The turtle is a symbol of the individual who turns inward towards subjective life. He withdraws into the cave of the heart and experiences the inflow of the light of the soul. The Vedic seers visualised the convex shell of the turtle as the upper part of the head and as the micro-version of the upper dome of space with the North Pole above the head. They saw the seven stars of the Great Bear in the region of the head centre. Similarly, the lower pole is understood as an inverted dome or a dish, in which the southern star called Sirius or the Dog Star is visualised in the human body near the tip of the spine.

An image developed over some days in meditation: A turtle with a radiant heart appeared; it was the dome of space inside the head with the luminous central axis of the spine going down. I created the structure of the image by transforming the photo of a turtle and by superimposing layers of an image of the Great Bear and of a polar bear. For the central axis I transformed a photo of the Milky Way. At the bottom I placed a dish-like sphere and in its centre I fused a picture of Sirius and of a dog. Then I worked on the colour shades and the transitions. The way the picture developed was again, for me, a surprise.

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13 July 2015, pencils and photo work

The spiritual path is from objectivity to subjectivity and via the subtle planes to the reunion with the divine centre. In the movement through the zodiac, Libra stands for the complete unfoldment of objective life, where you can lose yourself in the “scales of the balance” or return to the centre of rotation, which corresponds to the centre of our existence. Objectivity is horizontal life, subjectivity is vertical life, and both need to form a right angle, a balance in the centre.

When I was inwardly searching for the new image, nothing showed up until there was a window of time to start working on the image. I perceived a horizontal and a vertical line formed by galaxies. I started searching the “Google quarry” for elements to approach the inner image and found many a galaxy and other interesting objects but the inner image did not fit with the outer pieces of the puzzle. I felt dissatisfied.

Next morning in meditation I clearly saw the structure and the needed elements. For the vertical line I took a photo of the milky-way and for the horizontal line, the field of light, a photo of the Sombrero galaxy. I super-imposed elements of star-fields and a star and added the eyes as symbols of the Mother of the Universe. Then I worked out colours and details with the pencils and gave the image a final digital finish. And yes, this was the image which wanted to manifest.

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13 June 2015, pencils and photo work

Occult symbolism is a way of describing subtle truths, which to a common understanding appear as contradictory or nonsense. An intuitive approach helps gain deeper insights.

Virgo stands for the slow unfoldment of the soul on the spiritual path, secretly growing through crises in the womb of material life. The aspirant is compared to a child, whose soul / Sun silently develops a pure, virginal nature under the protection of Mother Nature. Nature again is a reflection of the spirit and thus is compared to the Moon, who is the ruler of Virgo on the subtle planes.

Meditating on the painting for the month of Virgo, I received the image of a chasm at the bottom in which there was the soul and at the top the head of the Divine Mother. The chasm was like penetrating through the seven planes of creation. A few days later the hint came, Isis and Osiris. I googled for a statue of these two Egyptian gods and studied about their symbolism. In the plethora of meanings I found that Osiris, the “Lord of Truth”, is compared to the Sun. Isis is described as his wife, his sister and even his mother, and also as the Virgin Earth. I found the image of a grey stone statue with Isis protecting the child Osiris. Her headgear is like a solar disc hiding the true spiritual sun, thus being the “moon” to the higher sun, which is carried by Mother Nature. Osiris wears a headgear like a receptacle receiving the divine flame.

I transformed the statue into golden colour and did some digital restoration. I then created the chasm penetrating through the seven planes and surrounded Isis-Osiris by an aura of radiating energy – the veil unveiled. When the clouds of conceptualisation are left aside, the symbolic presentation provides a view of Mother Nature protecting the Solar Child.

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14 May 2015, pencils and photo work

Leo is related to the heart centre; it is the heart of Spiritual Hierarchy. In the Vedic symbolism Leo is called the dog, meaning the Dog Star, Sirius. Our planetary Hierarchy is a replica of the Great White Brotherhood on Sirius whose Lord is Dattatreya. He is the teaching principle in the universe.

The Eastern Puranas compare the space globes of the universe with the fruits of a banyan tree and the suns with the seeds inside the fruit. Many trees line the roads to the garden of God. This reminds me of the astronomical concept of superclusters of galaxies called Laniakea (Hawaiian ‘immeasurable heaven’) which look like flows or branches of huge trees.

In the background of the painting I put a clustered photo of the known universe and super-imposed on it the structure of a tree. I made a photo of the statue of Dattatreya on my meditation altar, depicted as a being with one body and three heads, symbolizing the divine trinity coming out of unity. He is always depicted with a cow, symbolizing the universe. In his six hands he holds various symbols representing cosmic dimensions. In the branches of the tree you see two galaxies and in the centre a star nebula also called the “eye of God”. I placed a picture of Sirius into its centre.

In the foreground you see the symbol of the cosmic teaching principle, the triangle within a circle and the central point, which is placed at the heart centre of Dattatreya. The circle is surrounded by 12 stars, representing the twelve aspects of the zodiac or of the one original light, Aditi.

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.

17 April 2015, pencils and photo work

Sublime music can raise the consciousness beyond the mental to the level of the soul. This quality is related to Cancer. When music is properly used, it can open the awareness to cosmic planes of consciousness. Such experiences of oceanic consciousness are governed by Neptune. The cosmic teacher working through the power of divine music is called Narada. He is the cosmic musician whose thought, word and deed are musical. He bestows the word of the Lord with the sounds of his musical instrument, the Veena.

Pondering on Neptune, an image came to my mind which I had seen some decades ago, a round stone with a face. I finally found it googling – it was the famous “Mouth of Truth”, a stone face from an ancient Roman fountain probably representing Oceanus. I used it as the starting point, reworked it and merged it with a photo of Neptune. I surrounded it with a huge greenish wave in the vastness of the star-strewn space.

In the foreground you see Narada carrying his celestial Veena, a seven-stringed musical instrument representing the seven planes of creation or the seven tissues of the body. It is said to sing by itself and elevate people to the state of pure experience. I extracted the form of Narada from a vintage print and fused it with the surrounding waters of space.

26 March 2015, pencils and photo work

A month ago, while searching the web for the paintings of Grev Kafi, I came across a website with most sublime sculptures of a young Ukrainian artist, Alexey Leonov (when you search his name, you find only pages with the Soviet cosmonaut of the same name).

Not much substantial information is given about him on the website except:

“Alexey’s arts have a meaningful positive charge, inducing people’s unification, heartening people to moral and spiritual ideals. For the period from 2005 through 2014 there were more than 50 personal exhibitions in the cities of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. His works now can be found in more than 30 cities world over, such as Chicago, Houston, Strasbourg, Le Bourget, Cologne, Varna, Mumbai, Calcutta, Beijing, Astana, Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Irkutsk, Kaluga, Kiev, Simferopol, and others.”

His artwork shows a great mastery of subtle form-giving, and the content of his sculptures speak of his profound background: You find a great number of statues and portraits of great spiritual personalities of East and West, of Masters of Wisdom like Morya, Koot Hoomi, St. Germain, of Rishis and Avatars, of great outposts of culture and society. Among his sculptures you find great heroes and teachers of the Orient and Occident – Pythagoras, Plato, Akbar, Ramakrishna, Helena P. Blavatsky, Helena and Nicholas Roerich and their children, Krishna, Arjuna, Buddha, but also a series of sculptures of Christ and Christian saints and angels.

Most of his works are in chamotte (firesand), but also in bronze. He also did a number of monumental sculptures.

I wrote to Alexey asking for permission for publishing some images of his sculptures and he consented – thank you! (and thanks for Google translator helping to understand Ukrainian). On his website, you also find 2 YouTube videos. And you can download the images in high resolution.

May the beauty of the spirit expressing through the sculptures of this great artist uplift those who see them.

Gemini is ruled by Mercury, the Greek Hermes; he is the Lord of Speech. Gemini is related to the vocal cords and Visuddhi, the throat chakra. Through the vocal cords, the air connects the inner with the outer space. The word is expressed through our breath by the messenger, symbolized by Mercury. In meditation, the throat centre is also the entrance into the element of space called Akasha in the East.

The doorway of Gemini is symbolized by the two pillars of the sign representing the polarity of seeming opposites or the dual nature of the mind. The colour of the Gemini and the throat chakra is described as a shade of green which produces blue; it has a great healing effect. The crystals of copper sulphate give an idea of this colour.

In this image, you see Mercury standing between two bluish pillars. There is an influx of yellow-green light from above. Mercury wears a hat with two wings, which are depicted partly concrete, partly etheric – symbol of the Messenger of the Gods or the Light; it radiates through his eyes. His face is half light blue, half golden yellow, representing the dual nature of the mind and of the Buddhic plane. His throat centre of bluish-green colour radiates into space.

I created its colour with the help of a photo of crystals of copper sulphate. And Mercury with the help of a plaster bust of Mercury by the French artist François Rude.

24 February 2015, pencils and photo work

A week ago, I discovered the sublime paintings of an artist couple from Moldavia. The visionary painters Evdokia Fidel’skaya and Grigoriy Kabachnyi (born in 1932) work in co-authorship under the pseudonym Grev Kafi. They have created a huge oeuvre of incredibly subtle and luminous paintings, inspired by theosophy and the sacred teachings of East and West.

I took the following information (partly translated with Google Translator) from a Russian website about their paintings with a beautiful slideshow, from a Russian website about Grev Kafi, and from the Grev Kafi Museum project in Chisinau. Thanks to the artists Grev Kafi for allowing me to publish this blogpost and and thus help spreading their paintings.

After graduating from a University of Fine Arts in 1963, the artist couple lived 15 years in Tian Shan Mountains located between China and Kyrgyzstan. They met there the monumental work of Blavatsky and it changed their lives. Later, the acquaintance with the Agni Yoga Teachings (“Living Ethics”, Nicholas and Helena Roerich) gave them another profound inspiration.

However, for a long time, they had to work in secrecy, and the creative efforts of their work was not understood nor accepted, but they continued to work intensively. They lived very humbly, and all the money was spent on the canvas, paints, books, travel.

At the invitation of the Ministry of Culture of the Moldavian government in 1978, the artists moved to Chisinau. Their house is a creative workshop in Chisinau, a real island of harmony which is constantly visited by people from all over the world.

In the late eighties the painters’ art received a rising success, and they began to participate in Moldavian and Russian exhibitions and organised exhibitions of their own. Their creations can be found in many cities of the world and at the Theosophical Society in Adyar, India.

But the real success came when they created a series of paintings on the theme of “The Secret Doctrine”, H.P Blavatsky, the “Living Ethics” and the phenomena of the subtle world, and they recreated the 22 Great Arcana Tarot.

To give an impression of their work, I created a powerpoint presentation (28 MB), here as a PDF (4.8 MB). When I searched today on the web, I found many more paintings of Grev Kafi on a website in Russian dedicated to their paintings, just click on the links in the centre or on the left navigation, and also in the slideshow mentioned above. They are not included in powerpoint.

Many paintings are stored in a old dilapidated storage facility. For their salvation and safety, it is planned to build the “Grev Kafi Museum” in Chisinau, Republic of Moldavia. If you want to support this important Museum project with financial aid or other help, please find more information /bank account details on the website. On their website, you also find a number of videos. Here is the YouTube channel of Grev Kafi and here a collection on Google+.

And below you find a little slideshow with some of the theosophical paintings of the artists and a video. Enjoy!

A visit at their home:

The lingam is a fundamental symbol of creation, of the primary form emerging from the formless state. The expression of the divine Will is like a spark on the background of boundless blue. It has six projections from its centre, the six dimensions, giving the form of a double pyramid, which is also understood as a form of the lingam.

The divine Word comes forth through the vibrations in space which are compared to the roaring of the bull of Shiva. In Taurus, the constellation Rohini known in the West as Aldebaran is considered as the Eye of the Bull or the point of utterance of the divine Word. This eye is located in us in the third eye on the forehead. In the temples consecrated to Shiva the Lord in the form of a lingam should be seen through the horns of the bull situated outside the temple.

In the picture you see the double pyramid and the lingam through the horns of the bull. In the background I placed an image of the constellation of Taurus with Aldebaran in the centre. The star is surrounded by a lotus, the principle of unfoldment. Around the one central point there is a globe with the three original spectral colours unfolding to the central column with the seven colours of the rainbow. They represent the seven planes of creation or the higher Antahkarana on our forehead. The fiery red sphere of the lingam on the blue background expresses the potency of the divine Will bringing forth the creation. The central symbols taken together give the form of the divine Eye.

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.

25 January 2015, pencils and photo work

The earliest legends of the history of India mention two dynasties, the “race of the Sun” (Surya Vansha) and the “race of the Moon” (Chandra Vansha). The Solar Dynasty of the “Sons of the Sun” was the first ray royal dynasty, to which Lord Rama belonged. Master Morya, who is of fiery nature, belongs to the Solar Dynasty and is its last representative. He is the Master of the sun sign Aries and represents the Fire on our planet.

For this painting I used the photo of a huge solar eruption and one of the crescent earth to symbolize the descent of the Sons of the Sun onto our planet. In the background I created the path of descent and spheres of blue and red indicating the process of reception.

At the bottom I placed a picture of Master Morya and merged two crowns for his headwear, with a solar disc in the background.

Dr. K. P. Kumar explained the symbolism in lectures:

“In the ancient past, there was the Solar Dynasty, the Lunar Dynasty and the Dynasty of the Yadavas. We can rightfully say that the Solar Dynasty was the first ray royal dynasty. The Lunar Dynasty was the second ray dynasty, which also was royal. The Yadava Dynasty was the mixed quality. It was the dynasty of the third ray, and was also a royal dynasty. In it there was the mixture of intelligent activity of the third ray and the wisdom of the second ray. They carried wisdom and also intelligent activity.

The culture of solar dynasty still exists in some parts of Rajasthan in India. Master Maruvu (Morya) is a descendent of the solar dynasty; he is a descendent of Lord Rama. That is why his vision, speech and work are straight-forward. He is of fiery nature.”

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.

14 December 2014, pencils and photo work