When seeing the lights of the Christmas illuminations during the last weeks, a painting done nearly 23 years ago came back to my mind – “Light over the City.” It was done in February 1987, dissolved in 1997, and digitally restored from a photo in 2013.

I was trying to portray the “light”, which here comes from above and shines all over and through the city – a vision of an enlightened society, but at the same time full of apocalyptic inklings, which are shaking in the underground.

I was fascinated of the inter-penetration of spiritual energies and everyday life. The scenery contains elements from the old town of Münster, Germany, where I lived for years; and the figure of the Eiffel tower together with the Arc de Triomphe in Paris.

A sentence for this came to me yesterday during the morning walk – “May the light in space guide us safely over the bridge crossing the madness of our time!” The light in space is the manifestation of the subtle world touching us when we open ourselves.

A very blessed Christmas and much momentum for 2020!

In ten years of Spiritual Astrology Paintings, ten images for the month of Capricorn have manifested giving various aspects of the symbolism of the sign. They form part of the Images of Synthesis series. You find the detailed descriptions of the Capricorn paintings on the ludgerphilips.org website.

The Sun upon entering Capricorn is called the Son of the Virgin. Its reddish rays are considered by the seers as the blood of the Sun, the blood of the Saviour. These life-giving rays of the northern Sun are the food of the spiritual life, which the Sun God distributes again during this annual ritual and thus helps us to orient the consciousness upwards. More about the importance of winter solstice.

Please find five photos of Capricorn / winter solstices from five different years. And here you can send them as a Christmas postcard.

In January-February 1983 I did a series of six paintings about the “Birth of Christ”. They were done with liquid glazing paint and fast glue on paper in A4 format. The pictures arrived at the end of a long and profound crisis where the first signs of deep changes in my life started to show up. In a way, it was also a birth of the inner Christ in me.

You can see the pictures also on my website.

Birth of Christ 1 – The Logos
This is the first picture of a series on the birth of Jesus Christ. This series was painted immediately after the series on Way of the Cross.
The cosmic cross – the transformed and light-filled version of the physical cross of crucifixion – has the sun god in its centre. It is the cosmic person (Purusha) fixed in matter and through this sacrifice enables the creation. So you see the spiral of manifestation in the background, on a basis of the deep blue / indigo of the background, the ocean of the space waters. The sun globe has the white disc in its centre, standing for the central sun manifesting from the background. The square formed in the centre stands for the matter aspect, and the parallels forming the cross are the vertical and horizontal dimensions forming the cardinal cross in heaven. So the Logos, the Word of God, is spoken out from beyond – and the Word was with God, as it says in the beginning of the Epistle of St. John. It is the Word taking on the “flesh” of matter – the cosmic prelude for the physical incarnation of the Christ consciousness – expressed in this series of paintings.

Birth of Christ 2 – Announcement
You see here the Angel Gabriel with a white lily announcing the future birth of Jesus to Mary. The whole is surrounded by ether, the cosmic space waters, from where the soul of Christ approaches the form of his future incarnation.

Birth of Christ 3 – Pregnancy – The Mother Standing on the Dragon of Matter
Here you see his mother in an archetypal representation as the World Mother. Often she is represented as standing on the crescent of Moon, or on a serpent or a dragon. This symbolises that the incarnation of the soul is into a pure, virgin vessel, and the serpent/dragon represents the cosmic creative force (kundalini) bound to matter. It is being liberated through the divine light. The pregnant mother (Lat. “mater” / matter) carries the light in her womb, surrounded by the space waters of ether.

Birth of Christ 4 – The Birth
Here you see the cosmic cross of the first picture of this series, where the cross manifests in the cosmos, now linked to earth. The sun in the centre, the Consciousness, comes down from the cosmic centre through the vertical movement into the physical sphere and enters into the form of the new born child. In the background you see the spiral of the first image now with blue and violet, the ether of the physical plane. The spiral condenses to the forms, and it surrounds the forms of Joseph and Maria who are blessing and protecting the child. The child is surrounded by a golden aura, and towards the bottom the colours change to the vital red, the colour of the blood of the earth into which the child now is “implanted”.

Birth of Christ 5 – Announcement to the Shepherds
In a glowing aura of light, a group of three angels appears to the shepherds in the nearby fields announcing the birth of Christ upon earth, blessing them with their presence. The shepherds, sitting on the ground and dazzled by the light, incredulously look at the apparition. A great contrast between the spheres of night and light.

Birth of Christ 6 – Worship of the Three Kings
This is the sixth and last picture of a series on the birth of Jesus Christ. In the centre you see the infant Jesus held by Mary and surrounded by an aura of light, which is adorned by a crown of light. One of the three kings prostrates before the child, while another puts down his gift and the third one stands in the background in veneration. The three kings / magi carry crowns of red fire and are surrounded by a sphere of electric blue light. Mary is surrounded by the warm golden-yellow and red, colours of the heart, while the infant is of pure light.

With the cycle of Spiritual Astrology Paintings, there are now ten images for the month of Sagittarius. They give various aspects of the symbolism of the sign. You find the detailed descriptions on the ludgerphilips.org website.

For 19 years, 1990 – 2009, I didn’t paint anything. I felt I would never paint again. The creative streak was frozen, hidden under a veil deep within.

In November 2009, during a deep and long crisis, I experienced two intense night inner openings. Suddenly there was an urge to express these experiences on paper, and so the series “Images of Synthesis” started.

On Friday the 27th of November 2009, I bought paper, colours, and paint-brushes. The next day I started the first painting, not knowing that it was a new beginning. I started painting on a photo which I had shot some days before. After painting, I scanned the picture, printed it, worked on it with pencils, scanned it again and then worked again on it on the screen, increasing the brightness of the colours: My new technique was born. I use it to this day, refining the procedure with every work done.

More and more, I realised that the images were not from me but through me. Often I was much surprised about what came out. Doing these paintings is an activity full of unforeseen, done besides many other activities.

Upto now, there are 151 images. They are available for free download on the website with the paintings (I had done about 80 prints on aluminium dibond and framed hi-res prints – resting in the basement – I stopped doing so; there was not much interest in them).

Since April 2010, I have been working on the “Spiritual Astrology Paintings”. I recently finished the 10th annual cycle, with 12 paintings each – 120 paintings – as part of the Images of Synthesis series. I did a photo-book with the last three annual cycles, until Pisces 2020 – so it will have to wait for some more months.

The “Images of Synthesis” are also published on the Good-Will website, with short extracts of the wisdom teachings of the World Teacher Trust, giving the inspiring idea. You find them also on Facebook and on Flickr.

Will the work continue? I do not know. It is not my planning but depends on the inner impulse. But upto know there is a “green light” to continue.

Here you can see the first five images of the series – and you find explanations on the ludgerphilips.org website (series “Subtle Worlds”).

For our daily meditation it is recommended to visualize the correspondences between parts of the body, of the planet and of the cosmos. We can see ourselves as sitting in the middle of the earth and having the North Pole in our head and the South Pole towards the lower end of our vertebral column. We can further visualise the constellations of the Great Bear (Big Dipper) in the head and the Pole Star as the pivotal point at the top. At the base centre, there is the dog guarding the infernal gates; it is Sirius, the Dog Star which is called Cerberus in Greek mythology or Sarama in the East.

From this point, related to Sagittarius, the kundalini ascends. The ascent can be visualised as an arrow shooting up through the central axis of the spine. Occult Meditation 48 says, “Matter, mind, Master. Matter is the South Pole. Master is the North Pole. Mind is the equator.” The movement from matter to spirit, to the stage of the Master, is the path of evolution.

The picture shows the arrow on the bow as the central axis from the base centre, the South Pole to the head centre, the North Pole, and further pointing to the Pole Star. The seven stars of the Great Bear are called the Seven Judges or Seers in the East. They are related to Sagittarius, whose constellation you can see in the upper right corner. The globe is formed with the help of a picture of the earth and a crystal ball. In the dark part below the equator, symbolising matter, you see the constellation of the Great Dog with Sirius positioned at the base centre.

See more pictures on the site with my paintings. If you want to print the image, you can download the file in medium and high resolution format.
The different zodiacal signs are clustered in groups – you can see here all my Sagittarius paintings.

Scorpio represents the fall of spirit into matter and the reversal of the process through the ascent of consciousness from out of the bondage of matter. The movement of energy is described as a serpent creeping on the ground or rising as a brilliant light inside the spinal column. Beyond the brow centre the energy bifurcates into two arcs like a winged serpent and further ascends like an eagle. The flying serpents are described as carrying a radiant jewel which is the jewel in the lotus of the head centre, Mani Padme.

In the centre of the image you see the central axis of Sushumna surrounded by the descending and ascending serpentine energies. In the upper part, they form two resplendent wings around the head of the serpent with the jewel of light. An eagle, symbol of an initiate, is soaring up from out of a jewel in the background symbolising the Ajna centre. And above, a group of three eagles is flying in the vastness of space. To the right, you see the constellation of Scorpio.

The wheel of the zodiac in the background, designed with a photo of a friend, indicates the movement of ascent and descent.

See more pictures on the site with my paintings. If you want to print the image, you can download the file in medium and high resolution format.
The different zodiacal signs are clustered in groups – you can see here all my Scorpio paintings.

In Spiritual Astrology, the solar year is called the Day of the Gods. In Aries, we have noon and in Libra midnight; in Capricorn there is dawn and in Cancer dusk. When the spiritualist has completed his journey of tracing the path from Libra to Aries, the lower pole is absorbed into the higher pole. Man is reunited with his higher pole, the God centre. He later enters into the soul of the Sun and finally attains the centre of the spiritual Sun. He then sits in the lotus above the head centre, the jewel of the seventh lotus.

In the upper part of the picture you see the cross of the year with the vertical line of Aries and Libra and the horizontal line of Capricorn and Cancer, designed with the help of an old astronomical illustration of the movement of the Sun around the Earth. It is dovetailed into the arch of a colonnade symbolizing the stages of unfolding consciousness.

The figure of the meditator was formed by the fusion of two Buddha statues. Above his head is depicted the jewel in the lotus which creates the pathway to the zodiacal wheel and to the Sun. In the upper right corner, you can see the constellation Libra.

See more pictures on the site with my paintings. If you want to print the image, you can download the file in medium and high resolution format.
The different zodiacal signs are clustered in groups – you can see here all my Libra paintings.

A friend sent me the link to a new video of Cristóbal Vila: Infinite Patterns (here on YouTube). Cristobal is a graphic designer, illustrator and art director in Zaragoza, Spain. His website Etereaestudios consists mainly of a gallery showing the outstanding work done by Cristóbal Vila within the field of 3D and digital imaging. I already had done a blogpost about some of his video works in February 2011. See here links to his work.

On his website, he writes about Infinite Patterns – Connecting geometry, nature and architecture:

“This is a new personal project that seeks to establish connections between various fields that interest me deeply: geometry, and how it appears linked to nature, on the one hand, and to art and architecture, on the other; raising relations between all of them. Somehow it would mean the fusion of the interests of two of my previous works: Nature by Numbers and Ars Qubica.”

Have also a look at another of his works, “Lux Aeterna” (Eternal Light) – a journey of light, from distant galaxies to small drops of water. Fascinating!

The video Infinite Patterns cannot be seen on other websites, please click on this link to see it on YouTube.