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⫷Earth Bhakti is a Creative Ecology by Artist Anja Marais Merging Art, Devotion, and Earth Stewardship.⫸

Along a forest path in Valdez, framed reliefs are Along a forest path in Valdez, framed reliefs are hanging among the trees, meeting bark, wind, shadow, and passing light. Valdez adobe is carrying the roughness of the ground, Abiquiú mica is catching light, and Indian silk is bringing softness, pattern, and touch into the earthen surfaces. Each work is gathering texture, gesture, ornament, and simple form while staying close to the place around it. Walking along the trail, the body is coming near, moving away, turning, and seeing each work again from another position. The exhibition is unfolding through these encounters, with earth, material, weather, and attention continuing to meet.
Along a forest path in Valdez, framed reliefs are Along a forest path in Valdez, framed reliefs are hanging among the trees, meeting bark, wind, shadow, and passing light. Valdez adobe is carrying the roughness of the ground, Abiquiú mica is catching light, and Indian silk is bringing softness, pattern, and touch into the earthen surfaces. Each work is gathering texture, gesture, ornament, and simple form while staying close to the place around it. Walking along the trail, the body is coming near, moving away, turning, and seeing each work again from another position. The exhibition is unfolding through these encounters, with earth, material, weather, and attention continuing to meet.
Adobe, rock, and lime are resting like a snowflake Adobe, rock, and lime are resting like a snowflake among the pines in the mountain forest.

Hands are carrying, pressing, shaping, and smoothing earth into form. Small creatures are moving through openings and sheltering beneath edges. Wind, rain, sun, and living bodies are entering the work.

Mountain Shrine is weathering, softening, and slowly returning to earth.
Materiality, Temporal Flux, and Collective Embodim Materiality, Temporal Flux, and Collective Embodiment in Ecological Art Practice

Mountain Shrine is emerging through a practice of reciprocity with place. Rather than imposing form upon the landscape, the work is developing through sustained observation, listening, making, and collaboration with the land.

Built from earth, clay, sand, lime, natural fibers, and plant-based binders, the installation draws upon traditional earthen-building techniques practiced for generations across New Mexico and Mexico. Mantras and prayers offered by members of the community are enclosed within its foundations, becoming part of the work’s inner structure.

The materials are weathering, shifting, and gradually returning to the soil. Land, time, climate, material, prayer, and human intention are continuing to shape the work together.

Existing within a liminal space where landscape, ancestors, architecture, ritual, and sculpture meet, Mountain Shrine allows these forms to move through and shape one another. The shrine is forming through relationship with place, inviting consideration of how we are participating within the living world through attention and reciprocity.
My heart is filling with gratitude for everyone ga My heart is filling with gratitude for everyone gathering beneath the trees, breathing prayers across feathers, tying them into the wind, and singing together in devotion to Mother Earth. The Mountain Breathed exhibition and the inauguration of Mountain Shrine are still moving through me as such a beautiful day.

Thank you, Lesley and Alex, for carrying, mixing, slinging mud, and working beside me. Thank you, Sarkis and Julie, for bringing voice, rhythm, and song into the kirtan.

Humans are sitting beneath the trees while blue jays are moving through the branches and lizards are slipping between stones. Wind is sounding through the shrine and moving through our voices. We are singing with the living Earth.

Thank you for being there.
I keep returning to Credo Mutwa’s writing about sc I keep returning to Credo Mutwa’s writing about sculpture creating a place where people and earth are meeting. Through that meeting, healing, memory, and relationship are being carried within the community.

See the link in the bio for today’s gathering at @blackbirdrefuge
Mountain Shrine is emerging through a practice of Mountain Shrine is emerging through a practice of reciprocity with place. Rather than imposing form upon the landscape, the work has been developing through sustained observation, listening, making, and collaboration with the land. 

See the link in the bio for today’s gathering at @blackbirdrefuge
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Taos Song Circle

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I live and work on the ancestral lands of the Red Willow People of Taos Pueblo, as well as the Jumanos, Coahuiltecan, Comanche, Tonkawa, Lipan Apache, and Sana peoples.

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All Rights Reserved © Anja Tara Marais / Earth Bhakti LLC - Made with ♡ in New Mexico.

If we surrendered to Earth's intelligence we could rise up rooted, like trees.- Rainer Maria Rilke