Thrive! is an invitation to remember what it means to be fully alive in a world that has forgotten how to nourish the human spirit. Drawing from lived experience, embodied wisdom, and deep relationship with the living Earth, Mark Tollefson and Meghan Maiya explore what it truly takes to thrive as human beings, not by striving harder, but by coming back into right relationship with body, Spirit, community, and the natural world. This book challenges the cultural stories that keep us fragmented and depleted, and offers a grounded, compassionate vision of what becomes possible when we live in alignment with Life itself.
Through reflections on elderhood, belonging, healing, and human potential, Thrive! weaves together personal narrative and universal truth. It speaks to those who sense there is more to life than survival and success as they have been defined for us. This is not a set of prescriptions, but a remembering. A call to slow down, listen more deeply, and reclaim the innate wisdom that already lives within us. Thrive! is for anyone who longs to live with greater meaning, vitality, and reverence, and who is ready to participate consciously in the unfolding of a more life affirming way of being human.
Reader Reviews
“I’ve been able to put the THRIVE teachings to immediate use in my daily life and have found a renewed sense of joy that seemed to have disappeared for a time. Each month we are given a new way to “’show up’ in the world, and to really immerse ourselves in a Nature based lifestyle. I’m learning to ‘listen within’. This process has so much power, compared to ‘going to an outside source’ for every answer.”
~Julie Connelly, Thrive! Graduate
“THRIVE has shifted a lot for me and how I show up in the world. These ceremonies have really resonated. This is one of the missing elements of what true connection can look like.”
~Gordon Mallonee, Thrive! Graduate
“THRIVE is a well thought out and put together program that is unique in the length and depth. You’re inviting people to strip their lives down and rebuild them based on blazingly honest self exploration and making their lives a ceremony! I recommend that they ask themselves if they feel really ready to take their life to the next level? If not, hold this program as something they can build up to.”
~Robin Fagnan, Thrive! Graduate
Mark Tollefson has spent over 30 years helping people remember their place within the living world. Born in northern Canada and mentored early in life by people rooted in lineage and land, his work is shaped by experience earned through living, not theory learned at a distance.His life has taken many forms. He has worked on oil rigs, owned pubs and restaurants, taught wilderness survival skills, guided youth in wilderness connection, led international sustainable farming efforts, and helped open an international high school in New Zealand. Each chapter has refined his understanding of what it means to belong, to be responsible, and to live in right relationship.Mark has guided more than a thousand people through rites of passage and deep one-on-one work, walking alongside those ready to step into a new way of being grounded in purpose and service. He works with individuals and groups who feel the quiet call to live from their essence and remove what stands in the way of living a Thriving Life. Through myth and story, he helps people uncover a dynamic and living map for vision and direction.Mark lives in Santa Barbara, California with his beloved Meghan Maiya, and is the father of two magnificent children, Esher and Elsie. When he is not teaching or listening, he can often be found making music, building with his hands, or cooking food meant to be shared.Information about one-on-one work with Mark and Vision Quests: https: //marktollefson.com/
Meghan Maiya is a seer, a listener, and ceremonial guide rooted in Earth-based ceremonial practices. Over the years, with the support of amazing teachers, mentors, sacred ceremonies and time, she has learned to develop and use these gifts to support and uplift others. Meghan journeys with Spirit, Soul, Earth and Ancestors to help people understand the gift and beauty of who they are. Seeing life from a Soul perspective can help us all to navigate better right here, right now. With The Gift of SoulSight, Meghan helps provide fresh ways for people to view life by showing how we've been in sacred training all along. It is an empowered perspective. The journey is always beautiful. Wherever you are on your journey, Meghan will meet you there. She humbly works with persons who are ready to be deeply seen, witnessed and powerfully committed to initiating a Thriving Life way of being. https: //thegiftofsoulsight.godaddysites.comMeghan's professional work has been diverse. She formerly worked as the Director of Development, Research and Special Projects for a theatrical production company doing biographical and historical research for new stage productions and films. She also spent three years assisting and running the office for the former 19th Prime Minister of Canada. Before that, Meghan worked in the Department of Family Medicine and Public Health at the University of California, San Diego as a Senior Program Evaluation Specialist and Project Manager. She coordinated multiple research projects in the fields of Integrative Medicine and Behavioral Health. Additionally, Meghan spent 13 years as a psychology professor teaching a range of courses at San Diego State University, local community colleges, and at the Optimum Health Institute of San Diego.She is a proud mother of two amazing adults, Jordan and Emma, and currently lives in Santa Barbara, CA with her beloved, Mark Tollefson.
