During one of our recent retreats at Mahai, we took our guests to visit the Sandy Turtle Sanctuary, a coastal conservation project run by Menos Plásticos es Fantástico. What we experienced there was both eye-opening and deeply sobering.

Over the past few years, enormous blooms of sargassum seaweed have begun arriving along the coast. Some days the sea looks almost normal. Other days, massive waves of seaweed cover the shoreline and stretch far out into the water.

When we began construction at Mahai Retreat, I expected to learn a lot about building, solar power, and coastal ecosystems. What I did not expect was that one of the most fascinating lessons would come from something much less glamorous: what happens after we flush the toilet.

Coming from a world where electricity seems limitless, the idea of relying entirely on the sun felt risky.

One afternoon at Mahai, a group of women gathered for a workshop led by Gabriela Alcántara. who teaches herbal wisdom workshops and does a wonderful natural skincare and plant-based beauty session. I expected a pleasant afternoon learning a few homemade recipes. What I experienced instead was a subtle shift in how I think about consumption. The ingredients before us looked almost ordinary: coffee grounds, flax seeds, aloe vera, oils, herbs. Many of these are things we use eve