ABout Mari
Mari Andrew is a New York Times bestselling author, artist, and speaker, who has gained an international reputation for joyfully philosophical illustrations and essays that meander between deep and light, bitter and sweet. Mari is in the business of paying attention, and her work reflects her specific observations turned into universal life lessons. As writer Suleika Jaouad says, “At each turn, she uncovers hard-earned coins of wisdom in the most unlikely places.”
Mari Andrew didn’t formally study writing or art, but her fabulously strange life path filled with stints in food service and retail, working multiple jobs in foreign countries, profound grief and heartbreak, mental health struggles, lots of solo travels, and a very odd serious disease, has prepared her well for a lifetime of appreciating and documenting each moment with equal attentiveness.
Mari currently lives in New York City, which is where she finds both creative spark and inner peace.
From Mari’s latest book, My Inner Sky, whiCH is basiCally her mission statement:
I love positive affirmations and intentional candles as much as the next millennial, but after a couple of years coming up heartbroken or just bored after striving for unsustainable happiness, I looked inside and thought, “Isn’t this all beautiful too?” When I finally gave up positive thinking for present thinking, that’s when I really began not only to get comfortable with this transitional period, but to see the beauty in it.
Giving my transitions as much attention and curiosity as my brightest after- noons has helped me appreciate the inner sky I’m continually trying to make more colorful. Who wants a sky that is blue all the time?
Give me some clouds, some rain, the occasional crazy lightning storm that makes your cat hide in the pile of socks in your closet.
Give me a night so dark it looks like a wall finished with black lacquer—the perfect backdrop for stars, an outdoor dance party, or an existential cry.
Give me early mornings where I’m rushing to the airport, to work, or to get coffee before the Sunday morning crowds, where I’m taken aback that the light is still pink and I think of the day as a newborn
Give me breezes, still air, rainbows, and those giant cumulonimbus clouds that look like friendly ancient grandfathers.
I want the full menu, everything available to me in this life: dark, bright, that purply-pink weird twilight color, and golden.
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I nourish my alive-ness by fully using my senses. 🍋 My goal here on earth is to “touch, taste, smell my way to the holy and hidden heart of life,” as my man Frederick Buechner says, and travel is a Master Class on that jounrney.
I’ve now created 3 pieces of art for the @princessbermuda hotel, all documenting what I’ve touched, tasted, and smelled on the jewel box island of Bermuda.
Alive-ness is fed with new colors, new scents, deepened feelings, and meaningful interactions. During my third trip to Bermuda, I’m getting a King Size Big Gulp Extra Large serving of Life-Food and I feel my creativity, gratitude, and wonder expand like crazy.
Thank you Bermuda, thank you @princessbermuda, thank you water, thank you sea turtles, thank you beach, and thank you nose/eyes/ears/hands for the giant dose of vitality!
PS If you visit the Hamilton Princess Hotel, look around for my artwork! (When you’re done admiring the Matisse, Picasso, Murakami, Ai Weiwei, etc etc 😋)
NEW YORK NEW YORK NEW YORK NEW YORK!
This will be such a ✨delight✨! I get to celebrate @danajerimaier’s book launch in Brooklyn! She’s a dear friend of mine but also a beacon of unending creative inspiration, and you’re invited to come join our chat all about creativity! 💫
Dana’s new book is ideal for anyone who struggles with the so-called creative process (NOT ANYONE I KNOW, WINK WINK!!) and we’re going to get into it: experimentation, procrastination, social media, and all your burning questions. SEE YOU IN BROOKLYN! 🎨
LINK IN BIO! ⤴️
Happy birthday to both my books! 🎈I keep a little album full of photos that people have taken of them with pets, and here are some of my faves 🐹
Someone recently asked me if I feel pride when I see my books out and about. Pride isn’t the right word—it’s more like affection and appreciation, the way I’d feel if I ran into my 5th grade teacher at the grocery store.
“Oh hi, you!” I think when I see them standing so sweet and vulnerable on a bookshelf, like one of these precious animals saying “Pick me! Pet me!”
Something I love about writing books is that I can’t go back and edit them; they’re expressions of a moment in time. I love the versions of myself who wrote these books and I also love how much I’ve grown since I wrote them.
As I write my way through new chapters of life, I feel overwhelming thankfulness for the people who helped get these books into the world, and the people (and pets!) who have read them. Its still completely surreal to think about, and “gratitude” is the understatement of my lifetime. 💕
In the past couple years, I’ve had a lot of fear around MY NEXT CHAPTER and how I was going to make it bigger and better, adding more and more and expanding in all directions.
As soon as my ego gave up on that story (it only took a few panic attacks!) I learned that all I had to do was make my next chapter more TRUE.
I was just reading about a fig tree in South Africa whose roots are 400 feet deep (!!) because it took that much underground growth for the tree to secure a water source.
All of my growth since 2020 has been underground. From the outside, it may even look like my work is growing in the wrong direction (my IG following shrinks by the moment, my events are smaller 🧘🏼♀️) but I am committed to growing toward what’s life-giving, just like the fig tree who journeyed 121 meters underneath to find its source of energy.
I just spent a week at @kripalucenter, teaching self-endearment with one of my greatest teachers @ruthielindsey, whose integrity and brightness blow me away.
After our program I stayed at Kripalu and I made all my nervous system’s dreams come true, with yoga and walks and lovingly-made food and craniosacral therapy and journaling with bright colored markers. And my soul grew leaps and bounds in directions that no one will ever see.
My next chapter is so small and lovely, restful and restrained. My circle is smaller, my days are lighter, and my goals are tinier. And it feels so true and so right.
Thank you @kripalucenter for showing me what the ideal version of that deeply-rooted life can look like, so I could become clear about which thoughts or habits I can shed in order to become the truest, deepest-rooted Mari I can be.
And thanks so much to the gorgeous group of “students” we go to “teach” (or, teachers we got to learn from 🙂 who attended our retreat. It was such a special, relaxing, nourishing time and I am watching my roots erupt in joyful growth. 🌱
💥 Kripalu Presenter 💥
“Self love” can be a…daunting concept. When you have a lifelong, complicated relationship with someone (like yourself), you don’t just love them: You also like them. You also get annoyed with them. You have honeymoon periods and rough patches, and a responsibility to show you care.
My beloved friend and life-changing teacher @ruthielindsey have been on the self-love journey for A MINUTE. We have both done so much healing and learning and un-learning, and now we have affection for ourselves that even rivals our affection for the birds in our backyards 🪺
So we’re teaching a retreat called BECOMING YOUR OWN BEST FRIEND from March 3-5 at @kripalucenter (in Western Massachusetts, close to Upstate New York).
When Ruthie and I first talked about this retreat last summer (!) we kept using the words JOY, PLAYFULNESS, DELIGHT.
Let’s hang out with our inner kid, inner teenager, inner 20-year-old, and fall in love with every version of ourselves ever (even the ones with the worst hairstyle of our lives/all time).
Ruthie and I have both done a lottttttt of self-work and a lot of it has been hard. And tough. And involved getting extremely lost in the woods looking for a shaman along with the most confused Uber driver ever. Just two white ladies looking for a yurt, what else is new.
But this time we want to bring some of the lightness, sweetness, sensuality, and smiles we’ve enjoyed in the past couple years. Growth doesn’t have to be so TOUGH. It can also be gentle, lovely, skippy. It can take place at an EDM concert or an empty cathedral, a movie theatre or on a date. It can happen through reading, steam-room-ing (my new thing), rollerskating, or sitting on your couch.
I haven’t been to Kripalu yet (!!), but I’ve heard AMAZING things. Soul-shaping, mind-massaging, body-revitalizing things. Apparently the food is bomb, the land is sacred, and the massages are out of this world.
Doesn’t that sound nice?!!
Registration: Link in my bio or at kripalu.org.
Ruthie and I are going to lose our minds when we finally meet you! Let’s get endeared to ourselves, together.
Photo by @carolwildphotography
About my “writing” “process,” from my latest newsletter
OUT OF THE BLUE, VERSION 2:
My newsletter, Out of the Blue, moves to Substack today! If you’ve been reading Out of the Blue over at Bulletin, think of this as a move across town, from one home I really loved to a new one that I’m just beginning to decorate.
Here in my new Substack home, I’m envisioning bringing in a big old farmhouse dinner table into the dining room with enough seats for whoever wants to join.
Think: clattering of dishes, bottles and bottles of your favorite beverage, side conversations, hearty laughter, a tear here and there, flattering candlelight, and more than enough to go around.
All of my new plans for this community will be possible because of the new paid subscription option. Imagine! You! A patron of the arts! The option will include lots of fun bonuses and experimentation that remind me of the early days of starting this IG account 🐣
Join me if you love candlelight!!! mariandrew.substack.com
Or link in bio 🤗
📸 @carolwildphotography
To find the answer, change the question ✏️
It makes me want to buy school supplies 🍂
I used to get nervous before teaching a workshop or leading a retreat because I thought that I had….anything to do with it.
The ego attaches quickly and easily to external crap like numbers and names and false possessiveness.
But the soul knows what’s really going on, and the retreat at @artoflivingboone last weekend was a radiant example: The experience is all about the community that forms together when folks are bold and wholehearted enough to fully show up.
It’s a sacred synergy that can’t be created by any one person, and I suspect it has something to do with something beyond us…like that grandiose full moon on Saturday, perhaps??
I remain in a state of wonder as I reflect on what these precious beings shared and how they supported each other as we wrote and created and walked and emoted together.
Here are a few photos from a stunning weekend in a gorgeous place (did you know that the Blue Mountains are really blue? I thought they might have been called that just for drama).
There will be more retreats to come (I will try to keep the moon phases in mind as I schedule them in the future), but for now, I’m basking in what was: and I’m watching out for every one of these humans who are about to break open hearts around the world with their transformative creations.
1. Group photo by @anusha_godavarthi
2. Wonder-full Harini @thehobbyistchronicles by @anusha_godavarthi
3. Gentle art by not-on-social-media-god-bless-her Sandy Potter
4. Collage Queen @m_serrano497 by @anusha_godavarthi
5. Books in gift shop @bymariandrew 🙂
6. Full moon sighting by @bulbashka
7. Marvelous monsters by @lisa.sinicki
8. Praying mantis by @god x @motherearth
9. Sunset on the retreat center by @dustyroseklass
10. Meeeeeee by 🍂🍁🍂🍁
Lessons from Octobers past 🎃🍁🍂
Today’s my birthday! And I’m at PEACE, baby!!!! 🤩
Swipe to see a letter I wrote to my adult self when I was 14 🥺 I try to read it once a year. Little does she know I can’t drive…
Photo by @carolwildphotography
Just human-ing 😌
Notes to self/you
Libra Season: a pearl earring dropped into the last morsels of the year, inviting us to seek out elegance, serenity, beauty, and juicy gossip.
My favorite thing about being a Libra is the sound of the word Libra. Which is probably a Libra thing to say.
Photo by @carolwildphotography
🌳 In this week’s newsletter 🌳
Thinking about the great Mac Miller today: profound being and forever inspiration!!! 🤍
From my August 24 newsletter 🐞