Marah-Sekhmet Greeting Card & Envelope A5

'The Return among Life' Card - Odile Lurton

Folded Card with Envelope

The painter Odile Marie Lurton lives near Lascaux caves, Dordogne (France) and is passionate about Egypt, which she visited on several occasions for its ancient history, mythology and sacred sites.

Sekhmet, the Lion Goddess, represents one of the many faces of the Divine Mother, of the Feminine power, in all its might and grace. Still today she stands as a living symbol of the new woman's energy yet to fully incarnate itself on this Earth. Her sacred energy guides us towards the fulfillment of our inner strength and towards a healing of our "bloody" past which was cut off from our true Essence.

In this painting the representation of the Lion Goddess is directly inspired from the statue standing in the Karnak temple in Luxor (Egypt). This image blends with that of Marah, the white lioness of the Timbavati (South Africa), the first of its kind to be successfully reintroduced in its natural wilderness habitat by the Global White Lion Protection Trust. The painting symbolises the Goddess's return from the Land of the Dead (the Theban mountain in the background) to Life and Rebirth on the shore of the Nile river.

The white lions of the Timbavati are extremely rare (less then 300 worldwide) and all survive in captivity (since 1994). Their white pelt may be the result of a recessive gene dating as far back as the last glacial period; they are not albinos but a sub-specie, yet unclassified, of the gender Panthera Leo; their eyes are sky blue. Beautiful felines, sacred to the African people, they are exploited for trophy hunting and for breeding, sale and exchange between zoos. A single pride is being reintroduced in their native Timbavati region in a protected wilderness reserve near the Kruger National Park of South Africa through the efforts of Linda Tucker, a South African woman devoted to their protection and return to the wild. Author ("Mystery of the White Lions : Children of the Sun God" Npenvu Press, 2001), activist, philanthropist, she heads the white lions protection center (www.whitelions.org) as well as a charitable foundation (Global White Lion Protection Trust) raising funds for the white lions protection and their return to the wild.

Odile Marie Lurton supports Linda's foundation by offering it the totality of the revenues generated by the sale of her "The return among Life" cards and posters. In purchasing a reproduction of this painting you directly support the protection of one of Africa's rarest and most sacred feline: the white lions of Timbavati.