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

We are now in the month of Virgo, so here is the picture to the month:

The earthy sign of Virgo symbolizes the slow growth in the “womb of time” through conflicts and crises to reach the light of the soul. When we have gained a pure mind, it can reflect the divine Light. When the Light gets born in the virgin mind, this is called the “birth in Light”. The light of primordial nature is described as the Mother of the World. She penetrates all the seven planes of existence. These planes are said to be the veils of the Mother, and they are also depicted as a rainbow around her head. It says that her eyes transmit the rays of grace uplifting the souls to their pristine nature.

For this picture I used the image of a little statue of the Virgin with a star-filled veil. Around her head you see the colours of a huge rainbow, the planes of creation. In the background I placed two galaxies from the constellation of Virgo, depicting the cosmic eyes of the Virgin.

In the lower sphere I arranged an extract of a group photo and on each person’s face I placed a layer of a sunrise, illustrating the reflection of the divine Light in the human minds. They are the souls maturing in the matter to experience the birth in the Light.

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.

10 May 2014, A 5, pencils and photo work

After pondering on it for a while, I decided to make the original files of my paintings available for free. As I wrote on the website of my images, “All the pictures are expressions of spiritual principles / realities. I receive them and I give them for free.” This way, the images might better find the way to serve their purpose.

So if you would like to print a picture yourself, there is now a page where you can download the files of the “Images of Synthesis” in medium and high resolution format.

Have a look at this playful hand-drawn short film by Glen Keane in dark blue. Keane was the main creative in some of the most famous animated Disney films. Animated and directed entirely by him, DUET tells the story of Mia and Tosh and how their individual paths in life are woven together to create a duo – cute :-). Here you can read more about the realisation of the film. And here is a video about how it was done with “ATAP” (Google’s Advanced Technology and Projects group).

An extract from the video (c)

When I set out to write the new Lunar Messenger for the month of Leo on Lord Krishna I felt again his magic touch. And thoughts of previous encounters came to my mind. I remember well how I noticed this touch of the presence consciously for the first time in the mid-70s of last century, when I read the newly published German version of a booklet, “The Heart of a Gopi” – “Das Herz einer Gopi” (PDF, by Raihana Tyabji, 1924, not available as English PDF) – stories about the enchanting influence of Krishna.

My first impressions of Krishna in the Europe of the 70s, however, were a bit weird: Bald-headed people in orange clothes with a queue at the back of the skull and chanting Hare Krishna were quite exotic appearances in the shopping promenades of the German city where I was studying. Years later, I had some “culinary contacts” with them – for a while the Hare Krishna people run an excellent restaurant in Berne, and one of them walking through the city gave me a free copy of their Vedic cook book…

The most intense encounter with Krishna’s magic was in the early 90s, when I translated Master EK’s “Music of the Soul” and “Man Sacrifice” about the life of Lord Krishna – these versions weren’t the ones published later. During the months of translation, I often felt blissful and like in a trance. My wife also experienced it while proof-reading. I did the translation in a time of intense inner and outer transformations and it was a strangely uplifting experience. Especially Music of the Soul I read a number of times, also in English as a “language course” with a friend. I relived the thrill when in 2012 Master EK’s “The World Teacher. Advent of Lord Krishna” was finally published in English and German. I received it from Sri Kumar and immediately dived into it.

My approach, however, was not a straight route and only slowly it took to a more differentiated shape. Chanting was definitely not my path, I found out end of the 80s when leaving the Sai Baba movement. In the 90s I bought in a second hand bookshop at a bargain price the complete 12 vol. edition Srimad Bhagavatam of Vedavyasa, in German, by Swami Prabhupada, dealing mainly with the life of Krishna. When I took some of the books to the next meeting of my then-teacher and his group, he made some derogatory remarks about the Swami and the books. His impact made me throw all the volumes in the garbage the next day. It took me quite long to trust my inner impulses and not to follow what I believe to be right, because I have heard it from someone, even if I regard him as my teacher.

I’m learning more and more to be vigilant about the energies I feel, their quality and expression, and Krishna is definitely enchanting for me. I don’t feel Hindu or like a “devotee” – it’s not my soul mood – but fascinated by the touch of the subtle presence. It was there when I translated orally comics and stories about the life of Krishna for our children while they were young. And when I did the three pictures on Lord Krishna (see below), each time this presence was strongly felt. I don’t try to analyse but just let the magic take effect on me. It is beyond mental concepts, it just IS.

However, you don’t need to put off your mind to get the touch of the presence – it is like being on two planes at the same time. I experienced it when I did on my PC an extensive collection of material of what Dr. K.P. Kumar and Dr. E. Krishnamacharya said on Krishna and when I ventured to condense it to the essence for the Lunar Messenger. But the touch of the presence clearly pointed out the way to take.

Krishnas birth was on 18 July 3228 BC, his  birthday is celebrated on the 8th descending moon phase of Leo – this year on Sunday, 17th of August.

Music of the Soul – Full Moon. 29/12/2009

Union beyond Duality. 16/04/2011

The Magic Flute of Krishna. 21/12/2012

Since many years I’m fascinated by the sublime geometry of the Sri Yantra. When our children were young, we did Mithila classes and drew with them the Sri Yantra (see the book “Mithila” about the mantra Sreem and the related yantra – scroll down). In our home we have several directional Yantra mandalas inspired by the science of Vastu, also the Sri Yantra at the entrance.

A few days ago I came across the website of a German artist who has devoted his life to work on the Sri Yantra and is creating beautiful copper-works.

In his youth, Bernhard Wimmer had learned bronze casting and chasing. After years of artistic search he discovered his vocation in uniting art and science. He found in the Sri Chakra Yantra a cosmic energy generator, and he describes the work with it as a journey to the I AM through cosmic energy geometry.

Bernhard Wimmer working on a Sri Yantra (c)

On his website he explains (in German) the Sri Yantra as an instrument or better a “machine” which uses physical laws to change the physical world around. The Sri Yantra can generate energy waves which are in resonance with us and support us to build up energy fields to send them with our intentions on a journey into the cosmic field of consciousness. And it is our ability for devotion and love which opens the energy door so that we can send our deepest impulses and intentions through the world and into this cosmic field of consciousness. The Sri Yantra is an extraordinary instrument for our energy and consciousness development and can greatly intensify our work but not replace it.

Bernhard Wimmer (c)

Bernhard Wimmer is singing mantrams while working on a Yantra, mainly the Gayatri mantram, the invocation of Light. The work is done for the highest weal of the world and the place or the people for which he does a Yantra. Here are two videos with interviews (in German)  about his work (1 / 2).

It is interesting how his descriptions match with what Dr. Ekkirala Krishnamacharya says about the Sri Yantra in his book “Spiritual Psychology“:

“Tantric texts in Sanskrit and the Kabbala prescribe various compound symmetrical shapes for various compound numbers that are to be meditated upon to acquire perfection of the mental, vital and lower Buddhic planes. They are called Yantras in Sanskrit. Sri Yantra is the most perfect and profound form of all. It is not only a perfect shape for meditation, but it represents the operations of the whole cosmos down to the individual man. It is formed by an arrangement of five equilateral triangles with their apexes below, and another set of four equilateral triangles with their apexes above, the circumcircles of these triangles and three squares outlining the whole figure.”

And Dr. K. Parvathi Kumar explains in the book “Mithila – A New Age School Syllabus” the work with Sri as a scientific work of manifesting subtle energies:  “The invocation of the Mother ‘SRI’ makes you magnetic and lucky when you practice it with deep interest and inclination. In this invocation, you are carrying out a triangular work, i.e., you are applying a Sound (Mantra) upon a Symbol (Yantra) according to a specific process (Tantra). This is a scientific way of manifesting the subtle energies upon the grosser planes, known to the Magicians. If your motives are sacred, it leads to White Magic.”

And in the book on Mantrams he explains:  “SRI stands for the splendour, the Divine Nature. SRI is a seed sound. It helps speedier transformation and it is the work of fire.”

Bernhard Wimmer is producing the Sri Yantra in copper, the metal of Venus – the sound Srim is part of the mantra of the Venus principle. But he also sells the Yantra as beautiful prints. Have a look at the website of Bernhard Wimmer. (Thank you for the permission of using the images.)

Bernhard Wimmer (c)