Live Long and Prosper

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.

Star Trek’s Spock, Leonard Nimoy, who is Jewish, brought this Vulcan greeting to the show. It is a two handed blessing used by the Kohanim lineage of Rabbis who descended from Moses’ brother Aaron.