Wednesday, August 24, 2016

Oil & Cold Wax Portrait


She Found Freedom

You might think life begins with birth and ends with death, yet there is so much more. The past is not dead and gone. It lives in our DNA like seeds germinating and sprouting in their own perfect season.

This is a portrait of Minnie May, my great-grandmother. Like most Americans, she didn’t know her own history. She didn’t know she came from a long line of freedom fighters and seekers. As Huguenots and early followers of Martin Luther, they fled France, settled in England and later in the American colonies. The believed as did revolutionary, Thomas Paine: “You have it within your power to begin the world over again.”

Minnie May was a follower of Mary Baker Eddy, a free thinker if there ever was one. Eddy believed that thoughts created matter and right thinking brings about the healing of mind, body and spirit.

Minnie May had freedom in her bones. She must have felt it! She carried the DNA of centuries of freedom seekers. Now, their DNA lives in me. I have been imprinted for freedom by the medieval Chevalier, the knights, lords and ladies, pastors and pioneers.

I speak their names out loud—William Morin de Landon, Lord William Landon, Deacon Langton, Thomas Kilbourn who landed in Plymouth in 1635…

I carry them further than they could have imagined into a new world where the only limit is our own mind.

#oilcoldwaxpainting

 ©Claudia Rose, Ph.D.

2 comments:

  1. Bravo for your DNA. And for your recognizing the lineage that you carry.
    A beautiful portrait of your bloodline.

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    Replies
    1. Thank you! Your acknowledgment means so much to me.

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