Blessing

watercolor and encaustic; by Laramie Sasseville
copyright 1995

In these watercolor & encaustic paintings I strive to show the body as a vessel of light and energy.

Mudras are sacred postures for the hands, used in yoga and meditation. Buddhas, boddhisatvas, gods and goddesses are frequently depicted with their hands held in specific mudras. Yogis describe mudras as attitudes of energy flow linking prana with cosmic forces. There are thousands of nerves in the fingers and hands, linking to every part of the body, and mudras are believed to help activate and heal every part of the body.

This Mudra was originally known as The Hand of Blessing by Romans, who considered it ”The Hand of the All Goddess”. It was later adopted by Christian clergymen. In Islam it is known as the Hand of Fatima. Egyptians used it to evoke the protection of parental spirits: the index finger signifying the Mother-Goddess, the middle finger the Father-God, and the thumb the Child, Horus, each day’s newborn sun.