or click here: DSL or Cable; dial-up. The Great Bliss Queen, Divine Mother ( image at base of poster), 89cm x 75cm, 35¼" x 29½", acrylic on canvas, 2003.   ____________________________________________   “At the centre is a mansion of “flaming bliss,” an expression of the generativity associated with the female organs of the Great Bliss Queen.  Her generativity means, among other things, that her identity can never be captured or limited by a single type of being, or even a single form. ....it is also a womb because through realizing it one is born into enlightenment. Padmasambhava describes it so:         This is the basis of all coming and going           The place of arising of all existents,           The womb of the mother consort. The generative quality of the empty expanse--”  “Having visualized the mandala, one instantaneously becomes the Great Bliss Queen at its centre...” -Anne Carolyn Klein, Meeting the Great Bliss Queen (Boston: Beacon Press, 1995), pp.177-9. ____________________________________________ Lifedrawing, the 3-10min pose 'This precious human body is a stem of gold.' -Lady of the Lotus Born (Shambala, 1999). What can I say? I cannot add to or subtract from the thought and its expression. It comes from a translation of an ancient Tibetan Buddhist poem that is rich with tantric imagery. 'This precious human body is a stem of gold.' I feel like the most exquisite and precious finely-wrought jewelry. I feel like a stem on a thousand petaled lotus, an image of enlightenment. I feel fragile and precious and like a swaying stem of gold in the wind. I feel like the stem on a goblet of gold pouring wine into your sweet lips. You are fragile and precious and pricelessly beautiful. A great artist crafted you. Your precious human body is a stem of gold… Can I lay down now and weep over the beauty of this simple line? 'This precious human body is a stem of gold.' I read it again, silent in reverie. Why does this line moves me so? It takes me on vistas beyond imagining. I see reeds of the Nile and Egyptian princesses, and gold veins in the mountains of Tibet and Tibetan Buddhist Queens, and the delicate filigree of the Renaissance artist with his rich mythologies, I see the Communion Cup and the Pagan Chalice of old, I see the intricate interlacings of Celtic motifs, I see sensitivity in the world, I see honouring the delicate system of gold that we are, our bodies flowing with gold light, and I am silenced by this line. 'This precious human body is a stem of gold'… ©Brenda Clews, 2004