About
Art, healing, and spirituality
“The meditation infuses the healing work. The healing work infuses the art-making. The three disciplines together express a deeper dimension I’ve been experiencing since childhood.”
– Mariya Rivera
Photo: Michael Falco Photography, 2026.
All Rights Reserved. Born and raised in Stamford, Connecticut, I benefited from a public-school art program which offered a broad range of instruction as well as professional art displayed in my elementary school’s auditorium corridor. Daily art classes in high school consisted of drawing and painting sessions utilizing various media and subjects.
I marveled at stained-glass windows in every place of worship I visited, and artwork installed in relatives’ and friends’ homes always cheered and inspired me. Currier & Ives and Constable reproductions hung on my grandparents' living room walls. Aunts and uncles owned several original oils variously depicting autumn woods by a brook, Italian landscapes, a Romani woman, and a still life including a white Persian cat. One of my best friends lived in a custom-designed home enhanced by a variety of pieces in several media: portraits, landscapes, sculpture, photography and innovative op art.
My religious upbringing informed my perception, adding an unseen dimension to the world around me. Both my mother, Rita, and my father, Jesús, emphasized prayer as a necessary component of life. Everything had meaning for me, so when others regarded me quizzically as I attempted to convey my understanding of that deeper level, I couldn’t understand why they didn’t feel what I saw. There’s been a lifelong sense of restriction to familiar or recognizable images to convey what I experience as liminal or symbolic.
This leads into my healing work.
Con Mi Abuelo. Mixed media exploration.
The prologue to my practice goes at least as far back as my paternal grandmother, Maria Luisa, a curandera and medium in Puerto Rico. Whenever my siblings or I sustained cuts and scrapes during the course of childhood exploration and roughhousing, Dad would hold his hands over the cleaned and bandaged area for a minute or so, which we found reassuringly soothing. Mom taught me basic first-aid skills very early on, and infused everything she did with love.
Subsequent to earning a bachelor’s degree in liberal arts, I learned a t'ai chi chuan form, continued with acupressure, and completed a 500-hour professional course in Zen shiatsu developed by Pauline Sasaki, adding several continuing education courses over the span of a decade. In addition to my private practice, I taught Zen shiatsu via the Fairfield, Connecticut, public continuing education evening program.
Maria Luisa. Mixed media exploration.
Life shifted at the turn of the 21st Century, urging me to return to making art. I devoted a few years to re-developing my drawing and painting techniques by subletting a studio space at Remington’s Arctic Street campus in Bridgeport’s East Side. This led, surprisingly, to a colleague's recommendation I participate in a 3-year training course in Psychosynthesis. I enrolled, completing my certification as a Psychosynthesis trainer with a self-published Psychosynthesis workbook, Riding the Waves. Around this time, craving a deeper spiritual practice, I discovered the Sahaj Marg raja yoga system, now known as Heartfulness, taught by Shri Ram Chandra Mission.
I was blessed to meet SRCM's then-President Shri Parthasarathi Rajagopalachari, and was subsequently prepared as a trainer in the method. A few years later, when I experienced back-to-back health crises, a meditation sister recommended I seek auxiliary support from a medical doctor specializing in innovative medicine. After restoring balance to my system, that doctor, in turn, urged me to consult with master dowser Raymon Grace and spiritual healer Ron Young, to address issues beyond the doctor's scope of practice.
At Play. Acrylic on Canvas, 1978.
I continue practicing, and training aspirants in, Heartfulness meditation; this service is offered freely to all sincere seekers of spirituality. I have been a student of Ron Young via his Healing Wisdom courses since 2015, having completed an 18-month long, 600-hour course in spiritual healing and constellation work March 7, 2021. The opportunity to assist in others' healing journeys deeply humbles and inspires me.
Grandma + Grandpa = Mom. Mixed media exploration.
With Nature as my primary muse, recent artistic forays into abstraction have indicated a shift towards clearly developed symbolism. Visual references provide consistent access to that deeper language or alphabet. Several dear friends and relatives have passed on, and much of my personal landscape has changed, so I find myself re-examining family studio portraits and celebration snapshots, in addition to familiar land- or cityscapes in travel photos as prompts for further exploration and development.
Currently a member of the Art Society of Old Greenwich, the Katonah Museum Artists’ Association, and the Cultural Alliance of Fairfield County, I have won a “Jurist’s Award of Excellence” for the ASOG 2023 “Summer SouL” show at the Flinn Gallery in Greenwich Library, as well as two “Best in Oils” awards from ASOG for their Garden Show, May 2019 and April 2015, and “Best in Show”, for the Oil Drum Trash Can competition in Bridgeport, May 2006.
I have been practicing healing modalities for over 30 years, studying with amazing teachers. These include, but are by no means limited to:
Ron Young (Spiritual Healing and Constellations, Healing Wisdom)
Raymon Grace (Dowsing)
Cynthia P. Russell, Ph. D. (Psychosynthesis)
Rosalind Till, MSW (Psychosynthesis)
Donna Reisinger, MA (Psychosynthesis)
Linda Hooper (Energy Chelation)
Pauline Sasaki (Zen Shiatsu)
Eileen Karn (Acupressure)
Master Min Pai: (T'ai Chi Chuan, via Wellspring Zendo advanced students Ellen and James Best)
Paul J. Donoghue, Ph.D. (Touchstone: Identifying Emotions)
Within those same 30+ years, my art-making efforts have been nurtured and guided by equally amazing contemporary, regionally based artists, via Silvermine Art Center or R&F Handmade Paints:
Lisa Pressman (“100 Works”, Self; “Conversations in Color”, “Encaustics & Pigment Sticks” R&F)
Dale O. Roberts (“Creative Approaches to Painting Encaustic from Life”, R&F)
Leslie Giuliani (“Encaustic Basics”, R&F)
Alex McFarlane (“Beginning Watercolor Technique”, SAC)
Kelly McGrath (“Monotypes”, R&F)
Cynthia Winika (“Encaustic Paper Techniques”, R&F)
Tom Brenner (“Painting from Life”, SAC)
DeAnn Prosia (“Layered Soft Pastel”, SAC) and
Barbara Rothenberg (“Fragments into Wholes”, SAC)
As experience has taught me, true prayer emanates from one’s soul. My art expresses this, as visible prayer. My healing work restores soul connection. Spirituality informs everything.