In Eastern wisdom, the content of space is called Akasha. The impressions of the past cycles of life are recorded in the ‘Akashic records’, a kind of subtle photography. In ‘Spiritual Astrology’, Pisces represents this ‘tablet of the universe’ on which an initiate can read the past, present and future of the whole creation. Pisces also preserves the information about the human frame and its relationship with the frame of the cosmic man, which is hidden in the depths of our consciousness.

To illustrate the opening of the sacred content of space with its subtle records, I used an image of the stained glass windows of a Gothic cathedral, which I transformed and duplicated. For the cosmic man I extracted from an Indian painting the face of Ishvara, the Master consciousness of the universe and in our own being. On his forehead, you see the path of light connecting the pineal and pituitary – the representatives of the two fishes of Pisces. And above there is the crown of the head centre.

Below, I placed the “blue marble” of our Earth as the sphere of our life. I super-imposed the image of an embryo, symbolizing that our frame is made in the image and likeness of the cosmic man and that it is in a process of unfoldment.

Pisces is ruled by Neptune, who helps us to merge our lower consciousness (personality) into the higher consciousness or group-consciousness. I used a photo of Neptune to create the background of the image and to give it the mystic note, for Neptune is the soul of our solar Logos and is linked to the cosmic soul of our universe.

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17 November 2014, pencils and photo work

On a very subtle plane, colour and sound converge and become one. This plane is related to Aquarius and to a supra-cosmic musical intelligence whom the Vedas call Vena the Gandharva. The Vedas say, he merrily sings the “song of light”. The Greek Apollo is no other than Vena; through his influence the sound- and light principles of the higher planes are expressed in identical scales.

Meditating on these correspondences, an image arose in me of Apollo with a musical instrument super-imposed on his face and light pouring down from above.

For the painting I chose a black and white photo of a head of Apollo and converted it into light yellow. I found the picture of a beautiful classical instrument, the “Viola d’Amore” (Viola of Love). It is used like a violin and has a sweet, warm sound. There are 6 or 7 playing strings on the top and the same number of “sympathetic strings” below – a beautiful symbol of the 6 pairs of signs of the zodiac or of the 7 planes of creation in the manifest and in the subtle spheres. I placed the instrument on the face of Apollo so that the upper part with the pegs and the head is like a stair towards the spheres of light. There is a second viola merging with the face of Apollo and a part of a nearly invisible third one surrounding the head like an aureole.

For the background, I first took a photo of Uranus and merged it with another one of a star cluster from the constellation Aquarius. Though you don’t recognize these elements anymore, they are there in the “background” of this painting. And the light coming from above looks like pouring down from out of the nearly invisible Aquarian pot.

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.

Aquarius – Apollo and the Song of Light

We just have entered the month of Capricorn. In spiritual astrology, Capricorn symbolises the time of dawn on the different scales: the daily sunrise, the dawn of the year, or the birth of the creational intelligences, the awakening of the gods.

To illustrate these different planes, I started with a photo of a sunrise seen from an airplane. The partly visible sun symbolises that our visible sun is an expression of the invisible parts. According to the Scriptures, only one quarter is visible, while three quarters remain hidden. The surrounding petals of three layers of a sunflower and the flames above depict the radiance of the subtle planes.

In the centre, you see the depiction of the three basic forces of creational activity, pervasion and destruction – Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva. I created this three-headed unity by transforming a picture of a brownish copper statue into blue with golden ornaments. The statue was done on the basis of the famous Trimurti, a huge sculpture of the three-headed divinity in the caves of Elephanta Island, Mumbai. The serpent is a symbol of the unfoldment of time and the forces of life (Kundalini).

For the background, I chose a photo of the constellation of Capricorn. In many of my paintings you see a dark blue background with stars. It symbolises the background of the unmanifest space, from out of which all manifestations emerge – you cannot illustrate the unmanifest. The blue of the statues of Gods refers to their origin from the unknowable background.

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.

Capricorn – The Sunrise

05 September 2014, pencils and photo work

Some kind of a Christmas present: The French TV channel France 2 is running a talent show “Prodiges”, about high talent children in the fields of classical dance, music and song. For their program of 27 December, they have realised an extraordinary flashmob at the “Centre Commercial de Beaugrenelle”, at Paris. Here you find photos about the “making of”, and here videos of different young talents. I don’t like boosting children under the label of “child prodigy” with the related pressure of competition and career but just enjoy the joy of the young performers.

Not a talent show, but if you want to send some Christmas greetings to a friend, you find here some e-cards with pictures I took during the last winters.

Photo from the YouTube video (c France 2)

I just came across a petition on Change.org addressed to Mr. Vladimir V. Putin, the President of the Russian Federation, with an appeal to prevent the destruction of the non-governmental Museum named after Nicholas Roerich and to provide assistance to the Museum.

I immediately signed this petition. I deeply admire the work of Nicholas Roerich and I have published a number of blog-posts about him, also about the new museum.

The Ministry of Culture of Russia headed by Mr. V. R. Medinsky is aiming at taking away from the ICR the Roerichs heritage, thus destroying the non-governmental Museum. You find more details on the the page of Change.org with the appeal. On the website of the museum, there is also a call for help and international protection.

The Roerich-Museum, Moscow

If you also like the beautiful art of Nicholas Roerich, you might also sign the petition and disseminate it among your friends and acquaintances, as a little contribution to the preservation of the museum, for the culture of Russia and the whole world.

Madonna Oriflamma, holding the Banner of Peace

Mikhail Sadovnikov, a Russian artist and former mathematician, uses a spinning potter’s wheel to create hypnotizing dynamic patterns from out of wet clay sludge. On a high level of artistry, he transforms and melts the design to ever changing geometrical forms. The beautiful video “Dance on the Circle” is accompanied by a calm but driving Russian music.

Here is another video about Mikhail Sadovnikov, “The Magic Of the Pottery Wheel“, where he shows children his unique ability to create magic images – and the children enjoy creating their own ones. And if you can read Russian – here is an article with some pictures about the creation of this outstanding performance. Mikhail’s clay art reminded me of the sand art by Ilana Yahav, about which I had blogged 6 years ago.

Today, the month of Sagittarius starts.

Sagittarius is the fiery sign of the archer, symbol of single-minded attention. It teaches us to direct all our forces to one purpose, the goal of our life. On the spiritual path, the bow and arrow stand for the meditative discipline of lifting up the energies to the higher centres and to align one’s own will to the divine Will.

For the visualisation of the divine Will I chose a representation of the Lord of the Divine Will: I took the face of a statue of Shiva on the banks of the River Ganges in Rishikesh, India. I cleared it from other symbolisms and placed a bow and an arrow over the bust. With the help of photos of the sun and of a lotus I created the Sahasrara, the thousand-petalled lotus over the head, the target of the alignment, the connection to the higher worlds.

For the string and the lower part of the bust I created shapes of bluish flames, expressing the electric tension of the fiery alignment. I emphasized it by intensifying the colours.

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.

08 August 2014, pencils and photo work

We today enter into the month of Scorpio.

The work of Scorpio is the alchemy of profound transformation through rhythmic inner work. Rhythm, ritual and order are related to the 7th ray of violet vibration. The violet light is the most proximate subtle light; it helps us gain the vision, which reveals the subtle existence. The violet flame causes magical transformations, which slowly reorganize the energies of our life. The Master of the 7th Ray, the Count Saint Germain, is the Master related to Scorpio. He supports us to govern ourselves by following a rhythm and order.

For this painting I took some photos of a candle flame and arranged a picture of Count Saint Germain into several layers of flames transformed into violet light. In the background I merged the pictures of a rose window of a cathedral and a blue diamond. Then I started working with the colours.

After scanning the picture and further working on the colours I saw that the print-outs were quite different from the screen images. The colour tones did not give the right hues, and the violet did not render well. So I slept one night over it and then continued working: I divided the picture into two layers, worked on the layers separately. I then erased parts of the one layer and fused the two layers. After a number of print-outs the right luminosity was adjusted.

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.

09 July 2014, pencils and photo work

Two weeks ago I bought new maps of areas in the surrounding, and so we found a new place for our Sunday afternoon walks. Amsoldingen is a very idyllic location at the feet of the Alps near Thun, with a pre-Romanesque church from the 10th century and a castle, located near two beautiful little lakes. At the beginning of our walk we had a look into the old church and strongly felt the presence of earthbound souls. So we sat down in the cemetery and invited them with some invocations to the subtle helpers to wake up and move up to the worlds of light. It was again a sublime feeling when slowly a greater number of souls passed by and disappeared into the Light.

Leaving the village, the path took us over meadows along the two little lakes. The whole time, there was a fantastic panorama of the Alps in the background. Come with us on this extremely beautiful walk.

With autumn equinox, we just have entered into the month of Libra

In one of the Upanishads there is the story of two birds on the tree of life which are eternal inseparable friends. One bird eats the fruit of the tree; the other rejoices the first one eating. The bird below stands for the personality, which is experiencing the world. The bird above is the soul, which is a witness of the actions of the lower self. Both are eternally united. It is a beautiful representation of Libra, which stands for relationship.

Another symbol of relationship is the magnet. Its two poles create a field which attracts and magnetizes the iron filings.

In this picture I joined the two symbols: The upper bird in radiant white is hovering above and observing the lower bird. The latter is sitting on the ground, looking backwards. It is also white but a little tinged.

In the background you see the two poles of the magnet vertically arranged as two suns spreading their fields of force all around illustrating the poles of the soul and personality. They also represent the trunk of the tree of life with the lines of force as branches and roots.

I drew the lines on a photo of iron filings ordered around a magnet. Spiritual Astrology describes the colour of Libra as crimson-red for the average people living in a cloudy admixture of emotions and love. For a disciple who has developed the etheric lotuses the colour is violet; and when he is established in the thousand petalled lotus the colour is a blend between blue and pure white. You see these colour tones vibrating in the picture.

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.

04 June 2014, pencils and photo work