Elephant’s 23 years old, today—for 2 reasons.

Today’s my last day on this planet as a young and chipper 50-year-old! Tomorrow’s my 51st—and Elephant’s 23rd!?

Elephant Journal is 23 years old, now. That’s…unreal. We’ve survived three media epochs: first as a print magazine, then a huge web site based on Facebook shares, now an indie site independent of Big Tech social media (99% of our rivals and peers have gone out of business).

There’s two reasons we’re still here: 1, we care. Genuinely. We’re independent, so we’re not about $$ or trends, first. We’re about mission: dialogue, learning, the mindful life, to be of benefit. 2: real community. Dialogue. You care. You. Your subscriptions. If you read, get our newsletter, free, or subscribe. If you do so, surely will make our 24th birthday, and continue to serve our wild world and your daily life with wakeful, caring, empathy, ethics.

I’m 51, too. I started this publication when I was 28. I’m grateful to get to serve our world in this way. Writing. Sharing. Learning as we go. Caring all along the way. Hear, hear! May we be of benefit!

~

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Elephant’s 23 years old, as of today.⁠
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We started off as a print magazine, as some of you remember.⁠
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I’d gone to meet with this guy about writing an article for his new start-up magazine…and he asked me to be his editor. I remember I was wearing my retro white Tiger shoes. I still have ’em. I said “hell no”—I’d just left a burn-out job with bad pay for a good cause, and didn’t need another. I’d grown up poor, and wanted to start a business I could raise a family on, eventually. So I replied that I would partner, 50/50. And he agreed, basically, letting me sweat equity and invest my meager life savings into this dream.⁠
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I didn’t know how to publish a magazine, but I did know journalism, writing, editing, and sales (I just learned on the job, mostly, but it was that feeling of—I’m good at this, I’m not gonna give up, this is of benefit, this is going somewhere, I’ve tripped onto something). I’d been raised Buddhist, and had become an environmentalist, and a Buddhist (being raised Buddhist, and making meditation a part of your daily life are two separate things). I was passionate about equal rights, and politics, and arts, and community…and we made all of those a focus of the magazine, under the slogan, “it’s about the mindful life.” That was a unique thing, then—mindfulness about life, not about spirituality. I didn’t want to publish a magazine for and about the choir. I wanted to offer a magazine about all the things yogis and environmentalists and activists care about, which is everything: food, bicycling, mindful travel, enlightened education, activism, having fun on a rooftop on a cool summer’s evening. Everything!
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