Paul Marko's Mindful Endeavors

Mindy Urken

Mindy Selesnick Urken Marko

- A Biographical Sketch-

Born to a middle class Jewish family in New Jersey in 1954, I was a misfit from the beginning; a child who always felt on the fringe of belonging and generally too emotional to survive the rigors of childish abuse. But fortunately for me, I came of age (teenage) in the late sixties just in time to explore the various methods of altering consciousness that the times provided. At last I had found the place I belonged. A little too late to be a beatnik, just barely in time to be a flower child, but not too late to be an original hippie, when that was still considered a good thing to be. I, like the times, dropped out and tuned in.

Formal education held no interest for me and bored me while stifling my development, so after several episodes of expulsions from various schools, generally for truancies related to attending war protests or otherwise simply not being there, coupled with other attempts on my part to find something of interest to keep me in school, I eventually opted for an equivalency diploma, leaving in my sophomore year to attend instead the junior college nearby. There I pursued courses which only captivated my interest: creative writing, psychology and the visual and performing arts.

Without completing an undergraduate degree, I went on to start a family and become an entrepreneur, starting several businesses and moving from the east coast to the mountains of Colorado. Some years later I resumed my informal education by attending a series of transformational workshops. For the last fifteen years I have continued to expand my education in non traditional ways, attending courses and workshops to further various avenues I've been interested to explore. Upon meeting my 2nd husband I embarked upon a doctoral course of studies in transpersonal psychology by proxy. In other words, without achieving the actual degree I followed along with all the course work and reading to learn side by side the materials relegated to the various topics.

Moving from the mountains of Colorado to the seashores of Florida as the century changed from the 20th to the 21st, I began a new phase of life self designed to travel and see and experience more of the world. My travels have since taken me for various lengths of time to France, Belgium, The Netherlands, St Maarten, Jamaica, Costa Rica, Canada and now to Brazil. Before leaving the US in August, I made my home for a while on Cape Cod, in Massachusetts and then in the mountains of Southern Vermont.

Fulfilling long held dreams of a lifetime, I have for the last 10 years traveled, created, shown and sold my art, lived off the land in a sustainable fashion, growing most of our food needs and raising farm animals, created websites, built furniture and small structures and researched and discovered the secrets of life on the planet. The writing of these travel journals fulfills yet another of my lifelong dreams.

This may serve to give a small insight to what I am about, but this is only a small slice of an ever unfolding me in one of many lives and that is really who I am.