August 3, 2024 by Gina Murdock

*Image courtesy Jonathan Ross Canva/Getty Images*

I arrived in the Roaring Fork Valley in 2004 and settled in Carbondale, working as a news reporter for the now defunct Valley Journal. I was fresh from another Colorado mountain town, Telluride, where I remember hearing about Aspen mostly as the place we didn’t want to become with its astronomical prices and disenfranchised locals.

It was an impression that stuck with me when I moved to Carbondale, and I fell into a kind of tribal “us vs. them” camp with the other downvalley folk who had a disdain for the consumptive, rich residents and superficial, superstar visitors of Aspen.

At that time, I used Aspen as my bank as so many of us do. I would come up to work during the season — bartending, catering, massaging, whatever — and mostly stayed away otherwise. I didn’t have an appreciation for Aspen besides the stunning natural beauty that, of course, was undeniable.

Well, as fate would have it, I ended up moving to Aspen in 2009. I didn’t know anyone because I had only ever worked up here and never bothered to invest in anything social as my community was downvalley. The first year in Aspen was lonely. I didn’t know where I fit in.

*Image courtesy @njmcdaniel Canva/Getty Images*

Serendipitously, I got an invitation to join the board of The Aspen Center for Environmental Studies early on and found my home within that org and its ethos. These were my kind of people! Long time locals and environmental stewards. Deep sigh. Community is such a key component to thriving.

Yoga was and still is one of my passions. At the time, there was not a lot of yoga going on, and I poured my energy into an endeavor I created called Aspen Yoga Society with the tagline “Unite Community Through Yoga.” I was super passionate about the yoga community coming together to do acts of service. We held an annual event called Yoga in Action Day, and I was able to bring many of the yogis together to support causes like Aspen Hope Center and Cambodian Children’s Fund where I sponsored several children.

It was early on during this phase that I was introduced to The Aspen Institute. Holy Moly! I couldn’t believe that a place like this existed and that I didn’t know about it after living in the valley for five years. This is just one of the many things I missed because I was too busy judging Aspen without actually getting to know it.

When I learned about “The Aspen Idea” and the history of Walter and Elizabeth Paepcke and their vision for Aspen as a place that mind, body, and spirit could flourish, I became almost evangelical about spreading this message. I was dead set on getting yoga and mindfulness integrated into The Aspen Institute events. This proved to be a difficult task! I began by volunteering to teach the Aspen Institute staff yoga and would show up several times a week, often to just two or three students, to teach classes at the gym. These three people were committed, but it didn’t quite help me bring yoga to the masses as I was hoping.

My frustration at that time was that I felt the institute was not living up to its founders intention to be a place where mind, body, and spirit could flourish. My impression was that the mind component was over-developed while the body and spirit components seemed atrophied. This imbalance was and is exactly what I see mirrored in our society.

The leadership at this great “leadership” think-tank was all about bringing the smartest people together to discuss great ideas. Men, mostly, would gather and pontificate. This has gotten much better, as there are many more women and minorities and action initiatives these days; but up until more recently, The Aspen Institute, similar to many leadership organizations in America, has been a haven for super-smart, older, wealthy, and mostly white guys. Bless them. The men and women with great minds are amazing. I love and admire many of them. And, I think there’s a lot missing when we focus too much attention on the mind.

My teacher, Dr. Mary Hulnick, told me recently, “The mind is a tool to be used in service to the heart.” She continued, “We live on a planet where the mind is worshiped, and many people see it as the highest human function, yet there is so much more available within us, and the gateway to that is the heart.”

As I continue my work, I am still committed to yoga and meditation but, even more, nourishing the heart. As I see it, love is the highest form of intelligence and the key to our salvation on this planet. How can we love, forgive, and be kind to each other accessing the infinite wisdom of the heart you may ask? Listen, and you will see.

This post originally appeared in my monthly column in The Aspen Times.