About
Welcome to Dolphin Mana.
Dolphin Mana is dedicated both to the wild, beautiful Spinner dolphins that live off the coast of the Hawaiian Islands and to those who love and receive inspiration from them.
These images uniquely embrace the beauty, mystery, joy, and healing qualities of dolphins – amazing beings who freely share their “mana,” or miraculous power, with everyone they meet.
We offer limited edition prints of Spinner dolphins in their natural habitat. These photographs are printed on canvas (a process called giclee printing), using the finest quality materials in the industry. The current edition consists of 333 20″ x 30″ prints, each of which are individually signed and numbered.
You are invited to enjoy the images on this site, and to contact the artists for pricing and availability if you would like to purchase a giclee.
Aloha nui loa,
Richard & Mayumi Marks
ABOUT THE ARTISTS:
The Arists: Richard and Mayumi Marks
Mayumi Miura Marks followed her inner guidance to enter a quest for swimming and communing with dolphins in the wild almost a decade ago. This quest led her from her chilly inland hometown of Osaka, Japan to tropical locations around the world. She traveled to Thailand, Mexico, Indonesia, Malaysia, Honduras and eventually to the Hawaiian Islands. When she came to Hawaii in the winter of 1994 she swam solo in personal contact with a pod of 100 spinner dolphins in the wild for one hour. During this ecstatic experience she realized her heart’s calling had manifested and that she had also found her true home.
In the winter of 2001, Mayumi was swimming about 30 feet deep with a pod of 50 wild spinner dolphins one half mile out in the ocean. As she swam with this pod she met up with another pod of about 50 dolphins. When she surfaced to take a quick breath air, she nearly bumped into a very curious man who was swimming above her with camera in hand avidly taking photos of the other dolphin pod. In one fluid movement, she shyly smiled his way, took a big breath and quickly dove deep to once again join her dolphin pod.
Love at first sight.
While he watched her gracefully weaving in and out of the now combined dolphin pod of one hundred dolphins, the man was lost in wonder. Had he indeed finally discovered a real mermaid spinning deep below him? That mysterious moment was the beginning of the joyous partnership of Mayumi and Richard Marks that led to their marriage and to the birth of Dolphinmana.
Mayumi has had a lifelong passion for photography and the arts. This is combined with her ability to easily free dive to depths beyond 50 feet on a single breath. Fueled by a single breath, and usually humming a sweet loving song to the dolphins through her snorkel as she dives, she composes her photographs while playfully and lovingly interacting with the dolphins.
Mayumi feels the dolphins are some of her best teachers and healers on many levels. Her contact with these loving and nurturing beings has led her to become an exceptional healer. In her healing practice, she combines reflexology, energetic and crystal healing, reiki, and the ancient healing ways of the Hawaiian kahuna in her treatments.
Her healing work is not limited to those who live on the land. She often brings her energetic healing and reiki into the ocean to offer healing to dolphins, fish and sea turtles that have injuries. She also composes exquisite music she receives while swimming with the dolphins and is being gently encouraged by Richard to record a CD of those compositions, which in essence are love songs to and from the dolphins.
Mayumi has a great love for everything Hawaiian. She is an avid student of the Hawaiian language, folklore, culture, and music and is an aspiring student of the ukulele and hula.
Richard Marks has been an avid photographer for nearly four decades. His first experience with swimming with cetaceans was in the winter of 1988. Within two days of arriving for Maui for the very first time, he had an experience of swimming with a mother and baby humpback whale in deep open ocean waters. The whale passed within a few feet of Richard with her baby. Upon gazing deep into the baseball-sized eye of the mother Humpback whale for several moments, he had an experience that changed the entire trajectory of his life. That profound experience seemed to firmly plant the seed in his soul to do whatever was necessary to return to Maui and make it his home.
He somewhat sadly returned to Marin, California, after his first life-altering trip in Maui, to dive into studies in depth psychology and sacred practice at the Ridhwan School in Berkeley. He also continued his work as an early childhood education teacher, videographer, digital recording engineer, songwriter, and photographer. In 1994 he earned a Masters Degree in Marriage, Family and Child Counseling and worked as a therapist in Marin and Sonoma Counties.
For more than a dozen years since 1988, he took yearly trips to Maui and had his first contact with spinner dolphins in the wild in 1994 off the island of Lana’i. This experience prompted Richard to try a trial run at living in Maui in the winter of 1998. During a two-month period, he created an ideal schedule where he swam with the dolphins several times a week in the mornings and collaborated on a writing a screenplay via the internet with his son Shalom in the afternoons and evenings. This experience let Richard know that absolutely without a doubt, Maui would be his next home.
He moved to Maui in the summer of 2001 and began work as a part time school based child and family therapist as he began to build his photography business specializing in underwater photography, wedding photography and well as stock photography for Getty and Blend Images. His photography business is now a very successful thriving endeavor. He commuted from Maui to the one public school on the tiny island of Lana’i by ferry every day. His schedule allowed him frequent visits to his favorite bay where the dolphins regularly appeared. On one very blessed day in the winter of 2001 he was swimming with a pod of dolphins with camera in hand and he thought he saw what appeared to be a mermaid swimming under him with an approaching pod of fifty wild spinner dolphins…
ABOUT THE DOLPHINS:
The Dolphins
Throughout the centuries, humankind has been deeply attracted to the mystery, intelligence, and beauty of dolphins. History has documented that they have been saviors of the sea, rescuing drowning sailors and protecting swimmers from attacking sharks. Many of those who have had the good fortune of swimming with dolphins in the wild have reported a wide range of life-altering experiences, from spontaneous healings of cancer to emerging from a lifetime of depression. There is scientific documentation of autistic children who have been mute for their entire lives suddenly speaking for the first time while swimming with dolphins. Follow-up studies have shown that these children begin speaking once again when they watched videotapes of their dolphin experiences.
The pictures in this first release of photographs were taken in Maui by Richard and Mayumi Marks. They were taken in a sacred and adventurous way over the past five years. Before entering the water, they lifted prayers of gratitude to the Great Creator and chanted Hawaiian prayers at a heiau, a sacred Hawaiian ceremonial site. They also left offerings of tropical flowers and sacred objects, praying for the wild spinner dolphins to visit them, and asking for permission to photograph them to share their images with the world as a healing art form. Then, they would jump off of lava cliffs and swim up to one mile into the open ocean to join the pods of up to 150 dolphins, swimming sometimes for four hours straight.
While in the water with the dolphins, Richard and Mayumi often experiment with singing different songs, tones, and Hawaiian chants. Often, the dolphins happily respond, playfully cavorting or spinning five feet into the air near them. Sometimes the dolphins become even more interactive and intimate; games with seaweed would start, mates would frolic together, or mothers would nurse their young in front of them. Richard and Mayumi are always deeply touched by the gentleness, playfulness, beauty, intelligence, and unconditional love of the dolphins. They have received heartfelt guidance to create Dolphin Mana to open a window into their special world for you to experience.
Dolphin Mana is dedicated to these amazing beings and the miracles of loving healing they continually bring into the lives of those that they encounter.