Pisces speaks of the wheel of creation and of cyclical endings and beginnings. For seers, time is a flowing current or stream in which the past, present and future merge. The symbol of Pisces is a symbol of synthesis. It contains two fishes moving in opposite directions. Although the Pisces fishes appear as two, they are actually one. In truth, there is neither beginning nor ending, but a single continuous movement in which we think we see beginnings and endings, depending on our levels of perception and understanding.

The symbolism of Pisces is visualised in the eleven Pisces paintings done between 2010 and 2020. For detailed detailed descriptions please see the ludgerphilips.org website.

For some weeks, I was pondering on the image for Pisces but the direction remained hidden. Going through my photo collections, I was attracted by pictures from an early morning walk along the beach in Visakhapatnam, India. The waves and the wet sand were mirroring golden rays. The meeting of sky, earth and water spoke of the cycles of time and of the endings and beginnings characteristic of Pisces.

While searching I joined a Zoom lecture of Sri Kumar and I was thrilled to hear him explain in detail the meaning of the rod of initiation and how to meditate upon it. The very word initiation means entering into oneself. That rod of initiation is in us; it is normally dormant but it can be awakened. It is a pole of light upon which there is a sphere of light, like a golden club – the rod of power or the weapon Lord Vishnu is holding in his hand. It is a symbolic representation of the inner side of our cerebro-spinal column and our head. I started drawing and contemplating.

I fused the picture of a golden club with a photo of a Bronze sculpture of Avalokiteshvara, the Bodhisattva of Infinite Compassion (from the Metropolitan Museum). I arranged them in the centre of the image. Avalokiteshvara holds the rod of initiation. On his eyes and forehead, you see a lighted triangle with a central point, symbol of the basic trinity and the oneness. The meditative calmness of Avalokiteshvara, the eternal observer of everything, is in maximum contrast to the ever-changing movement of the waves of time and life. He remains blessing and protecting the beings through his looks.

The symbolism of Pisces is visualised in the eleven Pisces paintings done between 2010 and 2020. For detailed detailed descriptions please see the ludgerphilips.org website.

Aquarius is related to the waters of space. Madame H.P. Blavatsky says, “Space is potential. Space pulsates.” In space there are innumerable waves, which are the background of every existence in the phenomenal world. The subtle intelligences distribute them through the pulsations and vibrations. They are all an aspect of the Aquarian energy. The symbol of Aquarius hints at this with two electric lines or two waves in space.

The symbolism of Aquarius is visualised in the eleven Aquarius paintings done between 2010 and 2020. For detailed detailed descriptions please see the ludgerphilips.org website.

The constellation Aquarius is called ‘The Man in the Heavens’. The Masters of Wisdom recognised him as the archetype of man and called him Manu. The Heavenly Man has descended into the forms of the many human beings. As Manu, he leads mankind to perfection in accordance with the spiral movement of evolution. Master EK describes this development as spirally moving hieroglyphs.

In Aquarius it is recommended to meditate upon the glittering body of the Heavenly Man and how the stars of the constellation emanate forth the light of spiritual realization. Within us, the light pours down through all centres from the point of Aquarius at the top of the forehead.

The picture shows the light streaming down from the head of the Heavenly Man. A spiral comes forth from his heart. The background of the picture shows the hieroglyphs of a piece of the Tabula Smaragdina (Emerald Tablet). In this text Hermes Trismegistos taught the relationship between man and the Heavenly Man with the words “As above, so below”.

The predominant colour of the painting is between deep blue and violet. It is described as the colour of Aquarius. The actual colour appears as colourless to the human eye, since the human eye cannot recognise this colour. At the upper left corner, you see the stars of the constellation Aquarius and on the right side the Aquarius glyph.

The symbolism of Aquarius is visualised in the eleven Aquarius paintings done between 2010 and 2020. For detailed detailed descriptions please see the ludgerphilips.org website.

A friend just shared this beautiful “Hogmanay“, a Scottish word for New Year Celebration. It is a drone ballet filmed due to Covid19 restrictions on locations in the Scottish Highlands and partly placed into shots taken around Edinburgh. The Hogmanay is a farewell to the old year and a welcome to the new one, accompanied with poetic words spoken in Scottish and Gaelic and subtitled. Sublime!

Already in the past, I had blogged about drone ballets such as “Weightless“.

Capricorn is symbolically represented with the face of a goat (Capra) and the coiled tail of an animal; it stands for Chronos-Saturn, the ruler of Capricorn. The focus and aim of Capricorn is the mountain top. His qualities are a strong, unwavering will, constant diligence, patience, and unceasing striving toward the goal. May the power of Saturn be helpfully at our side so that we may patiently continue our journey on the path upward even through difficult terrains.

The symbolism of Capricorn is visualised in the eleven Capricorn paintings done between 2010 and 2020. For detailed detailed descriptions please see the ludgerphilips.org website.

Since ancient-most times, rituals for the birth of the Saviour have been performed on the winter solstice. The Sun is seen as the Saviour who brings life and consciousness to all living beings. The red rays of the morning sun look like the blood of the Sun and are regarded as ‘the Blood of the Saviour’. The seers say that when this light falls on our body, it is a very good opportunity to heal diseases of the blood and to purify our consciousness, especially in the month of Capricorn.

From the winter solstice onwards, the sun begins his apparent journey northwards. This time is very suitable for exercises to align to the subtle planes and to elevate us to the supramundane.

To visualize the transparency of subtle matter, I took pictures of a rock crystal in front of a candle flame. I arranged it as a pyramid-shaped mountain top. The pyramid indicates the four cardinal points of the cardinal cross. For the background I worked with the photo of a sunrise Christmas 2017 on the flight from Delhi to Bangalore. For the figure of the meditator on the mountain top I used the bronze figure of a Kashmiri in meditation, by Malvina Hoffman, Museum Chicago (Wikimedia). The rising sun is also in the heart centre of the meditator.

The symbolism of Capricorn is visualised in the eleven Capricorn paintings done between 2010 and 2020. For detailed detailed descriptions please see the ludgerphilips.org website.

The fire sign of Sagittarius is related to focused alignment. The Sagittarius energy teaches us to direct all forces to a noble goal. It is considered a very spiritual time and is a highway to the Light. Lord Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita, “Among the zodiacal signs I AM Sagittarius. Among the moon phases I AM the eleventh moon phase”. The eleventh ascending moon phase in Sagittarius is the climax, where the gates of heaven open for the experience of the cosmic consciousness. It is called the Day of Synthesis, of Narayana. This year it starts Tuesday 24 November at 10:12 am CET.

The symbolism of Sagittarius is visualised in the eleven Sagittarius paintings done between 2010 and 2020. For detailed detailed descriptions please see the ludgerphilips.org website.

The time of Sagittarius in the course of the year corresponds to the time before dawn in the course of the day. The two hours before sunrise are very favourable for meditation and bring fourth the best results with ardent worship. We can easily receive the cooperation of the Devas, who pour out subtle energies on the beings of the earth.

For the background of the image I warped a photo of predawn seen from an airplane and worked on the colours. The bottom indicates the sphere of the earth, the dense matter. From out of it rises a rose in pinkish colours into the vastness of the blue firmament; it is a symbol for the blossoming of fiery aspiration.

The flower is surrounded by the signs of the zodiac with Sagittarius at the top. The varying colours of the signs indicate the subtle work of the devas of dawn. They dance around the flower and seem to plunge into the flaming sphere announcing the rising sun.

The symbolism of Sagittarius is visualised in the eleven Sagittarius paintings done between 2010 and 2020. For detailed detailed descriptions please see the ludgerphilips.org website.

The correspondence with my young Indian friend went on touching numerous topics in an aphoristic way and much of it not “blogable”. In this and next blog-posts I’m picking out some strands of thoughts extended over a number of e-mails. This post is again illustrated by 2 photos from the excursion to the Creux du Van near Neuchâtel – not related to the content – showing groups of beech trees standing closely together like families and looking like one tree. Later some paintings by Nicholas Roerich.

When seeing the pics, my friend replied, “The beech trees from the second pic remind me of Lord of The Rings. Have you watched it? It’s an absolute must watch.”

My answer: “Lord of the Rings touched me very much – when it appeared in German (English books were not much around where I grew up) mid70s I took an off from university and kept reading the 3 books over 3 days. A little later a first, qualitatively poor movie in graphic / comic style presentation appeared – it didn’t give the ambiance. I later read all Tolkien books I could get, and then, end of 90s, the fantastic movie trilogy appeared – I went to see them in cinema with my then young sons, who also were thrilled. During my last flight to India I saw a new movie about Tolkien’s life – interesting.

There is lot of subtle occult knowledge in it. We also all were fans (except my youngest son who did only “read” mangas and then books on html, with 13, starting building websites) of Harry Potter, all books, audio-versions and films. Also much occult wisdom in them. Master EK mentioned that in teh future, wisdom would be given out via new means. – I can comment later on it. “

My friend was doing a transcription of a talk of Sri Kumar in which the word “supermundane” appeared. The following exchange developed:

“In the text the book “Supermundane” by Master Morya is mentioned, it was given out by Helena Roerich, the wife of Nicholas Roerich. In case you don’t know yet Nicholas and Helena Roerich – they are (were) great messengers of Hierarchy. A blogpost about Roerich’s paintings. And a nice impression from the book about Helena’s letters.

As per Nicholas and Helena Roerich – Sri Kumar said, he was a Master, she a high degree initiate. Helena Roerich channeled the Agni Yoga teachings from Master Morya, translated into many languages (for some time, I went deeply into them, not so easy because the teachings are dispersed over many volumes and you have to work them out yourself.)
Helena wrote a number of books (like Nicholas), they had a great global correspondence, and she also translated Secret Doctrine into Russian – HPB, though Russian, was trained by Master KH to speak and give it in English – HPB’s English first was poor but she had a very tough training.
Roerich’s came from Russia, fled to Paris at the beginning of the Revolution. In the mid-20s of last century, they did a long expedition to Central Asia, going from and returning to India, they managed to touch Tibet, which was strickly closed for foreigners, they went through Gobi desert with camels, under incredible hardships, to Mongolia, and him doing drawings all the time and then incredible paintings afterwards.
He painted over 6000 works, often big ones, which are in museums and private collections around the world. This is the excellent museum in New York (I once visited it 20 years ago, a very spiritual place) – have a thorough look through the site.
And this site from Estonia gives links to all his art work and much more.
Here a bit about his time in India.

There are also museums in India, and places dedicated to them (they stayed longer in Kullu Valley, not far from Dehradun (where my friend lives). One of their sons, Svetoslav, also was a well-known painter, having lived in Bangalore – though nice paintings but not of the power of his father. Take some time, when you find it, to go through – I’m always astonished to find paintings never seen before.
They had a tremendous artistic and political influence, creating an organisation for preserving cultural heritage in times of wars recognized by most nations and still valid today.
They were horribly defamed – like HPB – and their work nearly destroyed through attacks in the US – and now in Russia, the Roerich Museum in Moscow was recently closed down – though I heard from a friend from Moscow that this was a good step by the government because the heads of the museum were corrupt and non-cooperative – difficult to see behind.
I feel deeply inspired by him, and we named our youngest son Nikolas, because of Nicholas Roerich.”

My friend: “I haven’t heard of the Roerichs before. Thanks a lot for sharing about their work. I’ll check the book out this evening.”

Me: “The paintings of Roerich are extraordinary. I know them since 30 years and I’m always touched when I see certains of them – I have a print here behind me, ‘The Star of the Hero’.”

She: “It took me some time to go through the links you sent. I must admit that these paintings are breathtaking, especially King of Shambhala and Guardian of the Desert. I feel like they take me into a different dimension.”