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.

At summer solstice time the new website for my paintings goes online. It contains all the images and, in German, the poems I have published so far. It is a great moment and a threshold for me for which I have been waiting for a long time. The realisation of the site is a gift of my friend Murat Cevik, for which I’m very grateful. May the impulse it carries bring inspiration to the visitors.

Cancer is the sign of the return of the soul into a physical body and thus it is related to the process of reincarnation. The Moon is also the symbol of the generative life which gives birth to forms. I tried to give expression to this idea.

In the upper part of the image you see the Moon and behind it the glow of the Sun. Two angelic figures, solar angels, observe the descent of a soul into the embryo in the womb of the mother. You see the embryo head downwards behind the descending soul. Another name for the soul, the I AM, is the Solar Angel. It is the eternal part in man which in the cycle of evolution goes through series of incarnations. The body is also called the Lunar Angel; it serves as a vehicle for the incarnation of the Solar Angel. For the left angel I chose an extract from a painting of Franz Dvorak, and for the one on the right side an extract from a painting of Edward Robert Hughes; a drawing of William Hunter for the embryo in the uterus. For the illustration of the descending solar angel, I took an image of Ilmatar, the virgin spirit of the air, by Robert Wilhelm Ekman.

At a seminar in January 2012 Dr. K. Parvathi Kumar spoke about the symbolism of the descent of the soul:
“The monad is the soli-lunar angel. There is the baby descending into the womb. The lunar angel develops all the aspects of the form and the solar angel descends. In solar there is lunar. Our sun is the lunar aspect of the cosmic sun, our sun is male-female. That is why it prepares the body in the womb for seven months. When it is preparing the body it prepares the form through the lunar aspect, and then the solar angel enters into the lunar aspect of the solar angel. It is by itself male-female. The cosmic sun even is male-female. That is how the work is. Preparation of the form and joining. We prepare the house and when it is ready we enter into the building.”

You can find this painting, also with a print version, on the Good-Will website. Or on the new website ludgerphilips.org.

28 February 2013, A 5, pencils, crayons and photo work

In 1910 Master CVV received a tremendous cosmic energy called the Energy of Synthesis. He anchored it in the ethers of the planet and started distributing it on 29 May. Since then every 29 May is celebrated as the Master May Call Day. And since 1998 I have participated in these celebrations – mostly larger gatherings in the West with Dr. K. Parvathi Kumar. This year the big group meeting with him is in Bangalore. Together with some friends we organised a small meeting in the French Vosges, where I’m at the moment.

For me it is a special occasion, for there will be also the launch of my book “Paintings”. I realised it as a photo book (English an German version, hard-cover, 200 pages), which I can produce as print on demand, if people want to have it. But I also distribute it for free in PDF-version.
The book contains my “Early Paintings” (done in the 80s and nearly completely “dissolved” in 1997, now digitally restored from photos) and the “Images of Synthesis“, done since 2009, together 212 paintings. I added some biographical notes and background explanations.

The “Early Paintings” were the creative output of a tremendous fiery experience I had in 1981. Many of these paintings are related to this inner opening which lasted several days. For me, the paintings are an expression of the Energies of Synthesis, even those created before the time I consciously knew about the energies. You will understand when you see the pictures. The book is available for download in English and German, its content is part of a website to be released soon.

Today we are entering into Gemini, the agile mental sign of the airy triangle of the zodiac. It is related to pulsation, the fundamental principle in creation of expansion and contraction. When I was thinking of visualising the symbolism of Gemini, I saw a huge white swan with outspread wings before my mind’s eye. Hamsa is the Sanskrit word for swan, and it is the symbol of the centripetal and centrifugal movement of our respiration (see the Lunar Messenger on Pulsation). At the centre of its heart you see an open flower which is white inside, the pulsating centre. The ballerina sitting on the beach symbolises the moment of contraction, the one flying high symbolises the climax of expansion. I merged photos of several waves to visualise the pulsating movement of ebb and flow (behind the swan). I used very light colours at the border of reproducibility to give expression to the delicacy of pulsation.

I took the inspiration for this painting from a fascinating seminar of Dr. K. Parvathi Kumar held on Mount Rigi 14 years ago. It later appeared as a book: “Saraswathi – The Word“. It also gave me the inspiration for the Gemini painting I did last year:

“A swan moves in pure waters that are equal to the pure ether. Swan is Hamsa in Sanskrit. Hamsa is the centripetal and centrifugal functioning of pulsation, the double principle of pulsation. The door of pulsation is the heart. The Hamsas (Swans) are the movements in us as pulsation and also as thoughts. The Swans of pulsation have the characteristics of musical notes. They form the bases of musical singing by the beings. The music details into varieties of Ragas (compositions) as per the time of the day and the season. These Swans can muse the mind and the ego onto Pure Consciousness and Existence. This is ‘the path of music’ for the return of the beings to Samadhi. Such is the work of the Swans of pulsation.”

10 February 2013, A 5, pencils, crayons and photo work

An American friend sent me the link to the following viral video with the words:

“The Rijksmuseum in Holland had an idea: Let’s bring the art to the people and then, hopefully, they will come to see more – at the museum. They took one painting of Rembrandt from 1642, Guards of the Night and brought to life the characters in it, placed them in a busy mall and the rest you can see for yourself!”

A great flash mob marketing campaign by the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam – “Onze helden zijn terug!” (Our heros are back!) One of the comment says: Creativity is intelligence having fun.” ― Albert Einstein

Scene from the video (c)