Time moves cyclically. Every day is a time cycle, also every week and every year. As long as we remain in our old thought patterns and always do the same thing, we move in circles. As we evolve, we progress from circle to spiral – progressing spirally and ascending the path of evolution. When we learn to be useful to ourselves and to the environment, each turn of the spiral takes us to a higher plane of consciousness, until, freed from the limitations of matter, we finally move into higher circles. In the zodiac, the transition from Pisces to Aries offers the possibility of ascension; symbolically, it is called the resurrection from death.

The lower part of the picture shows the pair of fish swimming in different directions. The background of the painting is formed by the images of a spiral galaxy and a blue spiral, from the centre of which several spirals rise. Above there is the head of Phanes, a god of Greek mythology, whose name means “the appearing, the shining one”. He is regarded as the first-born of creation and as a light bearer. The figures of the zodiac surrounding him are based on a Phanes bas-relief (Wikimedia: Sailko).

Above on the right you can see the glyph of the fishes and above it the constellation of the zodiac sign.

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 Pisces paintings.

Pisces 2020 concludes the 10th annual cycle of the Spiritual Astrology Paintings. There have been 10 times 12 paintings related to the zodiac plus some extra-paintings – a part of the “Images of Synthesis” series.

To celebrate the occasion, I have done a photo book with the pictures of the last three cycles. I cannot make it generally available in print. But you can download the PDF here (text in English only). And the picture series continues.

Here you find ten images for the month of Aquarius which have manifested in ten years of Spiritual Astrology Paintings, 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 Aquarius paintings on the ludgerphilips.org website.

Before something appears, it is potentially present. Aquarius stands for the manifestation out of a potential state. Aquarius is the point of transformation where the invisible becomes the visible and the visible becomes the invisible. The symbol of Aquarius shows waves in space; the vibrations pour forth from the pot of Aquarius as the waters of life. The constellation Aquarius is called the Heavenly Man. During the month Aquarius he showers down a stream of spiritual light from his water jar. The Masters of Wisdom called this cosmic man the Manu, the prototype of man. He guides mankind through the cycles of time. In the present Age of Aquarius, spiritual evolution is accelerated to an unimaginable degree. Rishi Agastya, called Master Jupiter in the Theosophical circles, is the ruler of Aquarius.

For the figure of the celestial man I reworked a statue of Agastya from Java (Wikimedia: Photo Dharma) and merged the face with a picture of Master Morya. In his hands he holds the glyph of Aquarius with waves swinging like lightning. The zodiacal arch with the figure of Aquarius was created from a photo of the astrological clock of the ‘Zytglogge Tower’ in Bern. In the upper left corner, you can see the contours of the Aquarius constellation. The star in the hub of the wheel indicates the point of origin of the creational cycle; the play of colours of two Gothic window rosettes with twelve spokes stands for the variety and rhythm of cosmic unfoldment.

When I looked at the picture for several days, I realized that the figure with the Aquarius glyph looks like a magician. Aquarius is also the month of magic – to manifest something out of the apparent nothing. In Sanskrit, the month of Aquarius is called Magha, which means magic. The wheel of creation with its many colours is Maya in essence, an illusion that hides the truth of existence.

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 Aquarius paintings.

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”).