For as long as Marlaina 
can remember, her knee-jerk impulse has been
to create through every medium that called her:
writing, art, music, dance, photography, moving images, cooking, and fragrance.
Today, her everyday life as a professional writer, painter, and composer often intersects with what 12th-century abbess Hildegard Von Bingen called viriditas,
"the greening power" or divine, creative life force of nature. 
Coming from a long line of creative souls,
Marlaina was raised in a holistic, metaphysical, and artistic home where she was deeply
encouraged and supported as both a creator and a mystic. 
Marlaina's love for the written word began at age 10, the same year she was chosen to write a weekly 4H column in The Pike County Dispatch (Milford, Pennsylvania)
and her mother introduced her to Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass.
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Since 2016, Marlaina has been a regular national-content writer and journalist
for Natural Awakenings magazine,
the leading evidence-based health and green living magazine
 in the States (2.5 million monthly readership via hard copy and online).
Marlaina has several articles a month in the publication and has interviewed
some of the most significant sources in the industry including Mayo Clinic,
Dr. David Perlmutter, Dr. Gladys McGarey, celebrity chef Rocco DiSpirito,
neuroscientist/global Transcendental Meditation leader Tony Nader,
yoga legend Rodney Yee, and inspiring New York Times bestselling authors
Thomas Moore and Sarah Ban Breathnach.
Due to editorial protocol, she sometimes uses the pseudonym, Maya Whitman.a
In addition to holding certifications in clinical essential oil therapy,
therapeutic massage/bodywork, and energy modalities, 
Marlaina's passionate independent study of the human nervous system and
the neuro-energetic effects of trauma greatly informs her work.n
t 
She is a multi-genre author of 15 titles 
including the reference book Multidimensional Aromatherapy,
the OBE memoir Naked Soul (Llewellyn Worldwide, 1998),
Spiritual Famine in the Age of Plenty, and Goddess Consciousness.  

As a composer, under the name WillowWynd, Marlaina has released 21 albums 
in the genres of contemporary classical piano, world, and ambient vocals.
Her diverse work has been featured in
award-winning short films directed by Tara Gadomski,
small business promos, gallery art installations,  meditation videos, and self-help courses.  
As a third-generation painter, she dedicates her brush to fine visionary 
and clairvoyant art that celebrates and reveals who we are in the Big Picture.
 
In 2016, Marlaina experienced a life-altering
physical and emotional healing that prompted a profound understanding
of deep mind-body connections and personal resonance.
From her rural corner of the world she chooses a path of slower living,
hiking wildlife sanctuaries year-round with
her beloved husband, Jos. C. Donato, an author of historical fiction. 
Her greatest joy is her medicinal pantry of 75+ herbs and immersing herself in the beauty of nearby meadows. The latest delight in her life is spending time in the healing presence
of horses and learning more about their sometimes-astonishing
intuitive and emotional capacity.  

Marlaina's mother Winifred was a multitalented singer-songwriter, poet,
and Renaissance woman who independently studied nutrition
and managed health food stores in New York City in the 1950s. 
From this early foundation, Marlaina continues to live by the premise
that healing, art, and spirit are indeed a singular force.