Well, hello!
You’re reading Mappy Monday, a free monthly newsletter about budget travel, quirky self-help experiments, thrifty money hacks, movie and book gems, and occasional silliness. You’ll also learn what’s new on my MappyEverAfter website.
🤖 AI Shenanigans: Meta Ray-Ban Display AI Glasses
💰 Money: Citibank’s $325 - $1500 Promo
🧪 Experiment, and New on my MappyEverAfter website: Divide and Conquer - Parallel Adventures
🌍 Travel: Kumankaya, a 2-month Ayahuasca Retreat in Mexico
🌞 Health: Make the Afterglow Last
🎥 Watch: The Song That Calls You Home
📚 Read: Jeremy Narby’s “The Cosmic Serpent”
💡 Mind Hack: Gabor Maté says: Hold On to Your Kids!
🎈 Just because: TSA Has Jokes
Note: I will always tell you if I’m getting any referral bonuses and how much they are. There’s one in this letter. If you apply for the Citi promo, you’ll get from $325 to $1500 (depending on how big an account you choose), and I’ll get $100 for referring you. Please and thank you.
🤖 AI Shenanigans
Meta Ray-Ban Display AI Glasses
Meta is launching its first AI glasses with a built-in display on September 30, 2025 in the US (everywhere else in 2026), with a $799 price tag. Think of them as chunky glasses that beam tiny messages, directions, etc. into your view on the right lens instead of on your phone. You control them with small hand gestures that a wristband picks up.
All this sounds much cooler than it looked when Zuckerberg tried to demo them at Meta Connect and everything went haywire (he blamed the Wi-Fi). For now, they only run Meta apps like WhatsApp, Instagram, etc. but it’s a first real step away from life glued to a screen (or the next step in AI’s slow creep from phone at your fingertips… to wrist… to face… and before long, likely straight into your brain).
Here’s a sneak peek (and no, people can’t see your messages from the outside):
Now let’s see what tricks your bank account can do!
💰 Money:
Citibank Promo
This is the latest bank promo I took advantage of. The “Enhanced direct deposit” includes Zelle, so the hubby sent cash into my new account. Now we’re waiting the required time before pulling it back out into our interest-earning account.
🧪 Experiment:
Divide and Conquer - Parallel Adventures
This summer, the hubby and I took a break from traveling as a duo.
While he was in the Mexican jungle having profound spiritual revelations, I was having my own deep experiences: sinking into luxury hotel amenities, like the artsy Andaz Vienna with its sauna-and-crushed-ice ritual, or the historic Lindner Prague Castle set by the 16th-century Strahov Monastery (both courtesy of Chase points, naturally), swooning over the tiny toes of the new baby in the family, and savoring rare time with relatives. As I write this, my sister’s bunny-soft cat is curled up asleep in my lap.
Solo trips, even short ones, gift you two souvenirs: the swagger of knowing you can handle yourself anywhere, and a set of fresh stories no one’s heard a thousand times (yet).
🌍 Travel, and New on My MappyEverAfter website:
2 Months at Kumankaya - Ayahuasca Retreat in Mexico
After twenty years of searching for the “right” ayahuasca center, one that checked all our “very reasonable” (dozens? hundreds?) boxes for safety, authenticity, and genuine healing, my hubby finally found himself in the middle of a Mexican rainforest, wondering what he had gotten himself into.
What started as a crazy adventure, turned into 2 months of healing from decades-long injuries (physical and emotional), and gave this socially awkward introvert something he never thought he needed: a sense of belonging, community, and home.
Here is Mark’s love letter to Kumankaya, its people, 32 ayahuasca ceremonies, and the kindness that he found along the way:
Miracles Do Exist: My 8-week Ayahuasca Retreat in Mexico
🌞 Health:
Make the Afterglow Last
The thing about big psychedelic journeys, whether it’s ayahuasca in the jungle or something closer to home, is that the ceremonies themselves are only half the story. The other half is what you do once you’re back in regular life, when grocery lists and laundry don’t exactly feel like the same universe you just came from.
That’s where the MAPS Psychedelic Integration Workbook comes in, like a gentle travel guide for the return trip back into everyday life so your mental health doesn’t take a dive. In 26 pages, the workbook gives you space to sort through all the “WTF just happened?” feelings. Instead of handing you rules, it gives you prompts and reflections across six areas: mind, body, spirit, lifestyle, relationships, and nature. The idea isn’t to tie everything up neatly, but to keep the conversation with yourself going, to notice how little things shift, and to let new rituals and insights slowly sneak their way into daily life. In MAPS’ own words, it’s about “integrating your integration”. Not a one-time task, but more like learning to live with the doors you just opened.
🎥 Watch:
The Song That Calls You Home
The Song That Calls You Home (watch on Youtube, for free) came recommended by Ashley and Remi, the founders of Kumankaya. It takes you right into the world of Shipibo healers and shows you the methodology behind their work.
You’ll hear from real people, including doctors. They explain how, alongside the ayahuasca brew, those traditional healing songs (the icaros) are the main ingredient that helps clear decades of stored trauma. It’s one of those documentaries that opens your mind and makes you think, “Oh, that’s what all the fuss is about.” Perfect for anyone who’s ever wondered what really goes on when people talk of plant medicine ceremonies.
📚 Read:
Jeremy Narby’s “The Cosmic Serpent”
"The Cosmic Serpent" is one of those books that either blows your mind or makes you question the author's sanity (or both simultaneously).
As a Stanford-educated, Canadian-Swiss anthropologist working with Amazonian shamans, Narby noticed a striking overlap between their visions in ayahuasca ceremonies and actual shapes seen in molecular biology, like the double-helix of DNA. From there, he sets off to explore how indigenous knowledge fits with modern science. It’s part memoir, part detective story, and part “what if the universe is much stranger than you think?”
You might like it if… you enjoy books that straddle the line between science and mysticism, you like having your worldview gently rattled, or you suspect that shamans and scientists might be climbing the same mountain from opposite sides.
💡 Mind Hack:
Hold On to Your Kids
Let’s be honest, adulthood is mostly damage control for whatever our well-meaning parents did to us. Some people book ayahuasca jungle retreats, others have a quiet meltdown in the Target snack aisle, but we’re all basically asking the same question: “Who am I underneath all this childhood crap?”
We can’t change our past. But if we have kids in our lives, we can absolutely break the cycle.
Psychologist Gábor Maté has this gorgeous way of explaining why kids get mad over the “wrong” color cup at breakfast, or the horrible injustice of broccoli on their plate. They’re not naughty, they’re designed this way. Kids are supposed to try on huge, messy, ridiculously dramatic feelings. That’s how they learn to be human.
He says that our job isn’t to squash their feelings with a “Quiet!” or to try and out-yell them like it’s a competition.
Our job is to be their umbrella in the storm, the steady signal that says, “You’re safe. I’ve got you. Whatever you’re feeling is okay.” After all, if we can’t handle our own temper, how can we expect a tiny person whose brain is literally still under construction to manage theirs?
The best gift you can give your child is your own happiness.
- Thich Nhat Hanh
Instead of “Stop crying!”, sit with them and let your calm body be an example. Your regulated nervous system is contagious.
Instead of “Stop making a scene!”, narrate: “I see that dropping your ice cream really made you angry.”
Instead of “Just eat it!”, get curious: “What do you mind the most? Is it the broccoli’s color, shape, or the fact it doesn’t taste like cookies?”
When we show them that all their feelings are welcome and survivable, we’re not raising depressed people-pleasers who are terrified to rock the boat. We’re raising authentic humans who can trust their own inner compass.
If you get the first 3 years right, you can relax.
- Gabor Maté
Maybe the best thing we can do for the kids in our lives is to simply not pass on the same emotional garbage we’re still trying to unload.
Want to hear Gabor Maté explain it way better than I just did? Check out these links:
How not to screw up your kids (on London Real podcast). Why parenting is hard today (on Doug Bopst podcast). Why You Feel Lost in Life: Dr. Gabor Maté on Trauma & How to Heal (on Mel Robbins podcast). Hold on to your kids (a book by Gabor Maté). Childhood Development & Parenting (on Gabor Maté’s website).
And in case you’re scared to have kids because you might screw them up, watch this:
🎈 Just Because:
TSA Has Jokes
TSA PreCheck (US expedited airport security service that lets you keep your shoes on and your laptop in your bag) has a surprisingly witty Instagram account.
If you’re curious what exactly TSA/Global Entry is and how you can get it for free, I wrote about it in August.
So there you have it. May your cosmic serpent get through TSA Pre-Check with those spy glasses on.
Be Mappy,
Mags
