The Liberty Mandala
The Liberty Mandala emerged from my early experiences in a feminist healing space out in the woods of Woodstock, where I first encountered Lady Liberty venerated as a goddess icon. The imagery resonated deeply for me, since I had joined a fraternity in college known as the Order of Prometheus, and the iconography of a Titan bearing a Torch for the benefit of Humanity made Liberty and Prometheus a strong set of devotional icons.
For me, the torch represents divine freedom, the path to enlightenment, and a beacon of defiance against tyranny. I took the ritual alignment with the mythology of Prometheus from my college fraternity initiation to heart, and the Torch remains to this day a symbol of my pledge to pursue truth beyond blind obedience, whatever the consequence.
This mandala is a celebration of Lady Liberty, and the glorious New York City whose harbor she guards. It is a declaration of patriotic freedom to pursue my own life’s meaning, and forge my own path from the choices I am blessed to make. And this painting is also an enduring promise. I will always strive to blaze a trail of lights as I go, so that others might find their own way out of the dark, long after I pass.
And what a city of freedom, choice, opportunity, and sometimes even consequences that New York City truly is.
