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Vision
Vision
Mauna Project is a portfolio of selected works for contemplative viewing — a starting point of an emerging body of practice.
Mauna lives at the intersection of expressive arts, sacred arts, embodied learning, and digital media. Two more streams are quietly taking shape, rooted in the same principles: Mauna Arts Practice (practices for leaders, spaceholders, and educators) and Mauna Lab (research laboratory).
Mauna is dedicated to the discovery of innate beauty of the world. It is born to honor the visible and the invisible, the embodied and the Sacred through creative acts, and it is cultivated to nurture our natural human capacity for aesthetic wonder and expression.
Mauna is a remembrance of the non-verbal, sensory, feeling language of the body, and its boundless (re)generative creative potential. Just as the mysterious impulse behind creation itself and incarnation in human form on Earth, the impulse at the source of every expressive act carries a sacred force and a potential for deep transformation.
Through artistic presence, process, and form, the silence of Being comes alive — it penetrates, liberates, enlivens, and opens the dance of ever-unfolding becoming. What was unseen becomes seen; what was unfelt becomes gently revealed. The heart responds to beauty, aches, and flourishes. Verbal language and the capacities of the mind then come into service of the heart and the feeling body. Spontaneously or intentionally, the body, the mind, all actions, works, and relationships become vehicles in service to humanity and to the higher principle – that which is eternal and beyond understanding.
Mauna is an acknowledgement that a simple, spontaneous act of expression may become a doorway to the depth, meaning, and awe we long for. Let us restore this inherently human capacity to express and create in synchrony with the world — with all living beings, elements, cosmic processes, and the sacred order of it all. Let us return home to ourselves, and take one more step toward building a peaceful presence, individually and collectively.
This living vision guides Mauna's artistic, consulting, and educational work and continues to grow in directions not yet imagined.
Mauna lives at the intersection of expressive arts, sacred arts, embodied learning, and digital media. Two more streams are quietly taking shape, rooted in the same principles: Mauna Arts Practice (practices for leaders, spaceholders, and educators) and Mauna Lab (research laboratory).
Mauna is dedicated to the discovery of innate beauty of the world. It is born to honor the visible and the invisible, the embodied and the Sacred through creative acts, and it is cultivated to nurture our natural human capacity for aesthetic wonder and expression.
Mauna is a remembrance of the non-verbal, sensory, feeling language of the body, and its boundless (re)generative creative potential. Just as the mysterious impulse behind creation itself and incarnation in human form on Earth, the impulse at the source of every expressive act carries a sacred force and a potential for deep transformation.
Through artistic presence, process, and form, the silence of Being comes alive — it penetrates, liberates, enlivens, and opens the dance of ever-unfolding becoming. What was unseen becomes seen; what was unfelt becomes gently revealed. The heart responds to beauty, aches, and flourishes. Verbal language and the capacities of the mind then come into service of the heart and the feeling body. Spontaneously or intentionally, the body, the mind, all actions, works, and relationships become vehicles in service to humanity and to the higher principle – that which is eternal and beyond understanding.
Mauna is an acknowledgement that a simple, spontaneous act of expression may become a doorway to the depth, meaning, and awe we long for. Let us restore this inherently human capacity to express and create in synchrony with the world — with all living beings, elements, cosmic processes, and the sacred order of it all. Let us return home to ourselves, and take one more step toward building a peaceful presence, individually and collectively.
This living vision guides Mauna's artistic, consulting, and educational work and continues to grow in directions not yet imagined.
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Bio
Bio
My name is Alexandra Epeshina, and I am the founder of Mauna. I was born and raised in Saint Petersburg, Russia, between historic walls of the city and tall trees of the northern forest. I travelled through countries, world views and occupations, and in 2018 I found my home in Portugal. I am an architect, an artist, an educator, and a PhD researcher in Expressive Arts at the European Graduate School (Switzerland). I hold a Master's degree in Architecture from San Francisco Academy of Art University (USA), and a Bachelor's degree from Saint Petersburg University of Architecture and Civil Engineering (Russia). In 2015, I co-founded Young Architects Society, the first school for architecture and design for children and youth in Russia that now counts more than 100 students weekly. Leading architectural, creative and educational projects in Russia and internationally for many years, I learned that artistic expression is a powerful instrument for transformation and peace building. I continue to discover how to bring presence, aliveness, meaning and humanity to our daily, creative and professional lives.
I am deeply moved by both explainable and unexplainable, visible and invisible, scientific and sacred wisdom of the world. Some years ago, I took a deep dive in the non-object oriented practice of meditation. Soon I saw the illusion of the opposites. I felt the tension of fear and desire at the core of every moment — and then, suddenly, a burning love and devotion to the Mystery, the Divine, the eternal Depth of being. This disillusionment and this fire in my chest created a crisis and ignited big changes. I let go of my business, all other worldly attachments and responsibilities, and moved to an ashram in the mountains of Portugal. For several years I lived a life of service, profound spiritual practice, renunciation and artistic experimentation. By grace, I glimpsed eternal love free from all conditions. I recognised blissful ever-present depth at the source of my being, non-separate from any other being and all conditional nature.
During that time, I encountered a heart-deep resonance with an artist, scholar, and awakened realizer Adi Da Samraj (1939-2008) through his written and visual art. Since then, through the radiance of his spiritual Presence, a luminous light permeates my path.
After I left the mountains, Mauna Project was naturally born as an extension of my interdisciplinary background in architecture and arts and my love for the Mystery. Now, my wish is that this work grows in service to the restoration of human innate happiness and depth of feeling. For me, this painful moment in history calls for presence, creative peaceful action, and, prior to it all, the recognition of our inherent beauty and interrelatedness. As I am stepping onto a new path of research and practice, I am passionate about merging artistic, educational, and consulting work, with an awareness of the sacred nature of it all.
I am deeply moved by both explainable and unexplainable, visible and invisible, scientific and sacred wisdom of the world. Some years ago, I took a deep dive in the non-object oriented practice of meditation. Soon I saw the illusion of the opposites. I felt the tension of fear and desire at the core of every moment — and then, suddenly, a burning love and devotion to the Mystery, the Divine, the eternal Depth of being. This disillusionment and this fire in my chest created a crisis and ignited big changes. I let go of my business, all other worldly attachments and responsibilities, and moved to an ashram in the mountains of Portugal. For several years I lived a life of service, profound spiritual practice, renunciation and artistic experimentation. By grace, I glimpsed eternal love free from all conditions. I recognised blissful ever-present depth at the source of my being, non-separate from any other being and all conditional nature.
During that time, I encountered a heart-deep resonance with an artist, scholar, and awakened realizer Adi Da Samraj (1939-2008) through his written and visual art. Since then, through the radiance of his spiritual Presence, a luminous light permeates my path.
After I left the mountains, Mauna Project was naturally born as an extension of my interdisciplinary background in architecture and arts and my love for the Mystery. Now, my wish is that this work grows in service to the restoration of human innate happiness and depth of feeling. For me, this painful moment in history calls for presence, creative peaceful action, and, prior to it all, the recognition of our inherent beauty and interrelatedness. As I am stepping onto a new path of research and practice, I am passionate about merging artistic, educational, and consulting work, with an awareness of the sacred nature of it all.
