In the last weeks several friends asked me when I would do an exposition with my paintings. I replied, “I’m not ready yet, they have to be in another format and way of presentation.” But their asking made me start searching for a solution.

The “original version” of the paintings is a digital version, result of digital and analogous work. I saw on the web an interesting method of mounting pictures on aluminium dibond. So I ordered picture enlargements with direct print on aluminium and with photo paper foils on aluminium. Though the pictures were well produced, I wasn’t happy with the luminosity of the images. They looked either blurred or the colours like dark blue didn’t show up well.

Two of the pictures of the first experiments this morning in our garden – the colours didn’t give the right brilliance.

I knew from previous experiments when I sent the pictures to a photo laboratory that a brilliant reproduction isn’t that easy – the quality wasn’t satisfying me. So I normally use an ink-jet printer and do the printout on photo paper – there the quality is excellent. But the maximum size I can to is A 4.

I asked a print specialist at my office and he recommended me a specialised print shop in Berne.

2 weeks ago I went there, explained the problems and showed to the print counsellor the ink-jet results. He told me that these computer printers work with a RGB colour space, but that they use CMWK colours and that it isn’t easy to find the right tones. I decided to get a sample printed on foil in A 3 so that we can see how to further proceed.

When last week I saw the result I wasn’t satisfied: The image turned out to be too green and the tones of orange and yellow didn’t show up well. The counsellor proposed to do adaptations with the help of the foil and the ink-jet image to find the right tone. I said I wanted a mounted A 2-version to be able to better judge the quality and not to have to do too many costly experiments – some hundred francs had already gone in these test-prints.

The picture on the foil between autumn leaves in our garden

When I yesterday saw the mounted picture the colours finally were in the right tone and luminosity. I felt relieved for the further production. But when I looked over the picture I saw irregularities of the mounting and the way they had done the suspension. So again another round…

He proposed to do a printout on foil of all my (newer) paintings, the Images of Synthesis, in a small format on a long foil. So we would be able to find the optimum general colour settings for all of them – otherwise it would be very costly to do it all individually. This will be done till end of next week – and hopefully the production can start.

I’m very fascinated by the impact of these large-size works – but after production I’ll have to find a storing solution for them.

Another experiment with the paintings was the “by-product” of quite another situation:

I was curious how viewers with a non-spiritual background would react on the pictures. In the 80ies I had experienced an irritation and a lack of comprehension when I showed the pictures which I later destroyed and now have digitally restored from photos.
When showing my newer paintings to friends they said that they needed my explanation of the symbolism expressed. My language of symbols of a “fusion of east and west” didn’t reveal itself to the onlookers.
I started calling the paintings “inside-out, outside-in, east and west” and wrote comments on how they came about. They are not only influenced by my spiritual backgrounds, but also by the long inter-cultural work and my journeys.
I got very positive feedbacks mainly via the web, but I didn’t show them yet physically to a general public. An English woman wrote to me this week, “I really cannot impress upon you how beautiful I find your artwork. Your images are imbued with light and a certain sacredness that pierces the heart.”

Since I had received a cancellation notice of my job at the Red Cross due to restructuring and yesterday left the office after precisely 260 months of work there, I didn’t want to go away with any resentment but joyfully and upright.

So I celebrated my going away by personally saying good-by to many old colleagues. I used it at the same time as a “coming out” with my paintings. I had prepared a selection of images which are more easily understandable as cards and let them chose one as a good-bye present. Neither me nor they did know at that time that it also was an experiment – I only realised it this morning:

It was very interesting for me to observe the reactions. I distributed cards to 58 persons. Only one did not want any, with a few I felt that they had to open for a new way of expression uncommon to them. Most of them didn’t know of the eastern symbols like Lakshmi, Krishna or Kuan Yin. Many said that they hadn’t seen such images before nor this kind of technique of a cross-over of analogous and digital painting. Many were deeply touched – and it was always a good turn-around of the normally gloomy good-bye moment.
Even with my superior, who had given me the notice of termination it turned out to be a very good experience. I had done an intense inner preparation work for this. He was positively surprised when he saw the cards. He chose one and put it on his shelf in the office.  I left light-heartedly not only from this final talk, but also from the office.

So the experiment turned out to be successful. Now I’m looking forward how the production of the mounted images will work and where and how a first exposition will take place.

The image experiments placed this morning in the garden. You cannot judge the colours by the photo

I got a beautiful powerpoint with pictures of the Chinese painter Abraxsis Der Jen. I couldn’t find out much about her, but saw this sublime video which shows the paintings from the powerpoint and more. See also the videos on YouTube. And here are her paintings on Pinterest.

The expression of the women depicted is like from supermundane planes – expressing a gracious noblesse and purity, with alabaster-like faces, clad in precious brocade tissues and decorated with gorgeous flowers or ornaments.

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Painting of Abraxsis Der Jen (c)

This impressive Thousand Hand Quan Yin was a dance created by Chinese choreographer Zhang Jigang. The dance was performed by 63 deaf dancers of China Disabled People’s Performing Art Troupe. Because they could not hear the music, there were 6 directors in white clothes helping them stay synchronized with the music.

The dance describes the legend of the Bodhisattva Quan Yin, who had one thousand hands. Bodhisattva Quan Yin is a “Proto-Buddha”. She cannot become a Buddha because she remains devoted to the world. Her vow is: “If a single tear is still being shed in this world, I will not become a Buddha.”

In Secret Doctrine, of HPB, and Spiritual Astrology, of Master EK, it says: “Kwan-Shai-Yin is identical with, and an equivalent of the Sanskrit Avalokiteshwara, and as such he is an androgynous deity. Under his female aspect, he becomes Kwan-Yin, the goddess of mercy, called the “Divine Voice.” In the Vedic and the Puranic symbolism, this plane of the divine Word is also called Gayatri, the Great Mother of the Dawn. The World Mother is called the Virgin, who finds her expression as a principle in nature and in man through the sign Virgo.” I have done a painting about Quan Yin for the month of Virgo.

Picture from the video (c)

Next Monday is Scorpio full moon – so here are some words about how the picture I did for Scorpio on 14 July 2012. If you would like to send it as an e-card, it’s here – since yesterday you can send again e-cards from the Good-Will website – thanks to my son Nikolas, who wrote the program.

When the picture started to appear in the inner, after studying the chapter on Scorpio in “Spiritual Astrology” by Master EK, I thought that I wouldn’t get it out. There was a face at the upper right side with the bridge of radiant light between the pituitary and the pineal on the front, the sign of enlightenment. At the left end there was the tree of consciousness, as in the story of Adam and Eve, where the serpent was falling down, the fall of the spirit into matter. There was a starry vault and flying serpents ascending, the Nagas or Enlightened Ones, – the liberated souls, the Masters of Wisdom.

I didn’t want to start painting, for I “knew” that I wouldn’t get it down. But there was the impulse, just go ahead, it will develop.

First I arrange the structure of the pictures in the computer before printing it out for painting and then I work again on it in the PC again. I collected pictures, googling, searched through my photo collection.  I finally saw a picture of a serpent flying through the air, jumping from a tree, which I took to start with and worked it over. I merged it with a photo of a huge tree I took some weeks ago – it became the Tree of Life from which consciousness descends into matter to gain experience. The serpent is falling down like a flash – it got a light-filled head and a body of red colour with a yellow line.

For the upper face I found a beautiful profile which I transformed into this dark mother watching over the scene with the light of the “electric hint” on her front – the “higher bridge”, the “pituitary hint”, as it is called by Master EK. And the lighted side-face reminds of the ascending serpent in bluish light. It observes the magic dance of the ascending flying serpents with blue jewels as their heads, and in the background stars of the constellation of Scorpio, joining the enchanted dance. They are ascending from the lower into the higher sphere, from the “burning ground” of the planes of suffering on our earth, where the souls are caught in ignorance.

For this part I took a picture of a totally crowded beach in China, all the people standing close-by-close in the water. Though it is now covered with colour you still recognise the crowd – symbolic of the humans caught in the waters of the emotional and lower mental spheres. The sphere seems to be closed by the “ring of the horizon”, the plane in which the ordinary people are locked up. The flames behind were not flames, but worked out from a photo of a surfer in a wave seen against sunlight – again a symbol of the watery sign of Scorpio and its fiery ruler Mars. Its fire reflects at the higher sphere, but doesn’t penetrate it. There you see the vastness of the starry vault. Above, there are the apples of the tree of experience, now the fruits of wisdom gained.

When I thought the picture was ready I sent it to Sri Kumar. He answered, “Let there be an eagle too over the snakes.” First I thought, oh, this isn’t possible, the painting is already finished. But then I visualised a shining eagle and I set on integrating it. And this was just the closing point of the picture.

Scorpio – The Ascent of the Serpent Through the Pituitary Hint

About 20 years ago I saw the very impressive movie of Peter Brook, The Mahabharata. I now came across the part of the end credits of the cinema with the Śvetāśvatara Upanishad sung by Sharmila Roy. It is a song full of depth and beauty. You can find more parts of this grand production on YouTube, for example the dialogue between Krishna and Arjuna at the beginning of the Kurukshetra war, given in the Bhagavad Gita. Here is the video in full screen mode – if you open it on YouTube. Enjoy.

In Plato’s famous allegory of the cave he shows that what you think as true is not the true existence, it is only discovered when you liberate yourself and walk out of the cave to see the sun. The video “Shadowland” by the experimentalist dance company “Pilobolus” reminded me of Plato’s parable – a magnific play presented at the German show “Wetten dass” in April 2011. Enjoy.

Extract of the video (c). The video has been removed, please see here a trailer and more about Shadowland.

I went through turbulent times during the first 6 months of the year. It culminated in receiving my notice of termination of my work contract after 21 years. I felt a great relief, it was for me a sign that something new, better would come. In a meditation the vision of the picture “Libra – Birth of the New Earth” came to me. I saw the old structures collapsing, the energy being withdrawn, and at the same time felt the seed of the new sprouting, though not yet manifest. And so the picture was finished 16 June 2012.

For the painting I used different photos – one of the skyline of Hong Kong, which I transformed with Photoshop, one of a painting of angels I had googled some time ago, and others. You see brightly illuminated high-rise buildings on a burning ground which are about to crumble down. And in the depth there is the formation of a new globe out of shining etheric flowers manifesting in a field of deep blue. A group of angels is observing the beauty with rapt attention.

There is a tremendous contrast between the subtlety of the new earth and the display of grandeur of the old structures, which are ready to sink into the abyss. For me the picture is a figure for the present situation in many areas of life – not in the physical sense of a physical new earth coming into being, but of new worlds opening up when you drop the debris of the old.

You find a description of the deeper meaning of the picture in the following lines from the book on Hercules by Sri K. Parvathi Kumar:

“Many are the secrets of Libra. The whole bubble bulging like a globe is an aspect of Libra. Emergence of a point and becoming a space globe is an aspect of Libra. An emergence of an impulse becoming a planetary globe is an aspect of Libra. The growth from the centre to the circumference is an aspect of Libra. The point bulges on all sides, from centre to circumference and from circumference to centre. The key is held by Libra.”

You find more paintings here.

Though we have not yet entered into the sign of Virgo, I would like to publish already the picture I painted for the month, since we will go on  holidays in 2 days.

While I was inwardly searching for the expression of the picture for Virgo, I came across photos of a statue of Kwan Yin I took in the house of friends in Alsace, France. Each time I saw the sculpture I was fascinated by its beauty and serenity.

In May, 3 days after an ear surgery, my wife had arranged for me a bioresonance treatment to stabilise the energies of my body. I was astonished that the therapist proposed to me to treat me first with the vibrations of the Aura Soma essence of Kwan Yin. It was a bottle with a pale orange colour, and as soon as she applied the frequencies I inwardly felt a vivid vibration of a similar colour, though brighter. She then continued treating the effects of the anaesthesia which provoked a metallic feeling with a dark red colour, and then she changed to applying the frequency of an orange essence, and I immediately experienced a field of strong orange / golden yellow.

Next day the picture to bring down was quite clear inside. At first I cut out a photo of the statue of Kwan Yin and changed the greyish colours to golden yellow. I then searched a photo of a waterfall, and the proper flow was a picture I took 5 years ago of the waterfall below the Beatus Caves (a place in the Bernese Alps where many years ago St. Beatus lived, a monk of Irish origin) and changed its colours to a similar reddish-gold. Afterwards I took a picture of the ceiling decoration of an Indian Minakshi temple. Minakshi is related to Pisces, the opposite sign of Virgo, having complementary energies; she is the goddess with “eyes of fish” showering grace through her looks. I transformed the picture in perspective and made a double overlay. Then I took a picture of a golden yellow lotus flower and arranged it as the Sahasrara of Kwan Yin, and added the picture of a sun globe. Finally I took a circle of moon phases and arranged it as a garland of Kwan Yin, placing the full moon / new moon behind her head – moon is the inner ruler of Virgo, being a reflector for the rays of Neptune.

I then printed out the image on paper and started working on the colours and shapes to get the right transitions between the different colour shapes. Then I scanned the image and worked again on it with the computer to gain the right luminosity of the colours. Some test prints and finally picture shone forth in its proper radiance.

At the end I searched for the description of the spiritual meaning of Kwan Yin and the symbolism I had used:

“Kwan-Shai-Yin is identical with, and an equivalent of the Sanskrit Avalokiteshwara, and as such he is an androgynous deity. Under his female aspect, he becomes Kwan-Yin, the goddess of mercy, called the “Divine Voice.” In the Vedic and the Puranic symbolism, this plane of the divine Word is also called Gayatri, the Great Mother of the Dawn. The World Mother is called the Virgin, who finds her expression as a principle in nature and in man through the sign Virgo.”
From the “Secret Doctrine” and “Spiritual Astrology”

The picture for the month of Leo discloses itself intuitively to the observer, but some words might help for a better understanding.

The wisdom teachings tell us that the sun we see is just the physical appearance of the soul of the sun, called the heart of the sun. And this one is hiding the central spiritual sun. Our sun is an inlet gate for the higher planes. In us the physical heart corresponds to the physical sun. It is the seat of the pulsating principle of life, the sound of which is also called the roar of the lion. So you see in the picture the radiating lion in the centre of the lotus.

When we listen to the sound of pulsation and fall into its rhythm, the mind comes to rest and we slowly get uplifted out of personality to unite with the ajna centre on the forehead, the heart of the sun. This is depicted as a huge flower like a sunflower with a pulsating heart in the centre. The spiritual sun corresponds to our head centre, the sahasrara, where the spark of the eternal light rests in the centre – the jewel in the lotus. This is represented as a sun globe opening its petals into space.

In the background you see the window of a cathedral. I constructed it from out of three cathedral windows and transformed the colours into fiery golden yellow. It represents the inner subjective side, the holy space within us, which opens up and allows the fusion of the different planes of light to happen.

You can download the high-resolution version from the Good-Will website.

A great flashmob concert in Sabadell, Spain, with the Ode to Joy. The video description says:
“On the 130th anniversary of the founding of Banco Sabadell we wanted to pay homage to our city by means of the campaign “Som Sabadell” (We are Sabadell) . This is the flashmob that we arranged as a final culmination with the participation of 100 people from the Vallès Symphony Orchestra, the Lieder, Amics de l’Òpera and Coral Belles Arts choirs.” Enjoy.