Normally shadow is seen as the absence of light, having a negative connotation. In the fascinating works of the Japanese artist Kumi Yamashita he is sculpturing shadows to create “objects” through a single source of light. The objects just exist through the arrangement of other objects creating the form seen through the interaction with light. On his website you find a number of objects where the form he created is the shadow.

Here you see shadow persons talking:

In a Japanese video of a show you see some of his installations, fascinating:

You find more on YouTube.

In spirituality the shadow is the symbol of the personality and the soul of the inner Light. The self-conscious personality is but a reflection of the universal soul. Sri Kumar says in “The Aquarian Cross“: If we are after our shadow, we cannot reach the light. The shadow is nothing but our own personality. In so far as we continue to fulfil our personality needs, we are only running after our shadow. “When we are running after our own shadow we have no direction”, says Pythagoras.

So shadows is a topic for this time of Cancer, where the Sun starts its seeming southwards journey again and the shadows start getting longer.

Morning light shining on the Krishna statue in my work room

If you like playing keyboard – here is a virtual one with different modes.

A Montblanc competition with short films of one second – many beautiful short impressions.

A scene from a video

We have just entered into the full moon phase of Taurus, which culminates tomorrow at 05:36 CEST. This full moon is considered to be of a particular importance in spiritual circles, being called the Vaisakh (Wesak) Full Moon of Buddha Purnima, the full moon, where Buddha found enlightenment. It is also worshipped as the full moon of Spiritual Hierarchy, the Masters of Wisdom, which are the guiding Light for humanity. I tried to illustrate these central ideas in a painting I did last year, called “Taurus – Receiving the Milk of Wisdom”:

In the Vedas Taurus, the Bull, represents the sound principle. Creation is also called the roar of the bull whose sound fertilises consciousness.The roar, the influx of energy into our system, is coming from Rohini or Aldebaran in Taurus. The bull thus also symbolises the Divine Word which is received by Spiritual Hierarchy in the month of Taurus as the Plan for the year. Allegorically the bull is represented as Nandi, the vehicle of Lord Shiva. Incessantly he looks at Lord Shiva who sits there in the form of a lingam.

So for the picture I took a photo of the constellation of Aldebaran in the constellation of Taurus, then placed the head of the bull, from an Indian temple, in the upper centre and on the head of the Bull a picture of Buddha. I made a photo of a lingam and arranged a waterfall on it. Then I placed around it many pictures of the great Masters of Wisdom, with Lord Maitreya, the head of the Hierarchy, and his team of co-workers in the middle. All is done on the background of deep blue, symbolising the energy of Love and Wisdom. The cosmic wisdom is regarded as the milk of the Divine Cow, the universe, and here it is flowing down from the cosmic heights.

You can read hear some inspiring texts from Sri Kumar about the Vaisakh Festival, as a help for your full moon meditation. And the following video shows scenes of the festival in a valley near Mount Kailash, where it is celebrated since times immemorial. So it substantiates that it is not, as has been supposed for a long time, a fanciful idea of esotericists.

If you want to read more about the spiritual significance of Taurus, see here the Letters on Spiritual Astrology. You can also download here the painting in a high resolution.

You might not have the time or money to travel all around our planet, but you now can have very beautiful panorama views of many wonders of beauty all around the world. The Russian website airpano.com offers fantastic 360 degrees aerial panoramas of  the following places and more (the sequence is from an e-mail a friend sent to me):

Amazon, Kuala Lumpur, Amsterdam , Bukhara, Uzbekistan, Lake Mono , California, Liberty Island , New York, Sydney , Australia , Victoria Falls, Manhattan, Saint Petersburg , Russia, The Palm Jumaira, Dubai, Hollywood, National Park, Australia, Maldives, Underwater, Maldives at night, New Zealand, Fiordland, Las Vegas,  Las Vegas, Night, Miami, Moscow, Cape of Good Hope , South Africa, Angel Falls, Venezuela 1, Angel Falls, Venezuela 2, Golden Gate Bridge , San Francisco.

Not a 360° panorama-view, but view of the Alps (Eiger, Mönch, Jungfrau) from our balcony 2 days ago:

About 2 weeks ago I started publishing the “Images of Synthesis” on Facebook and Flickr, commenting how they were done (you find them on the Good-Will website up to the recent month, I try to keep a rhythm of publish one new picture per month).

These images started in November 2009, after a painting pause of 19 years, after the end of the “Early Paintings” in 1990, where I thought I would never paint again. You can read here how the Images of Synthesis started from out of an inner opening during a deep crisis. I will go on re-publishing the pictures on Flickr and Facebook with comments over the next months.

“The Hidden Flower – Born Nine Months Later”, 18 Dec. 2009. You can read here and here more about the origin of this painting.

Yesterday we had a brilliant spring day. My wife was visiting an old friend, my eldest son was clearing and cleaning his room with a friend – he just moved out to live together with his girlfriend – and I took my camera to go for a walk in the nearby Elfenau park (Elfenau means meadow of the elves and that’s how it is…).

I somehow felt my senses turned on to high reception, at the beginning even irritatingly intense. One beauty drew me to the other – colours, shades, silent celebrations of new life – all around. For a while I sat on a bench, observing the people walking by. And when listening to the inner side, there was like and orchestra singing a choral in the air, deva vibrations penetrating the atmosphere carrying me away. There is a selection of pictures I took during the walk – enjoy the colours of spring.

A superb video!! Read by Thich Nath Hanh, chanted by brother Phap Niem. Let the sounds and images transport you to another dimension…. You can download the audio here as MP3.

The Great Bell Chant (The End of Suffering) from R Smittenaar on Vimeo.

On Saturday December 11th, 2010 over 1,000,000 children gathered at Dhammakaya Temple, in Thailand, and sang a song, “Let’s come together to change the world”. At this occasion the children took a pledge to do good deeds and to be virtuous leaders. The gathering was in the context of a project for the moral revival of the world was created and initiated by  Phrarajbhavanavisudh, the abbot of Wat Phradhamakaya. An impressive assembly. A real good will initiative.

For over 3 months I had been publishing the 106 pictures I did from 1981 to 1990, about one picture a day. I restored them from photos, since the originals had nearly all been dissolved in 1997. Artefacts of the scans had to be removed, the faded greyish colours of the photos revived and some other little mistakes corrected. Now they look fine, as good as possible.

I wrote comments for each picture, explaining the symbolism of the painting and sometimes also in which situation it was created. For me the editing was quite an adventure. Many inner pictures rose up; I again saw situations like through a telescope. And with this long distance I could much better put into words what I had expressed 25 to 30 years ago.

I sometimes hesitated before publishing certain images, they still were very close to me, and to unclose them by publishing was like opening inner windows into parts of my life hitherto hidden. The presentations in Flickr and in Facebook reminded me of an Advent calendar with many little doors into subtle worlds.

It was also very nice to see the “likes” in Facebook that “friends” took notice of the pictures; some were regular visitors or gave comments, which was very encouraging. Thank you, also for the mails. A quote from one of the mails a friend from California wrote me: “I tell students we must praise and appreciate everyone’s gifts (which helps everyone evolve) and we must bring forth our gifts into the Light. It takes courage and it takes Love to do this.” And: “Your paintings are an expression of deepest Love & revelation. This is not given as a compliment. Your essence is in the paintings. Thank you for showing them to the world.”

The story of these paintings has now been told and they are “set free to sail to distant horizons”. I think I will soon begin to tell also the story of the new paintings which started in 2009 and reveal a bit of the backgrounds. It is still an ongoing story.

Part of the “Flickr Advent Calendar” with the Early Paintings.