[NEW COLLECTION] Alive Inside: The Magdalen Paintings

How's it going? 

I'm writing here at the tail end of my "Summer of Serendipity."

I've been housesitting and petsitting in Texas, England, and the Seattle area. The summer has had many moments of sheer joy and wonder and a few of deep grief and terror.

But that's life in all of its fullness, isn't it?

Like most of you, I'm in transition. I've moving into what's next but I'm not quite crystal clear on what it is. I need to make some big changes when I get back home in a week or so, but I'm torn about what to do.

So I came up with a plan to go off into the wilderness, where I can get lost in the beauty. About this time, my plan was to go deeper into what's comfortable, being a free spirit and connecting with nature, living the "all who wander are not lost" sort of life.

Which I do well.

But this time, God and life were having none of it.

"You haven't done what you said you would do."

As much as I tried to push that refrain rising up from my heart and soul aside, it just kept getting louder. I knew precisely what I had not yet done. Actually, there are three things, but the Magdalen painting series below is the one that needed doing now.

So, as hard as it was for me emotionally, I put aside the self-judgment and worries about what might follow and I painted 12 paintings in six days of what I know by heart of Mary Magdalen (I call her Magda, which is what I remember Jesus calling her most).

Contrary to the way I thought I would do these, I started with the last portion of her life in France. So what you see below is the first of three (update: now four) sets of paintings of her life.

Magdalen Paintings from the soul for the soul. These paintings are soul memories I have carried from the beginning of my life here. You can see the first 12 Magdalen paintings and read a bit of the story. I remember from the last decades of her life here.

It is a love story, but it is not the one you expect. 

I believe many of us here now have such recollections that are meant to be shared with one another. As we each share our essential truth, we will usher in a grace-filled revolution of love—the revolution of love Jesus and Mary embodied.

Your seeds for life may be some stream of wisdom you carry. It may be a teaching. Or a way of being. Will you dare to open your heart and release this gift to the world?

I hope you enjoy these and other paintings at my art website! My next step is to put together a few shows to share some of the series and collections with more people in a gallery, coffee shop or other venue. If you are interested, please reach out to discuss.

"It was life and life to the full that mattered to her."

This is part of the description for All the Green Mountains, the last painting in the series. (I started at the end and worked back on these, sort of like I do with a lot of things). In the first twelve paintings in the series, which again are actually the last, I tell the story through the eyes of the one who stood by her through these years, most of which she spent writing and communing with "With The Mothers" or in the forests of La Sainte-Baume she loved so much. 

Like Jesus, Mary Magdalen's life was about living fully and without regret. She believed in beauty and wonder, in all that was being born in the moment. She believed in life. And she believed in love and its power to change the world by changing us, from the inside out.

Are you living fully and without regret in this day?

I'm happy to share something of Magda's journey or the bits I remember with you in this new painting series. Leave me a comment about which painting is your favorite!

Love,