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Currently the director of Selby Ink , a publicity and marketing firm, Mari promotes authors who make a difference, and helps those authors to develop name recognition through traditional publicity efforts as well as social media. Selby ink specializes in the genres of body, mind, spirit, relationships, environmental issues, and social justice. Mari has published poetry books, her writing is included in anthologies, almanacs, magazines and newsletters. Mari's columns can be found on and San Francisco Book Review's column, 'After the Manuscript'. You can also find Mari on Facebook and Twitter @selbyink. |
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Biography
MARI SELBY: Whether it’s our own Mother’s tears or the Earth’s all water is precious. Dedicated to all Mothers, Mother’s Tears is one of the poems from Mari's soon to be released poetry book Lightning Strikes Twice. 
MARI SELBY: With spring in full swing, the Honeybees are dancing, the Black Ants are starting their hunting, the Electra tulips are singing, and the White Oak leaves are bursting forth. Are you awake, alive and energetic today? Really!
MARI SELBY: Today I have great gratitude for perceiving grace in my life. Knowing grace inspires me to relentlessly pursue a life of higher purpose, deeper meaning and greater service to my fellows. I feel compelled to freely give what's been given to me.
MARI SELBY: From her soon to be published book of poetry Lightning Strikes Twice
MARI SELBY: Each one of us is a rare egg, and each of our yolks, shells, and whites make a difference in this amazing universe. The painted eggs of our hopes and dreams have their own timing and season.
MARI SELBY: Native Americans and most of the indigenous peoples of the earth have known for thousands of years that drumming is a powerful spiritual tool which can induce meditative states. Often referred to as shamanic drumming the rhythm played is the heart beat of the earth, echoed within us. 
MARI SELBY: In literature we find endless descriptions of feeling love and compassion with our hearts. We 
MARI SELBY: I held onto the belief that miracles happen. And a miracle did happen. Through God’s intervention, all the prayers sent my way, my visualizations and a handful of great healers the cancer was transformed without traditional medical treatment.
MARI SELBY: I come with Laughter on my lips, Joy in my heart, and enough Wisdom to know I have much to learn. 
MARI SELBY: In ourpursuit of living an authentic life, based on God's constant call we define as synchronicity, we are like the ancient philosophers and scientists who searched for the philosopher's stone.
When we hear God calling and follow that clear small voice, we recognize synchronicity as a divine plan. We can experience synchronicity almost constantly as a thread that guides our next steps when we are open and aware of all the messages surrounding us. 
I always wanted to be a hero. As a child I thought if I was a hero I could save people, starting with my dysfunctional family. My heroes back then were; Superwoman from the comics, the brave girl who overcame the odds in Saturday matinees, or Madame Curie who I heard about in school. 
On August 23rd we discovered we are not in Kansas anymore. We were not lost, however we wondered what had gone astray when the ground moved under our feet. Earthquakes happened in California but not here. 
For 25 years I lived in Santa Fe, New Mexico. New Mexico is the only state I know of that has an official question. You are promptly asked 'red or green'? in a restaurant whenever you order any New Mexican dish, i.e. enchiladas or burritos. 
Preparing to meditate I settle in and begin breathing deeply. My feet are flat on the floor, my back pressed up against the cushions of the chair. 
Strength can be defined as emotional toughness: the necessary quality required to deal with stressful and painful situations. How many times have we heard these phrases: "You have to be tough to be strong." Or "What does not kill me makes me stronger." 
When I was a child 'Popeye the Sailor man' was a popular cartoon. Popeye was slight in stature, that is until he ate his can of spinach, which transformed him into a powerhouse who could face up to Brutus the bully and save the day! I hated canned spinach but I tried over and over to 'eats me spinach' and become like Popeye, but never got the results I wanted. 
Black Beans. In a culture that applauds instant pain relief, time as money, fast cars, and speedy delivery, actually cooking black beans from scratch is a celebration in stillness. 
What comes to mind when you think of Mother? The woman who gave birth to you? Mother Earth? A woman who nurtured and cared for you, like a teacher, a grandmother or a nanny? Or perhaps your mom was your 2nd father, as is true in gay male households? 
A short year ago, on April 20, 2010, a massive explosion rocked the Transocean oil rig DEEPWATER HORIZON, a state-of-the art mobile offshore drilling platform at work on a well in the Gulf of Mexico. Eleven workers were killed by the blast and survivors had just minutes to flee an inferno that would soon burn and sink the rig. 
It's tricky to know whether or not we are headed in the right direction because we don't always 'know' what's right for us. 
It's the middle of your day; do you hear your magnificent life calling you? Life is more than paying the bills, managing a job, surviving your family. You are a magnificent being with a fulfilling life before you. Are you settling for what you think you can have rather than what you fully deserve? 
Digging out my car is finished. The sidewalks are clear, but the roads are still treacherous. There is nowhere to go, so I sit by my office window and contemplate one hundred year old pine trees, their branches bent with snow. 
In Robert Frost's 'The Road Not Taken', he seems to gleefully admit that he took the 'road less traveled by.' Those of us seeking spiritual fulfillment are all on this less traveled road, whether we call the road a journey of self-actualization, the way to authenticity, or the evolution of our soul. 
When you give yourself over to the moment, only then do you allow yourself to feel. In his poem "And A Meadowlark Sang" originally written in Hindi, Indian Poet, Ravindra Kumar Karnani eloquently illustrates this point. 
With these long nights at the end of the year there is nothing to fear. We are never alone. There is always a star, an angel, or our God to guide us through this seasonal cycle. Rather than the introspection and contemplation that this season calls us to experience, we all too often throw away the short days in material gain, or fleeting entertainment. 
Do you dread the Holidays the shopping, the cooking, the cleaning, the preparing for family that you are not really sure you want to see? Instead of facing the Holidays with horror imagine donning twinkle toes and wearing a merry heart on your sleeve! 
What if everyone in the world acted as if we were part of each other's community, whether building barns, mourning our lost ones, or recovering from Mother Nature's power? Would we then know what it really means to be one? As caring humans we are awesome to behold in crisis. 
In the U.S.A. Thanksgiving ushers in the Winter Solstice, which marks the point where the lingering dark-nights slowly give way to light-filled days. Meanwhile we have a month of the longest night to go through. What can help sustain us during these dark days is to fill our hearts with gratitude? 
Contemporary myth suggests that magic can only be Harry Potter waving his wand at his enemies, or the mouse in 'Fantasia' making magic do his work, but in the '60's the Lovin' Spoonful revealed what magic is really all about. "Do you believe in magic in a young girl's heart? How the music can free her, whenever it starts...I'll tell you about the magic, and it'll free your soul..." 
We celebrate the Great Mother this time of the year as the holidays (holy days) of Halloween, All Saints Day, Hallows Eve, The Day of the Dead, or Samhain. Each marks the end of the harvest, the end of the 'lighter half' of the year and beginning of the 'darker half.' 
Wabi-sabi's roots lay in Zen Buddhism, which was brought from China to Japan by Eisai, a twelfth-century monk. Zen, with its principles of vast emptiness and nothing holy, stresses austerity, communion with nature, and above all, reverence for everyday life as the real path to enlightenment. 
"This is the beginning of a new day. I have been given this day to use as I WILL. I can waste it...or use it for good, but what I do today is important, because I am exchanging a day of my life for it! When tomorrow comes, this day will be gone forever, leaving in its place something that I have traded for it. I want it to be gain, and not loss; good and not evil." Anonymous. 
Today I sit watching wave's crash against the shore, their sound rumbling and pounding against the beach. Whenever I go on retreat to the ocean I feel relaxed and filled with wonder. For me there is nothing like the ocean to sort out the neural paths in my brain, and soothe nerve endings often too stressed.
