Cancer is the doorway for the birth of the soul into the worlds of forms. Suble intelligences, called Devas in the East and angels in the West, accompany it. Out of habit we ascribe attributes and shapes to them which correspond with our imaginations. We only get a right understandig, when we enter again into the subtle worlds. The picture of the statue of an angel from the cathedral of Girona, Spain, shows a golden angel figure looking into the sun light.

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The sign of Leo is connected to the sun, its ruler, and the color gold. In the wisdom teachings, the sun is described as a golden disc which covers the true, spiritual sun and lets us only see its glowing. The photograph of the golden, sunny disc, which emanates the light of the sun, is from the castle of Sanssouci in Potsdam, Berlin. It shows the open sky, the circle of stars, and the temple of creation – as if made of a fine network of power lines.

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Every month I chose a Picture of the Month to publish it with the Lunar Messenger newsletter. These pictures disappear from the site after the month is over. Maybe you would like to have a look at some nice ones of the last months. So I publish them here with the comment.

“In the alchemy of spirituality we undergo a deep transformational process and purify the matter of our bodies. Thus our personality becomes as pure and clear as crystal and the light of the soul can shine through. The globe is a symbol of perfection, and the picture of the crystal ball from the seminar house of H.P.B. in Ingolsheim, Alsace (France), reminds us of the lightful state of spirit-infused matter.

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2200 years ago the Greek Philon of Byzantium made a catalogue of the most important monuments of his time, based on sites located around the Mediterranean sea, like the Lighthouse of Alexandria, the Colossus of Rhodes, the Temple of Artemis, the Statue of Zeus or the Pyramids at Giza. The only buidling still existing is the Pyramid.
Since 2001 there is a campaign going on for chosing the New 7 Wonders of the World – not not chosen by a single man, but by millions of people all over the world. You can give your vote on the website of New7Wonders, selecting between 21 remaining candidates – ranging from the Acropolis to Timbuktu. The campaign will end in about 10 months, and on 07.07.07 there will be the official declaration of the new 7 wonders.
A good idea to focus on the cultural heritage and to create an awareness for the great efforts of mankind from all over the globe for creating beauty – and at the same time a project with a global participation.

Already since several years you can see photos in virtual reality on the web, which give you the impression of looking around in 360 degrees.
Now you can get your body even scanned in a 3D way and get a counterpart of you, either in polymer gypsum, metal or marble. “3D Culture” has developed a high-tech 3D-scanner “Scanguru” which digitally seizes the surface relief of your head or your body. From this the laser-scan is processed to a 3D data model, then a computer-controlled machine makes in many hours a gypsum-blank out of the 3D-model, from which at the end an artist might form a stone scupture in the classical way.
On the site you can even get 3D-pdfs where you can hover around in all directions.
Though there is still quite a way to beaming oneself from one place to the other, it is an interesting approach of combining hightech and art.

Yesterday after a swim in the river Aare I had a short look at the art exposition in the park of Villa Mettlen, a beautiful old villa here, where the music school is located (and where my kids are having lessons) and where every three years there is an art exhibition. Last time I was fascinated by some sculptures of Maja Thommen, a Swiss artist living in Italy. Via e-mail we came into contact and one evening, when she was in Berne, she came for a visit with an interesting exchange about art and spirituality. Many of her artworks show a spiritual dimension.
When I went around in the park of Villa Mettlen I was again amused of the banality of a number of pieces exhibited. Rust and oxidation seem to be the favorite elements of the artists, and some show raw or even brute artefacts. Some demonstrated a good handicraft work, others seemed to me like intellectual concepts solidified – dry uninspired, repetitions of much seen forms.
The intellectual plane doesn’t have a connection with the plane of intuition, from where original creativity stems. Although several objects showed interesting plays of forms, only very little did appeal to me through an expression of beauty.
Beauty is a reflection of the sublime planes of the spirit into matter, radiating, and of clear, shining colours, sometimes going into transparent states. In materialistic forms grey and dark, dull colours prevail. Several objects in the expositions expressed suffering and being bound to matter – a real reflection of the dark and heavy sides of our age – “modern” art.
Luckily there is a synchronizity of states, and more lightful expressions of creativity do exist as well.

Last week a friend from Germany sent us a folder with two fairy tailes of the Brothers Grimm and thoughts from her and from a group work. It is fascinating to see how the genuine folk tales contain in a symbolic form teachings of eternal wisdom stirring the souls of the readers or listeners. Many modern scientists think the tales, often full of seemingly cruel adventures, are expressions of existential fear and need to be “purged” before reading them to children. But when you read them with a spiritual understanding, you see that they are telling about the path of the soul. The soul,� encaged in matter, through a long journey (of many lives) finds back to a union with its origin.
One of the tales I got was about a girl whose hands were cut off to avenge a curse of the devil on her father, who later got silver hands, then, because of her pure life, new hands and finally found union with her husband, the king. The hands represent our attachment to material life (the grip) and silver or moonlight the denser worlds of matter. The girl are we as a soul, who finally finds back to an eternal life with the spirit-king.
This tale deeply touched me, because it expresses the inner urge towards light which is a thread through my life.

A friend just sent me a note about the incredible 3-D mural art of artist Eric Grohe. Here are some more pictures of artworks by him in a large format. It is incredible how the entire ambience of a locality changes by these artistic designs.
See also the post on Perspectives and Illusions with the link on the artwork of Julian Beever.

The weekend supplement of the Swiss newspaper “Der Bund” reported about a project of two Austrian artists who in summer 05 had covered all advertising signs, logos and company names of a commercial street in Vienna with fluorescent monochrome yellow foils. In this two week project called “Delete” (you find an English description by clicking into the upper left “deleted” area) they just left those written signals necessary for road safety. They just have published a book in German on this campaign.
On this project they say: “The aspect of deleting – The lettered, indented, grid-iron order of the street space is transformed into a ‘smooth’, orderless space, which unleashes something akin to pure potentiality …. a process of letting go occurs, or, to put is more positively in lines with the principles of Taoism – a vacuum is produced which maintains the fullness.” A deeply spiritual motive.
The project was meant as a protest against the flooding of the cities with ads, thus commercialising public space. This visual inundation is an expression of the modern over-active business-oriented way of life, and a campaign will probably just create a momentaneous awareness of the continuous bombarding. A more sustainable change has to come from the inner. Through a meditative work you are washing of the graffiti from the walls of your inner nature, as I hinted at in a post 2 weeks ago.
It is my experience that this continued exposure to silence deletes the sensual imprints and re-creates the pureness of the original state. From this the noise of irrelevant impressions gets neutralised and instead of getting sweeped away you stay in contact with your higher self.

A friend from California sent me a link to the website about Akiane, a 12 year old child prodigy from Idaho, USA. She is a painter and a poet, having started at the age of 4 and having reached by now an astonishing quality of ripeness. The mass media have discovered her and even a book about her has been published.

What seems to me to be even more interesting is the deep spirituality expressing through her. Having been born by an atheist mother and a “worldly-minded” father, she had at 4, a life-changing spiritual transformation, converting the whole family to Christianity. She has been teaching herself drawing and painting and is learning mostly from her own keen observation and study. The inspiration for her art and literature comes from her visions, dreams, observations of people, nature and God. Her favorite topics are people and spiritual subjects. The quotes from her given on the website are very interesting and are an expression of eternal wisdom:
“I teach and they run away. I listen and they come. My strength is my silence.”
“I have been blessed by God. And if I’m blessed, there is one reason and one reason only, and that is to help others.”
“The meaning of the shared-self is the meaning of wisdom and love.”

Though on the site they speak of “a Christian artist”, the creative expression of the soul is something universal and not limited to one or any religion. The expressions of eternal wisdom come from the undercurrent of existence, expressing through different forms and at different times. A soul like that of Akiane is not just “dropping from heaven”, but has a long story of experiences, on which she is – unconsciously – tapping. What seems to us like an early blooming flower is an expression of a long time of work and ripening over a series of lives. It is like the electricity, which is not mysteriously being created at the wall outlet, but there is a long generation process behind.