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Sedona Mago Retreat Center’s 10th Anniversary Festival, highlighted by Ilchi Lee’s “Brain Education for Successful Aging” lecture, held on May 25, 2008 hosted more than 300 people on its 160-acre site surrounded by the Coconino National Forest.

Sedona Mago Retreat celebrates its 10th anniversary with 300 guests

Sedona, AZ - June 5, 2008 - Sedona Mago Retreat Center held its all-day 10th Anniversary Festival, highlighted by Ilchi Lee’s “Brain Education for Successful Aging” lecture, May 25, 2008.

More than 300 people from Sedona and the Verde Valley joined this open-house celebration on the 160-acre site surrounded by Coconino National Forest.

What would Sedona look like if a city had not grown up next to its breathtakingly beautiful scenery?

The answer to many of the first-time guests at the Festival is Mago Retreat. Mago is a variation of the name that several Asian cultures give to Mother Earth.

With its unique beauty and vortex-energy Mago Retreat has created an ideal environment for the renewal, training, and healing, attracting people from around the world, in its first decade. Its natural setting features mountains, rolling hills, red rocks, gardens, a lake, and abundant plantings. In harmony with nature and based on green criteria, its facilities include meeting rooms, guest rooms, dining hall, meditation areas, pool-spa, horse stables, and water management system.

VIPs attending the Sedona Mago Retreat Center’s 10th Anniversary Festival: From left: Tara Kim (General Manager, Sedona Mago Retreat Center), Casey Rooney (Director, Cottonwood Economic Development), Jodi Rooney (Executive Director, Central Yavapai Metropolitan Planning Organization), Diane Joens (Mayor, City of Cottonwood), Ilchi Lee (Founder, Sedona Mago Retreat Center), Barbara Litrell (President, Keep Sedona Beautiful), Anne Leap (Senior Information Referral Specialist, City of Sedona), and Larry Rosenberg (Director of Communication, BR Consulting)

Many guests went on the guided walking tour of the healing garden, with its pathway between the rainwater-filled lake and colorful flowers and fragrant herbs. The guests lunched at the dining hall, enjoying an international vegetarian buffet.

A long line awaits Ilchi Lee’s signing of his new book In Full Bloom: A Brain Education Guide for Successful Aging, coauthored with Dr. Jessie Jones.

At the packed Mago Hall, the Festival’s entertainment consisted of performances with roots in Korea’s culture. The performances included a high-energy dance, two demonstrations by DahnMuDo (self-empowerment martial art) masters, and the traditional fan dance.

Opening the official 10th Anniversary ceremony, Tara Kim, Mago Retreat’s General Manager, explained, “Mago Retreat essentially exists to interact with and serve the local Sedona-Verde Valley community, as well as the global community of cultures.” She invited organizations and groups to look to Mago Retreat for a welcoming place for holding their programs, meetings and events.

The audience watched a video prepared specifically for the Mago Retreat 10th Anniversary, showing how the center has dramatically evolved since 1998.

Cottonwood Mayor Diane Joens gave a congratulatory speech, stating her admiration for Mago Retreat’s 10 years of accomplishments in creating an international retreat center neighboring her city. Messages sent to Mago Retreat by distinguished people – including the Consulate General of the Republic of Korea S.J. Kim and Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano – were acknowledged.

As the founder of Mago Retreat, Ilchi Lee (www.ilchi.com) presented the main lecture of the day. He is founder and president of the International Brain Education Association and Korea Institute of Brain Science (a NGO granted consultative status with the United Nations). Of his 30 books, the latest is In Full Bloom: A Brain Education Guide for Successful Aging, coauthored with Dr. Jessie Jones.

In his lecture on “Brain Education for Successful Aging,“ Lee explained how the brain can remain fit long after 50 in order to produce physical health, mental functioning, and inner peace. He described how to shift one’s brain state from negative to positive. To be able to do this, he demonstrated several simple yet profound exercises – muscle resistance, longevity walking, and brain wave vibration.

Ilchi Lee shares humor with insights into using your brain to age gracefully.

As Lee put it, a good brain operating system involves believing in God or the Creator, loving the Earth, and respecting one’s brain and soul. Realizing and applying these concepts through the brain wave vibration can generate hope and a can-do spirit to achieve one’s dreams. Beyond any personal success, one of life’s most valuable achievements is creating hope for others.

Lee contended that the brain is the source of our individual problems (depression and obsessiveness) and collective problems (terrorism and global warming). Most people want more and more, and deny that they cannot take it with them when they die. The source of solutions can be found in the brainstem, which is our path of return to a divine state or God. This is called Chunwa in Korean.

Lee affirmed that the hope for humanity in these troubled times is the better use of our brains. The start of this path is realizing that the gateway at the top of our head (brain) is the basis of our hope for growing our soul, and thus eternal life. This is the ultimate requirement of aging successfully.

For more about the Sedona Mago Retreat Center, visit www.sedonamagoretreat.org.