Since many years I’m inspired by the work of Nicholas Roerich and his wife Helena. The paintings of Nicholas emanate a radiance and profundity which is very uplifting. And the Agni Yoga series received by Helena are full of spiritual depth.

Today I came across a film about the Roerichs (no more available due to copyright issues), by Lyudmila Shaposhnikova (1h10′): “Roerich – The Call of Cosmic Evolution”. The description says that “In the film for the first time is discovered the evolutionary meaning of their eminent contribution to the world culture. The philosophy of cosmic reality ‘Living Ethics’, Central Asian Expedition, Himalayan Institute of Scientific Research ‘Urusvati’, an international treaty known as the Roerich Pact were the main evolutionary actions of Roerichs which enabled to shape a new thinking and a new cosmic mentality on our planet.”

Among others the film gives an insight into the beautiful new Roerich Museum in Moscow, the “International Center of the Roerichs” situated in the very heart of Moscow.

Photo of the museum (c) International Center of the Roerichs

In the museum there is the Masters Hall, the Central Asian Expedition Hall, the Banner of Peace Hall, and others… You can also take a virtual tour through the Asian Hall of the museum. In the video it says that the heritage of Roerich was moved from India to Russia. The exposition encompasses every aspect of Nicholas and Helena Roerich’s life and heritage, bringing together art, philosophy, spiritual quest, scientific research and their wide-ranging philantropic endeavour.

View of the painting “Fiat Rex” in the “Masters Hall”.

I also discovered that the Roerich Museum of New York has done a relaunch of their website since the last time I saw it. They now have nice slideshows and photo galleries.

In the symbolic journey through the zodiac, Libra represents the illusions into which the soul loses itself when it gets disconnected with the thread of Light.

I visualised it as a ravine and superimposed on it the structure of a labyrinth, depicting the windings of our intellect, our brain. There is a bridge of Light leading over the gap, and in the background there is the light of a huge unfolding flower of consciousness.

A pilgrim, symbol of the eternal part of the soul, is standing at the left side and looking down into the abyss.

At the left rock face, you see the volumes of a library, representing the great masses of knowledge where you can get lost in concepts. An old man is sitting in front of the wall of books, absorbed in studying.

A sage with a rod is observing him. He represents Saturn, the Lord of Time and the inner ruler of Libra. He is the guardian of the threshold who keeps you in a situation until the lesson is learnt.

At the bottom you see a snail, symbol of the slowly moving spiral of time.

At the centre, a young lady in white, representing the aspiring soul, is looking up to the guiding angel at the right. She is listening to him and is ready to ascend from the narrow abyss towards the Light.

The figures in this picture are taken from photos or transformed from paintings of Edward Burne-Jones (1833-1889) and Louis Janmot (1814-1892). You find more paintings in my gallery.

20 May 2013, A 5, pencils and photo work

For the “Astro Forum”, organised by WTT-Hamburg of last weekend, I did a video published on YouTube , “Dance of the Zodiac“. It is an arrangement of images from my paintings on symbolisms of spiritual astrology, on which I’m working since 4 years. You might have seen them on my website (with explanations) or also on the Good-Will site, (there with links for downloads in print version).

As background music I chose a flute song of Terry Oldfield, “Loving Touch”. With some nice words he gave his ok – thank you Terry. You might have heard of him; he does “Music from the Heart” and fascinating music inspired by nature and Eastern wisdom (see on YouTube).

The book “Spiritual Astrology” is a storehouse of profound concepts of wisdom, which let images come to my mind’s eye. Thus when reading the chapter on Virgo impressions came to me of purity and virginity, of the world saviours as the Sons of the Virgin, of the rainbow of creation, the veil of the Mother of the World. I wanted to give a new perspective to the often misunderstood concept of the Virgin and to replace the child with a group of great messengers of God and World Saviours.

I used a painting of Fra Angelico for the central figure of the Virgin. I added a helix galaxy structure and a rainbow in the background above her head, forming the Eye of God. The head and the halo of the Virgin at the centre symbolise that the World Mother is the first emanation from the background of creation. She is sitting on a red and golden veil, the sheath covering the pure existence and giving rise to the multitude of expressions in space. Full of loving attention the Mother is looking at the group of messengers of the pure Light, which are inserted into the form of the infant Jesus, who is holding in his left hand the ball of the globe. Wrapped into her blue robe you see smiling people who feel blessed and protected through her presence. Her Light is radiating into all directions.

You might like to see my other paintings.

12 April 2013, A 5, pencils and photo work

While thinking, we are continuously creating images in our mind. Modern neurologists even think that thinking is the ability to display images internally and to order those images (this is what António Damásio thinks – a professor of neuroscience at the University of Southern California, in: Descartes Error. Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain, 1994, p 89 – what might be his images with this thought?). These images are linked to emotions, which can be deeply stored in our subconscious mind and triggered through situations we encounter.

Marketing (and not only marketing) makes use of this phenomenon by evoking images intended to move the observer into a specific direction. And what happens with these ad-images in us? …

A master of evoking images is Carl Warner, an English photographer who became famous with his “Foodscapes” – impressive landscapes created by food arrangement (I blogged about it in 2008). You find many videos about his foodscapes on the web. Of course, these images attracted the advertising industry and they used them in campaigns for various food based products and brands.

Some days ago I got an e-mail from an Indian friend with photos of the new series of Carl – fascinating “Bodyscapes” created by arranging (living) human bodies to landscapes. When you look at them, feel the images these bodyscapes create in you – is it warm human togetherness or more a feeling of inside a sardine can? Nevertheless – impressive impressions.

Thank you Carl for the publication permission. He is also on Facebook.

Shin-Knee Valley

Valley of the reclining woman

The wisdom teachings describe dawn and dusk as very favourable times to practice meditation and to work with sound. There are Indian Ragas (melodies) specially composed to be played at dawn or dusk.
The French call the time of dusk “l’heure bleu”, the blue hour, since there is a particular quality of the light around sunset. In our latitudes this time is much longer than in the tropics, where darkness sets in quite fast.

Yesterday evening I was at a live performance by Mich Gerber on the River Aare, in our village. For three evenings he was giving free concerts on a little ferryboat of the Bodenacher-Fähre. He is playing electric double-bass, generating the background music with his own tunes repeated by a computer program.

When I arrived at the river around a quarter past 8 pm there were already many people sitting on both sides of the river. A few minutes later the ferryboat set out to the middle of the river and Mich started playing. The background was a tampura-sound, and he played a melody like an Indian raga.

The atmosphere was full of magic – the light of the setting sun in the background, the sound of the flowing water and the amplified vibrations of the strings of the double-bass. Other songs followed, reminding of Arabian tunes, classical songs from Europe or Jazz improvisations.

People around me took out their mobiles and started making videos. I, too, tried to do a little video with my camera, but it wasn’t good. However, the camera generated a magic picture of the “blue hour”:

While it was getting dark it started raining, adding to the mystical ambiance with the lampions on the boat and along the board of the river, made by simply putting candles into white paper bags.

People were moving to the sounds – a young father besides me was rocking his baby-son. Mich played for an hour, and I felt very happy that I had decided on a short notice to see this beautiful concert.

On his website he says about these concerts:

“Mich Gerber celebrates ‘L’heure bleue’, the blue hour. Concerts on magic locations during the blue hour, when the sky turns blue after sunset.

The blue hour comes from the French expression ‘l’heure bleue’, which refers to the period of twilight each morning and evening where there is neither full daylight nor complete darkness. The time is considered special because of the quality of the light at this time of day.

The blue hour is the gift of the day to the night. Different cultures celebrate the blue hour in their own special way. For many of us, it’s the most beautiful hour of the day as it slowly draws its curtain and the evening begins.

It is the hour of transition when the indirect light of the evening colours the night sky. Nature’s wonderful play of light is displayed. Every evening anew.

This is the spectacle that Mich Gerber interprets during his series of L’heure bleue’ concerts. They have been taking place since a few years on special places on the water in summer time.”

Here are some videos of previous concerts on the River Aare  (YouTube-videos): A Waltz,  A silent tune, A tune with an English text, Music and Swiss German interviews, another song. And below there is a video uploaded in his name.

A little P.S.: This is the 1111th post in this blog.

Yesterday a friend and I went to Flüeli-Ranft for a concert of Sri Ganapati Sachchidananda Swamiji from Mysore. For 3 days he stayed for a seminar in Flüeli, organised by the Dattayoga Centre Switzerland. I had seen the Swami last January in his Dattapeetam Ashram in Bangalore on the way to the Nilagiris and blogged about his feeding birds in Shuka Vana. And I had been in Flüeli-Ranft the last time in May 2012 for the May Call Day seminar of Sri Kumar.

We went to Flüeli in the early afternoon to have some time for a walk and evening meditation. It was a beautiful summer day and the way over the mountains was gorgeous. We found a beautiful spot overviewing the valley for our evening meditation.

View down to the valley from Flüeli Ranft

While walking around images of last year popped up – the time was now so different, and there was a profound peace in the air.

The Melchtal Frutt valley behind Flüeli

Two dwarf goats were observing us and we chatted a bit with them.

View of the village hall with the church and the hotel Pax Montana where we had stayed last year.

There were already many cars around – but we had good luck to find a last free parking space on our arrival. We had our evening pick-nick at the centre of the village and we could spot out the people belonging to this group – ladies in flowing dresses, saries or panjabis, men with a colourful cloth around the shoulder or otherwise easily  identifiable. It somehow felt familiar, though we didn’t know anybody of the people inside the hall. It was fascinating to observe. On the sides of the hall there were posters with photos of the social activities of the Swami in India – schools, hospitals and other benevolent activities. The concert was also a benefit activity, the receipts will go for financing social aid activities. At the entrance there were tables with many of the CDs and some books of the Swami – and you could also buy cuddly parrots, the proceedings were meant for Swami’s  new parrots park in Mysore – I had seen the birds park from the outside, visitors weren’t allowed.

Inside, the hall was beautifully decorated – a tree with paper flowers was hiding the climbing wall on the backside. And on the stage there was a golden disc with golden cloth draperies.  And before there was the synthesizer the Swami Ganapati.

It was announced that this concert, Nada Sagara – Ocean of Sound, was the first solo-concert the Swamiji gave in public. He has been touring the world over during the years, and in the entrance hall there was a poster announcing his next concert in the Royal Albert Hall in London in September. The speaker explained that the music has a healing effect and eliminates blockages in the nervous system as well as in the subtle energy system of the Nadis.

When he entered the hall the air was filled with rapt attention. As a welcome he received a garland of flowers, which he showed to the public and threw to the floor – after the concert another garland was presented to him. He shortly wore it, jokingly looked through it and put it away…

He started his concert with some explanations about his music and then started playing. Cosmic sounds were weaving a musical carpet in the air and it seemed that all were absorbed in the musical vibrations floating through space. And I, too, was carried away by it. A very special kind of music, changing in melodies and rhythms, played in a highly intuitive way.

He played uninterruptedly for about 1 hour, and the last 5 minutes his play was accompanied by rhythmic clapping of the audience. There was a magic spell in the audience. Some of the ladies got up, full of enthusiasm. Swami Ganapati received a gift which seemed to be a bird in a bowl, and a set of tuning forks. Then he disappeared through the stage-door.

When we came out the moon in its 12th ascending phase just looked over the mountain, and it appeared as if it was burning – maybe also filled with some cosmic ecstasy.

You can find a lot of Swami’s music on YouTube, here is a video of “Healing Music” from a music concert at Hyderabad.

This year there are 2 full moons in Leo, the second one is on 21 August. So I did a second painting for this sign.

The Eastern wisdom teachings describe the most sublime plane of our planet as a field of radiant light. It exists in us as the plane of pure existence, the diamond consciousness in the head centre. It is also called Sweta Dipa, the White Island, full of divine brilliance and splendour. Another name for it is Shamballa, a hidden place on the etheric plane of the Gobi Desert. Sanat Kumara, the Lord of the World and the highest being on earth, lives there, and within his forehead there is the beautiful gem of Chintamani, the philosopher’s stone of heavenly origin. He and his team of sublime beings incessantly assist the evolution of the beings on earth.

I tried to depict the White Island in an ocean of bluish light, rising above the earthly sphere. In the lower part of the picture you perceive the outlines of India seen from space at night, with the lighted centres. Above the island you see the head of the Lord of the World, with the resplendent jewel of Chintamani on his forehead. For this I chose a photo of a Buddha statue from Tibet taken by a friend, and I transformed it a bit. For the jewel I used several layers of a photo of a blue diamond. Sanat Kumara is surrounded by seven flames in rainbow colours, symbolising his team of collaborators. I created them based on photos of prismatic reflections on the walls of my room. The whole scene seems to be floating on a field of dark night blue, representing the background of existence.

In the booklet “Wisdom Buds” by Dr. Sri K. Parvathi Kumar you find a lecture on “The White Island” explaining the symbolism in more detail. And you find more paintings on my website. Or send the picture as a postcard.

“The White Island”, 6 July 2013

Tomorrow the sun enters into Leo, and it is also Leo full moon, with the moon in Aquarius.

In symbolism Leo is connected with the transformation process in the inner cave of the heart. With the help of respiration you enter into the “cave of the lion”, the Heart Centre, where you can encounter the higher self, when the lower self is well adjusted. The cave also symbolises the inner ashram, of which an outer ashram is the externalisation. The image illustrates this entering into the ashram.

The painting shows a circle of 12 stars, symbolising the 12 signs of the zodiac. A woman is climbing a stair, entering through the circle of the “gate of stars”. The point in the centre is represented by a door leading to the Sanctum Sanctorum, and so the entry is a path from the circumference to the centre. At the threshold before the centre there is a white figure representing the Master in the Heart, the Divine Self. Above the centre you see the figure of an angel, the guardian of the ashram and the link to the cosmic spheres. The ashram is represented as a crystal cave. The crystals on the sides symbolise the purified, transparent matter, which can receive the Light. At the bottom on the left, outside the starry circle, there is a group of people waiting for their turn to enter.

The painting is from the series Images of Synthesis; you find more paintings of the series on my website ludgerphilips.org.

17 March 2013, pencils and photo work

A friend sent me the link to a nice video of Sri Ganapathi Sachchidananda Swamiji feeding the birds of his birds’ park Shuka Vana in his ashram in Mysore. I had a short visit to his beautiful ashram last January.The music is from his creation “Birds’ Zodiac”, and is about the sign of Leo (Simha). Enjoy.