Most Tender Queen

O Mary we crown thee with blossoms today!
Queen of the Angels and Queen of the May.
O Mary we crown thee with blossoms today,
Queen of the Angels and Queen of the May.

Bring flowers of the rarest
bring blossoms the fairest,
from garden and woodland and hillside and dale;
our full hearts are swelling,
our glad voices telling
the praise of the loveliest flower of the vale!

Their lady they name thee,
Their mistress proclaim thee,
Ah, grant that thy children on earth be as true
as long as the bowers
are radiant with flowers,
as long as the azure shall keep its bright hue

Sing gaily in chorus;
the bright angels o'er us
re-echo the strains we begin upon earth;
their harps are repeating
the notes of our greeting,
for Mary herself is the cause of our mirth

Notre Dame de Paris

Ave Maria

Pardon me

If in front of you

I can’t stand on my feet

Ave Maria I, who cannot kneel

Ave Maria

Protect me

of the misery, the evil and the madmen

who reign over the world

Ave Maria

Strangers, they’re coming from everywhere

Ave Maria

Listen to me

Tear down those barriers between us 

Who are all brothers

Ave Maria

Watch over my days and my nights

Ave Maria

Protect me

Watch over my love and my life

Ave Maria

- lyrics from Notre Dame de Paris by Victor Hugo

I Am the Immaculate Conception

I Am the Immaculate Conception

wearable shrine on Etsy.com

For the past four years I have visited the Lourdes sanctuary

once a year.  I have written about my many pilgrimages

to Lourdes on my blog Cloister of the Heart.

I have also dedicated nine days a year on my blog to

an Art Novena for Our Lady of Lourdes

where I create and share art inspired by Lourdes

for nine days in a row culminating on the feast day

of Our Lady of Lourdes.

My visits to Lourdes have inspired my work as an artist.

The miracle of Lourdes is not limited to specific religion

or church.  It is an on-going event which inspires hundreds

of thousands of people from all walks of life and

from all philosophies to visit Lourdes and to see for

themselves what it is that draws so many to visit 

a spring the grotto of Massabielle.

This wearable shrine or rosary is called

I Am the Immaculate Conception, the words

that the 'lady in white' spoke to young Bernadette

in her own mother tongue, a French dialect

spoken in that part of France.

The image is baked onto a porcelain cabochon

set in brass filled rhinestones

and the beads match the colours on the

image perfectly.

The beads and chain and tiny rhinestone cross

are all vintage pieces.

You can read about my pilgrimages on

Cloister of the Heart

and see my other pieces of sacred art that

are for sale at 

Her Grace Devata on Etsy.com

blessings

Hettienne

The House of Mary

The House of Mary

a very special rosary necklace

with hand soldered shrine

a small miraculous medal

a key set with a crown and rhinestones

a big key

a hand cast sacred heart

and a hand holding the knocker

of the door

to the House of Mary

Vintage rosary beads

antique beads

rhinestone flower connector

and a very small Our Lady rosary connector

Immaculada Conceptio

I am the Immaculate Conception

all patina'd and distressed

for that wonderful shabby vintage look

blessings

Queen Genevieve

Like souls that balance joy and pain,

With tears and smiles from heaven again

The maiden Spring upon the plain

Came in a sunlit fall of rain.

     In crystal vapor everywhere

Blue isles of heaven laugh'd between,

And far, in forest-deeps unseen,

The topmost elm-tree gather'd green

     From draughts of balmy air.

Sometimes the linnet piped his song;

Sometimes the throstle whistled strong;

Sometimes the sparhawk, wheel'd along,

Hush'd all the groves from fear of wrong;

     By grassy capes with fuller sound

In curves the yellowing river ran,

And drooping chestnut-buds began

To spread into the perfect fan,

     Above the teeming ground.

Then, in the boyhood of the year,

Sir Launcelot and Queen Guinevere

Rode thro' the coverts of the deer,

With blissful treble ringing clear.

     She seem'd a part of joyous Spring;

A gown of grass-green silk she wore,

Buckled with golden clasps before;

A light-green tuft of plumes she bore

     Closed in a golden ring.

Now on some twisted ivy-net,

Now by some tinkling rivulet,

In mosses mixt with violet

Her cream-white mule his pastern set;

     And fleeter now she skimm'd the plains

Than she whose elfin prancer springs

By night to eery warblings,

When all the glimmering moorland rings

     With jingling bridle-reins.

As she fled fast thro' sun and shade,

The happy winds upon her play'd,

Blowing the ringlet from the braid.

She look'd so lovely, as she sway'd

     The rein with dainty finger-tips,

A man had given all other bliss,

And all his worldly worth for this,

To waste his whole heart in one kiss

     Upon her perfect lips.

                                         Sir Launcelot and Queen Geneviere by Lord Tennyson

Mary of Avalon

In the arms of Mary

Our Lady of Avalon

mystical isle of sacred apples

In the arms of Mary, Our Lady of Avalon.  This is a small wearable shrine and altar.  A beautiful image of Mary of the Sacred Heart, set in glass, hand soldered with lead free solder that has the appearance and effect of pewter.  You can however, polish the solder with silver jewellery cleaner and make it shine like silver.  On top of the frame I soldered the arms of Mary and underneath hangs a beautiful red shine enamel apple, a chalice, a sword, a pomegranate and a beautiful icon of Mary.

The apple represents the sacred isle of Avalon and the sacred orchard of apples which still grow in the Abbey grounds in Glastonbury;  the chalice is the cup from which we drink from the sacred wells of Our Lady;  the sword can either be an athame for the altar or the sword of Archangel Michael;  the pomegranate is a symbol of the divine feminine and her ability to go deep into the underworld and to return to this world with gifts and sight;  the icon of Mary is set in resin in sterling silver.

I used many swarovski crystals in the chain, as well as handmade lampwork roses; it also consists of black onyx rosary beads, semi precious stones, coral roses, plastic roses and silver coloured roses with real turquoise pieces scattered in between.

A magnificent Ave Maria connector connects the pendant to the chain.

More pictures and information is posted on my blog

The entire necklace is 45 cm long.  

You may also like my blog on Cloister of the Heart

http://www.path-of-divine-love.com/2013/11/mornings-with-mary-mary-of-avalon.html

Mary Most Holy

Holy, holy, holy

the great Mother of God,

Mary most holy

To me, the Blessed Mother is not limited to any religion, any dogma or any culture. 

The Soul has its own religion and that is where you will find Her and Her many faces.

She is present for all 

Her Grace enfolds everyone

You only have to become aware of Her.

Wherever I travel in the world, I visit Her sacred shrines.

 I have visited Kwan Yin in Ayutthaya in Thailand;

Kali Ma in Her many temples in India;

I have attended the Navaratri and Durga Puja, the nine nights of the Goddess in Varanasi;

the holy well and holy fire of Brigit in Kildare;

the Goddess Temple in Glastonbury 

all of these have been numinous experiences

that touched me deeply

but 

none

touched 

me so profoundly

as

Our Lady of Lourdes.

(If you would like to read more, go to

http://www.path-of-divine-love.com/2012/02/day-five-of-art-novena-for-our-lady-of.html)

This is my latest offering in my Etsy shop.

Mary Most Holy wearable shrine and altar.

A beautiful cathedral window arch, soldered with

lead free silver solder

with a piece of a prayer card from Lourdes

set between two pieces of glass.

On the back I added a prayer cut from a Mary prayer book

I attached the pendant to a piece of hand dyed pure silk ribbon,

ready to wear or to attach to your rosary or chain.

All my pendants are anointed with sacred oil containing

53 relics, and this one comes packed with dried rose petals

steeped in St Therese of Lisieux holy oil.

St Therese d'Lisieux

'For me, prayer is a surge of the heart; 

it is a simple look turned toward heaven,

it is a cry of recognition and of love,

embracing both trail and joy. - St Theresa of Lisieux

I have always, well, let me re-phrase that,

since I came to know about the saints,

felt a deep connection with St Theresa of Lisieux.

“God would never inspire me with desires which cannot be realized; so in spite of my littleness, I can hope to be a saint.” 

― St. Thérèse de Lisieux, Story of a Soul: The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux

This is a hand soldered hanging shrine.  I placed a holy card

between the two sheets of glass.  I placed a sterling silver cross

in the shrine and fixed tiny swarovski crystals and other

glass crystals onto the cross and over some of the roses.

The miraculous medal that I placed in the shrine, I brought

back from the Chapel of the Miraculous Medal in Paris, France

and it is also cast in silver.

I had the most beautiful experience in this chapel and I wrote about it

here :  http://www.path-of-divine-love.com/search?q=miraculous+medal

On the back of the shrine I placed a French

Holy Card with a prayer to the Sacre Coeur le Marie,

the Sacred Heart of Mary.

The shrine comes ready to hang with a piece of French

silk ribbon that I brought back from my pilgramage

to the sites of Marie Madeleine (Mary Magdalene)

Trust and trust alone should lead us to love” 

― St. Thérèse de Lisieux, Collected Letters of St Therese of Lisieux

2

“i can nourish myself on nothing but truth” 

― St. Thérèse de Lisieux

Images of the Divine carry enormous energy and Presence. There are various ways of explaining it, but the ancients believed that the Spirit of that aspect of the Divine lives in Its image and form. Those of us who can see light around living beings, can see the light around sacred objects. In holy places of pilgrimage one can often smell the fragrance of the Divine.

Each one of my pendants, shrines, paintings and other sacred art are first infused with holy water from Lourdes (which I brought back), and then infused with holy relic oil of more than 53 Saints & pure essential oils. A mixture of one hundred oils are used, including frankincense, myrrh, spikenard, agarwood and rose. It is also immersed in blessed pink dead sea salts, infused with rose petals steeped in holy oil of a third relic of St Therese of Lisieux and it is packaged with blessed salts, frankincense and sprinkled with holy water collected form many sacred places in the world. So it becomes sort of holy object to be handled with reverence and care.

This shrine comes with a bottel of the rose petals that was steeped

in the third relic oil of St Theresa and then dried,

as well as a bottle of blessed pink salt crushed together with

some of the holy oil and rose petals - all crushed together.

Here is an image of some of the rose petals and the

blessed pink salt - still to be crushed together.

“When I die, I will send down a shower of roses from the heavens,I will spend my heaven by doing good on earth.” 

― St. Thérèse de Lisieux

This shrine is ideal for hanging in a window, letting the

light of the sun and moon flow through these images.

If a little flower could speak, it seems to me that it would tell us quite simply all that God has done for it, without hiding any of its gifts. It would not, under the pretext of humility, say that it was not pretty, or that it had not a sweet scent, that the sun had withered its petals,or the storm bruised its stem, if it knew that such were not the case.” 

― St. Thérèse de Lisieux, Story of a Soul: The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux