Almost Spring Greetings, Friends -
Do you hear it? Feel it slowly drawing near? An invisible being, comprised of earth's life-making elements, is arriving.
We embrace the growing gold light and delicate fragrance a New England spring wears. What a beauty! It's impossible not to marvel at the hastening approach of this face of life; shyly at first, waking up in bud, fur, bird song - the shifting position of the stars and moon and sun, this clarion call to awaken embraces us.
All the while, it's impossible to turn away from the unmistakable impact our collective footprint embosses upon the fabric of life. This ache of collective despair arises as we witness the loss of the integrity life's diversity provides. Unearthing your innate wise compassion to discover and deploy your unique "super-power" is what Spring’s call asks of us.
"Super-power" may sound inflated, misguided, and ridiculous. Still, it is indeed what we are doing when we take the time to listen to one another without judgment or expectation. Listen. Listening is a radical act in these polarizing times; To hear and then respond rather than react in a knee-jerk way. Responding might mean using diplomacy and walking away, asking questions to understand better, inviting dialogue, or making a date to continue the discussion. In the end, as the wise psychologist and Dharma teacher Sylvia Boorstein says, life is too difficult to be anything but kind.
I have two workshops to consider attending. Libraries host both. I'm grateful libraries can offer free seats at the table. Don't you love your local library?
Please share my Blog with friends and family who will appreciate my Workshops, Blog, Art, or all three! Thank you!
Wishing you a restorative spring season with Nature in heart and mind,
Marlow
Wednesday, April 19, 2023, 6:30 pm - 8:00 pm.
The Nature of Mindful Eating and Living. VIRTUAL, hosted by Bloomfield Library, CT. All are welcome; preregister
https://bplct.org/contact-us/
Check my website page for workshop details https://www.marlowshami.com/workshops.Deepen your practice as you listen to poetic guided meditations
https://www.marlowshami.com/guided-meditations
designed for insight and restoration.
www.marlowshami.com
My work encourages open hearts and minds to grow individual and community resilience and comradery.
The natural world reflects all we need to rekindle our innate compassion and wisdom. Remembering how "inter-being," beautiful words Thich Nhat Hanh offers to describe our interdependence with all of life, is a joy and a great source of wisdom. I hope my blog, programs, and artwork support you on the path.
Dream Swimming © 2022 Marlow D.J. Shami
2022 Artwork Highlights from Marlow Shami
Winter Greetings, Friends!
It is wonderful to be in touch with you once again! It has been some time since I published an art update, and there is much to share. My new animation work and archival prints are rooted in nature’s inspiration and always surprise me in the creation process. I trust you, too, will experience a pleasurable wonder in experiencing my artwork.
I’ve also jumped off Constant Contact for my emails and now publish my Art and Workshop Blog on my website. You’ll hear from me in an invitation email with a link to my blog.
Feel free to visit my blog anytime by going directly to my website www.marlowshami.com
Please let me know if you do not want to receive further art updates by emailing marlowshami@gmail.com with “no art update” in the subject line.
Now, the News!
Video Wall Exhibit
Dec. 12, 2022 - Feb. 25, 2023
Three of my new animations are exhibited at Cotuit Center for the Arts. It is a thrill to be included in this VIDEO WALL inaugural show! Karen LaFleur, curator, myself, and the music of Nancy Tucker comprise this beautiful launch of the VIDEO WALL.
If you are on Cape Cod, visit the Cotuit Center for the Arts. Enjoy our “Re-Visuals” exhibit on the VIDEO WALL Jan. 21, 2022 - Feb. 25, 2023.
If you plan to visit, be aware that the Center is closed for the holidays, 12/23/.22 - 1/21/23
Turn Up Sound
"Making Light" animation © Marlow Shami
One of six animations by Karen LaFleur and Marlow Shami, music by Nancy Tucker.
Turn Up Sound
MoCA L.I.ghts Projection Arts Festival
How exciting to have two of my animations juried into MOCA LIGHTS October 14 - 17, 2022 by the Patchogue Arts Council and Museum of Modern Art Long Island, NY.
This is a fantastic outdoor exhibition! If you live nearby I recommend you mark your calendar and plan to attend next year's extravaganza.
A fabulous rotating series of international artists were on display, transforming the downtown into an open-air museum. My “Light” animation was projected onto a 60-foot-tall building! “Mutual Us” was projected in the Night Visions gallery.
Light ©2022 Marlow D.J. Shami
NO Sound
Mutual Us © Marlow D.J. Shami
A video letter of love and heartbreak to Nature.
Turn Up Sound
ADDRESS EARTH EXPO group exhibit
(on campus) Oct 13 - Dec. 4, 2022
Inspiration Art Group International produced a rich multi-venue exhibition during its inaugural 2022 year.
My animation “Stardust” was part of a multi-venue exhibition taking place in New York and Connecticut. The Expo celebrates “our planet earth” through art.
Link to Performing Arts Center https://www.wcsu.edu/art/gallery/exhibitions/
"Stardust" © 2022 Marlow D.J. Shami
Turn UP Sound
Events Viewable Online
My animation “Homage to Taraxacum” is one of many compelling works included in the Inspiration Art Group International May 2022 Merriness of May virtual exhibit.
Link to the full exhibition: (My presentation can be seen at 17:00 minutes)
https://inspirationartgroup.org/exhibitions/virtual-exhibitions/merriness-of-may/
“Homage to Taraxacum” © Marlow D.J. Shami
Turn Up Sound
Techspressionist Salon Theme “Dreams”
I presented my animation and backstory to my work during this Salon. This intelligent, generous, and curious group of creatives makes the gathering fascinating and fruitful.
This Salon is free and open to anyone interested in art, science, psychology, and technology. You do not have to be an artist to attend and enjoy!
Techspressionism is an artistic approach in which technology is utilized as a means to express emotional experience.
It can also refer to a 21st-century artistic and social movement. Colin Goldberg started this artist group focused around Techspressionism in 2020.
View the full 90-minute “Dreams” Salon: https://techspressionism.com/video/salon/salon-58/
My presentation is at 32:20
or
View my Dream Swimming animation on VIMEO
(turn up sound)
Verum Ultimum Gallery
"Liminal Exhibit"
View the entire exhibit overflowing with exquisite interpretations of the " Liminal " concept by following the link below.
https://www.verumultimumartgallery.com/liminal-ii
Thank you, Jennifer Gillia Cutshall, artist, founder, and curator of this fine Portland OR. based gallery. Your unique and heartfelt advocacy of the arts in your brick-and-mortar and virtual galleries has benefited many artists worldwide.
Making Light II, Archival Print © Marlow D.J.Shami
Wishing you a peaceful season alive with all that brings you joy and inspiration amidst it all!
With Nature in heart and mind, Marlow
This a reminder of my upcoming virtual workshops
SEE BELOW FOR DETAILS
You are invited to attend upcoming free virtual workshops. See the dates and venue listing below. Go to the venue's website to pre-register.
Dec. 14, 2022, 6:30 - 8:00 pm ET, The Nature of Mindful Eating & Living. Brockton, MA Public Library, https://www.brocktonpubliclibrary.org/index.php
January 18, 2023, 6:30 - 8:00 pm ET, The Nature of Mindful Eating & Living. South Hadley Public Library, MA. https://www.shadleylib.org/
January 24, 2023, 6:30 - 8:00 pm ET, Nature As Healer. Woodbury Public Library, CT. https://woodburylibraryct.org/event-keeper/
February 23, 2023, 6:30 - 8:00 pm ET, Nature As Mentor. Beacon Falls Public Library, CT https://www.mybflib.org/
CLICK on the below image to view Making Light.
It was recently featured in Long Island’s MOMA & PATCHOGUE Art Council Everything Glows Show,
an immersive open-air exhibition. Turn up your sound and go full screen.
Deepen your practice as you listen to poetic guided meditations
https://www.marlowshami.com/guided-meditations
designed for insight and restoration.
Meditations are priced on a sliding scale.
"Like" my NEW website!
www.marlowshami.com
Dream Swimming, by Marlow D.J. Shami 2022, Archival print.
I have been offering programs and exhibiting artwork for 25 years. My work encourages open hearts and minds to grow individual and community resilience and comradery.
The natural world reflects all we need to rekindle our innate compassion and wisdom. Remembering how “inter-being,” beautiful words Thich Nhat Hanh offers to describe our interdependence with all of life, is a joy and a great source of wisdom. I hope my blog, programs, and artwork support you on the path.
Please let me know if you'd rather not receive future blog posts by responding
with "no subscription" in the subject line. Thank you!
Dear Friends of Nature,Is the autumn season beaconing with its colors, smells, festivities of the forest, and fairs? Well, it sure is for me in the cozy corner of NW, CT. Wherever you are in the world, the natural world is dynamic, reaching out in creative wake-you-up ways!
Please review my upcoming virtual workshop below and read on!
Last week, I met a prickly muse that inspired my essay, The Shelter of Your Gaze. You can meet her as I had if you click the link to a 30-sec video of our encounter. Ms. Prickly nudged me to create a short video illustrating the many places and beings we experience the gaze of shelter in our daily life. You can view both videos below by clicking the image.
The Prickly Muse video. Click the video to start.
Listening to one another.
Workshiop November 17th!
With the support of our virtual community, deepen your ability to communicate with Nature. Learn collaborative Nature healing skills. Renew your commitment to our natural world and your well-being.
NOVEMBER 17, 6:30 PM-8:00 PM Eastern Time, The Nature of Mindful Eating & Living costs $20. A virtual experiential workshop. View my website for details. Click Here
You will receive a link and workshop details the day before we meet. Email marlowshami@gmail.com with qurestions you might have. Payment will reserve your seat in the program.
*SEE details below on how to make payment via PayPal
With Nature in heart and mind,
Marlow
The Shelter of Your Gaze
by Marlow Shami
I am looking into the animal's eyes; this creature knows my intention to be present. Our connection seems to open a portal between us that can only be felt, not seen.
This melding of kinship has occurred in the past with a chipmunk, a tufted titmouse, a tree, and a river; in this case, it was a young porcupine. I had seen her a few weeks earlier positioned far too high in a young black birch tree, precariously fixed to a thin branch. Wildlife rehabilitators handling these solitary animals say it is not unusual for them to fall from trees occasionally.
Seeing that dark silhouette perched so high caused a wave of fear for her safety. Now a few weeks later, walking the same trail with a friend, we jump away from the trail side, both having noticed something alive and unknown alongside our path.
"It's a porcupine," my companion gasped in surprise.
Peaking over a fern, she is that same young porcupine, I'm almost positive. Moms give birth to up to four porcupettes (yep, that's what a newborn is called) at a time. I might have seen two different animals from the same litter, but I comfort myself by thinking she's one and the same.
Speaking to her, sending out the intention of "I'm here, I see you; I'm in love with this moment we are in." She remained still with her back to me. She did not run. Standing just two feet away, she seemed to be listening.
Slowly the diminutive animal turned to look, our eyes locked, and the portal splashed open at that moment.
Time evaporated. The world shifted. Nothing insulated the space between that sweet presence and me; it was wind, autumn leaves skipping along stones and moss, and birds conversing deep in the woods. A sweetness in my belly and warmth in my chest melted the barrier to our melding. No thoughts now, just those tiny black button eyes, chestnut and black-furred body with ivory-streaked patterns of different lengths and thicknesses of quills. An invitation into reverie.
The feeling is expansive, inclusive and magnanimous.
This is home to her; A place created by the flow of her interactions, instincts, and intelligence. No constructs. No assumptions, judgments, expectations, or habits can block my vision and heart. Such a sacred space to have been welcomed into.
This experience has happened before. It happened daily as a child wandering the back woods behind my home; A natural state of relationship with everything I innately knew I was a part of. As a child, the illiterate language of Nature, the senses, and various attractions to my surroundings allowed me to experience comfort, company, and resilience. This shift was more accessible and more natural then.
Shifts from practical/rational into a calm, receptive state happen as a function of being a part of the whole of life, known and unknown. There is much mystery in life. Little is understood about how and why this shift happens. Still, I believe it is a part of our evolutionary heritage and essential to our survival and planet to pay attention to.
We are designed to enjoy and restore ourselves in this contemplative space throughout our lives—the recipe for feeling that “welcome home, dearest friend,” is etched in our hearts.
Enjoy this special video of the many faces of the Shelter of Your Gaze.
Turn up the sound!
Click the video to start.
P.S. Consider sharing your experiences within the Shelter of Your Gaze in your daily life. I'd greatly appreciate learning about your adventures, contemplative insights and, with your permission, share what you have written in upcoming publications to help inspire others on the path.
Please share my Blog post with friends you know will appreciate.
Thank you!
*Click link for directions on how to pay using the PayPal website. Use my name Marlow d.J. Shami
https://www.paypal.com/us/smarthelp/article/how-do-i-send-money-help293
Please let me know if you'd rather not receive future blog posts by responding
with "no subscription" in the subject line.
I have been offering programs and exhibiting artwork for 25 years. My work is to encourage open hearts and minds to grow individual and community resilience and comradery. The natural world reflects all we need to rekindle our innate compassion and wisdom. Remembering how “inter-being,” beautiful words Thich Nhat Hanh offers to describe our interdependence with all of life, is a joy and a great source of wisdom. I hope my blog, programs, and artwork support you on the path.