Leo – The Mother with the Lion

11 June 2011, pencils, crayons and photo work

In eastern wisdom it says that one of the forms of the Divine Mother is the shape of Saila Putri. She is regarded as a form of Parvathi and is also called the Daughter of the Mountain, the personification of the Himalayas. She is said to exist even today and to live in the form of an 18 years old woman accompanied by a white lion. From time to time she gives her presence to the initiates in the Himalayas through the roar of the lion which accompanies her.

For this picture I didn’t want to use an Indian-looking woman. I searched for a lady with royal posture and I found a figure of Elisabeth of Thuringia, queen of Hungary. It is said that once when she was threatened by her husband, a transformation of bread into roses happened to protect her. I gave her a huge rose as the symbol of the Heart. In the background I fused the pictures of a sunrise above Mount Everest and a panorama of Mount Kanchenjunga. And the white lion lies in his fiery cave, which is the symbol of the Heart Centre.