albuquerque, I headed to the stunning Modern Elder Academy (MEA) campus in Lamy, NM, for a pinch-me-am-I-dreaming retreat with
(website) and (website), who are divinity in human form, along with luminary (website), Founder of MEA, and a group of 50 kindred spirits.To take a step back for a moment, and share a little about my very first experience at the MEA Lamy campus: I attended a transformative retreat in July with another celestial being, Pico Iyer, travel writer, author, speaker, and mystic.
Pico wrote, “And if travel is like love, it is, in the end, mostly because it’s a heightened state of awareness, in which we are mindful, receptive, undimmed by familiarity and ready to be transformed. That is why the best trips, like the best love affairs, never really end.”
Both MEA retreats will never really end, for all the ways I am forever changed. With both experiences, a group of mostly strangers arrived to MEA, brought together for various reasons—a love of the guest faculty, wanderlust, navigating transitions, feeling stagnant, or seeking to bask in intergenerational wisdom.
In addition to time in community and interactive workshops with the guest faculty, beautiful sojourns in the wild, raw, high desert powerfully shaped us—we reveled in sunrise hikes, sunset lightning storms, sweeping views of the mesas, and starry nights.
Perhaps most significantly, we were transformed by connecting on such a deep level that we witnessed one another’s essence and were truly seen by compassionate eyes—coming together as strangers and leaving with lifelong friendships. There is an expression that shame dies when our truths are spoken in safe places, and this is one of the more powerful healing elements of MEA retreats, to feel less alone in navigating the joys and pains of being human.
Collective Effervescence
The Greeks have eight words to describe the many facets of love. Philia captures a deep platonic bond in friendship, while Agape represents a selfless, spiritual love emanating from our highest selves. When we burn away the cords of conditioning, and awaken our hearts, we emanate Agape.
Both forms of love radiate within MEA retreats, for we vulnerably and courageously show up deeply human, leaving our titles and material successes behind. We connect on a heart and spiritual level, culminating in what Chip refers to as “collective effervescence: when your sense of ego separation dissolves and communal joy emerges” borrowed from sociologist Emile Durkheim’s work.
The older I get, the more I appreciate just how little I know—a grain of sand on a beach of wisdom. Yet, one thing I do know for certain is that we are here to love and be loved. This is the power and beauty of humanity when we are at our best. What a gift, to form deep connections, to bask in love’s various shapes, to revel in nature, to stand in awe of the indigenous peoples who have inhabited these sacred lands for centuries, and to be truly transformed, such that my time at MEA is immortalized, like ancient petroglyphs in my heart.
I often marvel that I’ve traveled the world, yet my greatest journey has been the homecoming to my true self. MEA is a portal to this arrival, to this love affair with life.
A Full Spiral Moment
Focusing now on the Lizzy & Tererai retreat, I hadn’t planned to do two MEA retreats this year, but when I first read about the upcoming Lizzy & Tererai retreat, it was a full body Heck YES to go.
I am so grateful that I listened to my intuition, because the experience was truly life-changing! My heart now holds an ornate doorway to our gorgeous group of wisdom whisperers, filled with the songs of our ancestors, poetry we lived into being, high desert sacred landscapes, endless hugs, being seen, and other soul treasures. As with the Picolicious cohort, we formed friendships to last a lifetime in our I Say Bullsh*t Cohort at a time when community is especially crucial.
This retreat marked a full spiral moment, in that I attended a workshop with Lizzy in 2018, during which I wrote a letter to myself, giving myself permission to quit my job (with nothing lined up), leave the law behind, and embark on a transformative travel sabbatical, which ultimately led me to change my career to coaching and to change my life for the absolute best.
April 7, 2018 (my birthday eve!)
Dear Gena, I am giving you permission -
To take the biggest leap of your life and leave your job to launch a new chapter of travel, art, cooking, reading, learning, exploring, and healing
To get back to your enlightened self, hair blowing in the breeze
To not have all of the answers
To not follow all of the rules
To no longer get a boost from being ‘perfect’
To go easy on yourself and be compassionate
To be courageous, knowing failure may be a part of your path
To truly, deeply, and intrinsically know your worth and all that you deserve
You are a phoenix and will rise again
I had a pinch-me moment to share this 2018 experience while on a sunrise walk with Lizzy, and to express my gratitude to her for the many ways she's inspired me (and countless others) to face our fears, embrace our creativity, and live a meaningful, soulful life honoring our unique gifts. I have shared the letters experience with hundreds of clients over the years, ever-widening her circle of wisdom. She graciously received my gratitude, and then said, “But Gena, you actually did it. So many people write letters and don’t make any changes. You did it.” I hadn’t really considered this before, because it felt like it was written in me to make those changes, yet Lizzy pointing this out to me allowed me to appreciate my own perseverence—another gift from her.
If someone told me back in 2018—at that workshop with Lizzy on a stage with me sitting in an audience among a sea of hundreds of people—when I was lost, fearful, and unsure of my future, that I would return home, quit my job, embark on a travel sabbatical, radically change my life and career, and meet Lizzy six years later during an intimate MEA retreat in which I would have the chance to connect with her on a personal level, I would have hardly believed it! (Seriously?!)
The most extraordinary things in life often seem the most unexpected, because it is hard for us to imagine a moonshot existence—fears, doubts, and shoulds often obscure our true paths. This makes me excited and hopeful for the future, for all of our dreamy chapters that await us.
Another life-changing aspect of the fall retreat was having the immense honor and pleasure of getting to know Tererai and bask in her soulful wisdom. Every time she spoke in her deep, melodic voice, you could sense the power of her ancestors, of ancient wisdom, of boundless fire, brilliance, and passion. She shared with us the concept of Tinogona: It is achievable. Sawubona: I see you and I am here to be seen by you. Ngikona: I am here to be seen with my vulnerability, but also with my joy and dignity. Every time I think of these beautiful words, I hear them in Tererai’s voice, like notes in a song. (I am currently reading her book, The Awakened Woman, which I highly recommend on audio. More on that another time!)
On our last evening together, I expressed my profound gratitude to Tererai, and she clasped my hands and said, “I see you. Thank you for seeing me”, giving me electric, full body chills, understanding the significance of Sawubona and Ngikona. When I responded in kind, she said, “No, really. I see you. Thank you for seeing me too.” It felt like a rare, true soul connection and is a moment I will never forget.
I am also grateful that I had a chance to express words of gratitude to Tererai, Lizzy, and Chip that night (though I was nervous to speak in front of our whole group!). We had witnessed the celestial gift of Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS, the brightest comet in 27 years, with an 80,000 year orbit around the sun! I shared that the comet was a fitting metaphor for our luminaries, who awakened in us a sense of awe, perspective, enchantment, and wonder. I read that after rounding the sun, comets are brighter from the heat of the sun vaporizing ice from the comet’s surface, sending the vapors into space. All the more fitting metaphor, for Tererai, Lizzy, and Chip inspired each of us to shed that which no longer served us, and we all became brighter and more of our true selves, our spirits shining, during our time together.
Another First - Tattoos!
After New Mexico, I headed to New York City to see friends, revel in the gorgeous fall foliage (which I miss living in the endless summertime of LA), and lead a trust-building workshop for a fintech startup, along with getting my first tattoo! Some advised me to start with one small tattoo, but my motto is Go Big or Go Home! #yolo
When I was young, tattoos kind of scared me as TV portrayed sketchy characters as men with tattoos. Then spending most of my adult life in buttoned-up Washington, D.C., I didn’t have much exposure to tattoos.
It was when I moved to LA seven years ago, surrounded by creatives, that I began to appreciate tattoos as art, becoming kind of obsessed with getting one myself. My mom and sisters have tattoos, so I was a late bloomer in the Chieco family.
It all came together when my twin sister introduced me to the stunning work of
The three girls symbolize me and my sisters, and the magical times we spent playing in a creek at our childhood home. The designs hold a lot of other symbolism—my parents, grandparents, ancestors, community—plus my love for nature, the stars, and the moon.
I’ve always been in awe of great blue herons, which symbolize patience and good luck, peace, calm, grace and wisdom, self-care, and magic. There is also a tradition of Heron medicine: The idea of knowing oneself by discovering one’s gifts and facing one’s challenges. Perhaps most resonant to me, “The blue heron is a totem (symbol) of someone who has chosen to claim their life as their own.”
From there, I traveled to France for over two weeks, a place that makes my cells dance, ever since my first visit 20 years ago. I weep every time I leave such a apecial place. (More on France another time.)
For now, I am savoring the spiritual glitter that clings to me from my fall sabbatical.
Every moment, experience, new and old friends, tastes, sights, and sounds, are like individual tiles in the mosaic of my life.
I find that with every sabbatical, I reclaim the lost and wild craggy shorelines of my soul, and create my own masterpiece of a life in this messy, unpredictable, heart-breaking and heart-bursting, thing called being human.
Intergenerational wisdom ❤️❤️❤️ loved reading this reflections thank you xx
You did it and are still growing. Kudos from a fellow traveler.