While it is getting warmer here in these latitudes, you might like to see some pictures of an icy environment: The New York artist Roni Horn (born 1955), partly living since years in Reykjavik, Iceland, has installed in Stykkishólmur, a little fisher’s village on the Snæfellsnes peninsula, an exposition called Vatnasafn / Library of Water. There she has set up 24 big glass pillars representing the melted water from 24 glaciers. In these pillars filled with water the landscape – houses, ocean, islands, sky – gets reflected, and created an enchanted atmosphere with the continuously changing weather. The website (flash!!)
You can also download a PDF about the exposition. The Poem on the cover says:

Big enough to get lost on.
Small enough to find myself.
That’s how to use this island.
I come here to place myself in the world.
Iceland is a verb and its action is to center.

At the moment (untill August) there is also an expositionof her works in the Hafnarhús Reykjavik Art Museum entitled «My Oz». It is the first large-scale exhibition of Roni Horn’s work in Scandinavia. The landscape and isolation of Iceland have strongly influenced her art, and she has often traveled there since 1975.

(c) Vatnasafn – Library of Water

The Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres has done an exhibition of satellite pictures of the earth with the title: KUNSTWERK ERDE (The Earth as a Work of Art). The original exposition in Brussels is over, but you find a series of beautiful photographs combining art and science in an interactive world map. And there are PDFs with more information in several languages.

About the exposition: “Countless observation satellites circle the blue planet, supplying floods of data, which are processed into satellite pictures. These images of deserts, glaciers, volcanoes and big conurbations show one thing above all else: the stunning beauty of our earth.
The pictures chosen for the exhibition combine scientific import with the extraordinary aesthetic thrill afforded by long-distance views of our familiar planet, a dual approach that also appeals to less scientifically-minded members of the public, providing them with an insight into highly complex subjects.”

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A friend yesterday sent a link to a movie which just started in German. A little search on the web showed that the film was out in English already since beginning of 2006: ONE – The Movie. A Contemporary Journey Towards A Timeless Destiny. It seems to be a fascinating movie. Here you can see some trailers.

And here is an extract from an article by Sita Stuhlmiller about the production of the film:

“What happens when a middle-aged trial attorney and father of three wakes in the night with an idea to make an independent film about the meaning of life? Ward M. Powers, with no experience at all in filmmaking, mail-ordered a video camera and set off with his best friend and a cousin on a two-year life-changing experience. Inspired by Joseph Campbell’s maxim: “Follow your bliss,” and with no budget or training, they took to the streets to film ordinary people responding to life’s ultimate questions.

They started with twenty questions, among them: Why is there poverty and suffering in the world? What is the relationship between science and religion? What are we all so afraid of? How does one obtain true peace? Describe God. What is the meaning of life? What is your one wish for the world? Eventually the filmmakers got up the nerve to ask their questions of spiritual teachers, philosophers, authors, artists, priests, rabbis, yogis, imams, monks, nuns, medicine men, social architects and scholars, including Robert Thurman, Ram Dass, Thich Nhat Hanh, Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee, Barbara Marx Hubbard, Sadguru Jaggi Vasudev, Father Thomas Keating, Hasan Qazwini, Deepak Chopra, Riane Eisler and many others.

“And so, about three years ago, we set out on this odyssey with nothing but a DV camera, twenty questions and mantra—We Are All One. But what began as kind of a lark amongst friends to try to make an independent film, somewhere along the way turned into a life’s journey. And what started out back then as a kind of Kumbaya notion of Oneness also grew into something much greater. Somewhere along the way, Oneness became more colorful . . . more intense . . . more inclusive . . . more internal . . . richer and more beautiful than we could have ever imagined.” -Ward M. Powers, Director

“On the last day, in the final minute of the last interview, Father Thomas Keating summarized the journey: ‘The spiritual journey is the realization—not just the information but the real interior conviction—that there is a higher power or God. Or, to make it as easy as possible for everybody: there is an Other; second step: to try to become the Other; and finally the realization that there is no Other. You and the Other are One, always have been, always will be’.”

Today is Beltane day, the astronomical midpoint between the vernal equinox and the summer solstice.

The astronomical date for this point can vary from year to year. Beltane was celebrated by the Celts around the 1st of May or the nearest full moon. It is the time of fertility, when nature displays its full beauty of spring to bring about new life.

You find more information about the annual rhythms on the website of Archaeoastronomy, where they have a countdown of the annual equinoxes, solstices and cross-quarters.

You might read in the Letters on Spiritual Astrology on Taurus about the Radiance of Beauty: “The beauty of the flower lies in the totality, not in a part of it. Beauty is caught nowhere in the form, but reflects through it.”

Chris Jordan was a successful lawyer in Seattle, USA. Then he decided to resign and work as a photographer. Today, he is a thriving artist with a great number of expositions. He and his wife made a deep transformation of their basis of life – the outcome is documented in most impressive photo series about the accumulated detritus of our consumption. Here are some excerpts from an interview, and also from his website:

“My spirit was dying inside, and I knew it, but I was afraid to make the leap into photography full-time because of the possibility of failing. The thing that finally got me going was a new kind of fear that crept up behind me over a period of several years: it was the fear of not living my life. This fear was motivating – it kind of pushed me forward.”

Today he is portraying American mass consumption: “The pervasiveness of our consumerism holds a seductive kind of mob mentality. Collectively we are committing a vast and unsustainable act of taking, but we each are anonymous and no one is in charge or accountable for the consequences. I fear that in this process we are doing irreparable harm to our planet and to our individual spirits.

As an American consumer myself, I am in no position to finger wag; but I do know that when we reflect on a difficult question in the absence of an answer, our attention can turn inward, and in that space may exist the possibility of some evolution of thought or action. So my hope is that these photographs can serve as portals to a kind of cultural self-inquiry. It may not be the most comfortable terrain, but I have heard it said that in risking self-awareness, at least we know that we are awake.”

“This new series looks at contemporary American culture through the austere lens of statistics. Each image portrays a specific quantity of something: fifteen million sheets of office paper (five minutes of paper use); 106,000 aluminum cans (thirty seconds of can consumption) and so on. My hope is that images representing these quantities might have a different effect than the raw numbers alone, such as we find daily in articles and books.”

“As with any large artwork, their scale carries a vital part of their substance which is lost in these little web images. Hopefully the JPEGs displayed here might be enough to arouse your curiosity to attend an exhibition, or to arrange one if you are in a position to do so.”

His photo series carry titles like: “Intolerable Beauty: Portraits of American Mass Consumption” – “In Katrina’s Wake: Portraits of Loss from an Unnatural Disaster” – “Running the Numbers – An American Self-Portrait”. The pictures are showing “a slow-motion apocalypse in progress”. Have a look at the website of Chris Jordan. His pictures are now also exhibited at the Q2 Gallery in Second Life.

Cans Seurat, 2007
Depicts 106,000 aluminum cans, the number used in the US every thirty seconds:

Partial zoom:

Detail at actual size:

Thanks, Chris, for the permission of reproduction.

A friend sent me the photo of a beautiful celestial object in form of a red square, from the site World Science. They write: “The im­age was com­piled with da­ta in in­fra­red light from the Cal­i­for­nia In­sti­tute of Tech­nol­o­gy’s Hale Tel­e­scope at Pal­o­mar Ob­serv­a­to­ry, and the Keck-2 Tel­e­scope atop Mauna Kea, Ha­waii. A star at the cen­ter, named MWC 922, is spil­ling out twin cones of out­flow­ing winds and may be about to ex­plode as a su­per­no­va, re­search­ers say.”

Such pictures inspire awe in view of the sublime nature of cosmic expressions.

(Image cour­te­sy Pe­ter Tut­hill, Pal­o­mar/Keck)

I yesterday got some invitations to a conference end of May, of the Maitreya Sangha, to be held at the University of Redlands, Southern California. It’s a bit far away and I’m at an other event at that time… The title of the conference is: “A Cultural Renaissance. The Dynamic Power of Right Human Relations in Solving the Problems of Humanity“.

I appreciate activities furthering good will – if they lead to a practical commitment and not get stuck in talks about lofty ideals. For the invitation stirred up old memories:
I once met the initiator of this Maitreya Sangha, Keith Bailey, 12 years ago at a conference in Santa Fe, USA. He is a musician – drums and percussion – and he gave an impressive concert. He has a masonic background and is also founder of the Grand Lodge AUM.
The conference at that time was full of lofty talks “about” spirituality, and I myself had given a toplofty speech. Since then I have come down into into the “valleys” of a much more practical spirituality, casting off much ballast of spiritual concepts.

This conference seems to be based on more sound grounds: In the invitation it says:
“The questions of motive, purpose and group usefulness determine the spiritual nature of an activity. To work for the good of the whole, to be cognizant of the One Life pulsating through all forms, and to work in the consciousness that all men are brothers are the initial qualities which a citizen of the spiritual kingdom must demonstrate…
Goodwill nourishes the spirit of understanding and fosters the manifestation of the principle of cooperation…
A sense of personal responsibility – for group, community and national affairs…
Serving the common good – through the sacrifice of selfishness. Only that which is good for all is good for each one—one for all and all for one! These are spiritual values, inspiring the conscience and the consciousness of those who serve to create a better future and way of life.”

May this conference – and these thoughts – be an inspiration for the work for “A Cultural Renaissance”.

From the website of Maitreya Sangha.

As per Maitreya you might like to read the Lunar Messenger on Lord Maitreya.

I just came across the Fractal World Gallery, where you can find many beautiful images created with Fractal Flames. The gallery is run by Cory and Catska Ench, who have done many interesting paintings, also big wall painting.

Fractal Flames are algorithmically generated images and animations. The shape of each image is specified by a long string of numbers – a genetic code of sorts. You can create your own flames for example with the Apophysis interactive designer. Or you can download the Electric Sheep, a free, open source screen saver which can be installed on any ordinary PC or Mac.

P.S.: Here you also find beautiful images of fractals.

(c) C. Ench

I yesterday read an interview (PDF) with Anne-Sophie Mutter, one of the world’s most celebrated violinists, in the Swiss newspaper “Der Bund“. Some of her statements caught my eye, for they reflect a deep spiritual attitude:

“I’m incredibly disciplined, but only when I feel like it. However, I feel nearly incessantly like doing music.”
Real discipline in music like in spiritual matters isn’t something imposed from outside, but an urge from inside.

(Speaking about her two Stradivaris:) “The sound is the combination of many things. The violins are strongly marked by the musicians who have played them. A violinist leaves part of his soul in the instrument. … The way of playing changes the violin, the violin with its past contributes to the formation of sound of the respective string player.”
In spirituality you come to know that psychic energies leave traces on the surroundings like deposits and charge the objects with certain qualities. So you can magnetise something for making it more suitable.

“Music is a divine gift. Composers are a gift of God to all of us, listeners and performers.”

“Very early I have understood that I can make a difference. I support many social projects. After all, this social vein has to do with the fact that I wanted to become musician in order to be able to improve and to change things on a small scale. … When I organise a charity concert together with friends and can support my girls’ project in Romania with 400 000 Euro, I walk home on wings and think, my life makes sense, because – besides having an incredible joy playing music – I’m able to help people who out of their own accord aren’t able to lift themsselves out of the quagmire.”
This is the real impulse of doing good-will work, for the benefit of others. You can do it, b e it on a big or on a small scale, provided that you have the right motive.

“The silence during the concert is what finally turns an evening into magic. The silence of together merging into the music. The greatest compliment of a listener to a musician is that he forgets everything around him – caughing, reading – he is simple totally captivated.”
At first sight this might seem strange that silence is creating the magic and not the music. But when you listen to music with rapt attention, your personality merges into the experience of music, lifting you out of your body consciousness. It is a deeply spiritual experience, which is cultivated through meditation. Also the musician can experience this silence during his play. “True musicians attune to the musical symphony of Nature through silence and reproduce the music. Such music remains – not obliterated by nature and time.” says K. Parvathi Kumar in his booklet “On Silence“.

Statue of a musician at the wall of the “Chinese Temple” in the garden of the Sanssouci Castle near Berlin.

Two Australian scientists, Hatice Gunes and Massimo Piccardi, have invented a computer software that distinguishes a beautiful face from a less attractive one. They use a software that measures faces and relates them to images of models, actors and about 200 women from around the globe, from different ages, levels of attractiveness and ethnic backgrounds. When you give a photo of a woman’s face into the machine, it returns a beauty rating between 1 and 10.

In their paper in the International Journal Of Human-Computer Studies they explain: “Potential applications exist in the entertainment industry, cosmetic industry, virtual media and plastic surgery.” Dr Piccardi says, one danger of the software was that it could fall into the hands of adolescents or others sensitive about their looks and harm their self- image.

Another danger might be that you believe what the device is telling you …

The wisdom teachings tell us that beauty is the Divine aspect of form being veiled by a beautiful shape. This is meant with the saying that real beauty is within and not without. No technical device will ever help us finding it. We see beauty through forms, but not as the forms. A lightful form lets the inner beauty radiate through more easily. Read more about it in the Letters on Spiritual Astrology on Taurus, Nr. 1.

Mongolian woman. How to measure the inner beauty of a person?