Essex Center

We aim to create and follow a supportive model of human growth that becomes a way of daily living incorporating the discernment, pursuit, and evaluation of our life’s work. Our mission is to support members in this journey and to provide services and programs of education and guidance to members of the community at large.

Each participant can expect to receive feedback and support for their life’s work and, in turn, each participant takes responsibility to support others as they discern, pursue, and evaluate their life’s work. We work to avoid harsh competitiveness, excessively cerebral or academic approaches, and any form of depersonalizing, diminishing, or marginalizing any person, within or outside of our Essex Center community. 

We begin with a core question: what’s the living for in this life on earth? 

To answer this question, we envision a seven-stage process of growth through the lifespan, each stage building toward the next step: 

spirit, values, learning, work, stewardship, mission, and vision. 

This growth process exists within the context of our relationships and solitude, as well as including our times of rest, play, and enjoyment.

We refine this vision with touchstones that create a sense of shared perspective from a vision that uniquely guides our community, giving the Essex Center cohesiveness, identity, and direction. Current touchstones are listed below.

More information about the seven-stage growth process can be accessed from the dropdown tab above or the Action Button below.

We each are an eternal self, living within eternal communities, on an eternal life journey. 

We dwell within the intersection of body and spirit. We are both corporeal (body) and spirit (self) systems in constant interaction with each other, and we are living within a universe of experiences and relationships in the here-and-now that include an elements of being part of something larger than ourselves. 

We commit to working towards dynamic, thriving health in all the areas of our life: identity and authenticity, relationships, responsiveness and attunement, work, income and finances, physical and mental well-being, and our appearance. 

We strive to lead a good life, which means taking good care of oneself, others, and nature.

Simply put: take responsibility for oneself; show respect for others. 

We focus on practical spirituality. “Being” and “doing” are both needed in living well, in a balance that may differ from one individual to another. At the Essex Center, we tilt much more toward the practical, visible work of life, and much less toward a mystical approach.

Social skills are just as important as verbal skills. Motor skills are just as important as logic skills. Art and music skills are just as important as the skills to build things. At the Essex Center, we honor and support all the skills that are enumerated by Howard Gardner as Multiple Intelligences, better labeled as skills, aptitudes, or talents. These are language, logical-mathematical, spatial, musical, artistic, bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, naturalist, and existential/spiritual.