It is the first of December and time to share A Virgin a Day,
a tradition created by Rebecca of Recuerda mi Corazon.
Please join in, the link is below, at the end of this post.
Earlier this year I travelled to Paris with my young
teenage daughter. Only once there, it eventually dawned
on me that Notre Dame is Notre Dame de Paris -
Our Lady of Paris!
I have been to Paris before and I did indeed visit Notre Dame
and Sacre Coeur, but that was in another lifetime, it would seem.
The mind so effortlessly can become jaded and not 'see' what
is right in front of us. It is so easy to be blinded by religion
and dogma and many of have us such knee-jerk reactions
to doctrine, that we miss the true Beauty and Wisdom,
which has always been there, behind the veils of mankind's
perceptions and projections.
The statue of the Virgin with the child on her hip, in such a true every day motherly
stance, took on a beauty and luminosity for me that I had to re-create when I returned home.
I created this shadowbox shrine with a French doll that I bought the previous
year at the festival of Sarah-la-Kali in St Maries de la Mer.
She is a beautiful porcelain doll wearing her Sunday best, complete with a little hankie.
Here you can see her tiny Mary prayer book that I made for her.
She is on her way to Notre Dame. In the Notre Dame Cathedral is a beautiful
and very imposing statue of the Pieta of Mary
and the background I used in this shadow box reminds me of
her great sorrow depicted so poignantly in that statue.
The statue of Notre Dame de Paris I found in a tiny
shop in the Latin Quarter of Paris.
I painted it gold as there is the most
beautiful golden statue of
Notre Dame in the
Sacre Coeur in Montmartre.
Well, who said art has to make sense?!
I also added a tiny Lourdes shrine as in the cathedrals in Paris
and elsewhere in France, you often find a Lourdes shrine.
Thistiny shrine glows in the dark, as does the finger rosary which I used
for the halo for the Blessed Mother - so I added a tiny little candle light
which I switch on late in the day.
When I turn it off, the little shrine glows,
just like Her love for us glow in our hearts!
Follow the link below and visit the other sharings
of A Virgin a Day.
Be sure to return tomorrow and the next day
and the next .......
