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Archive for the ‘Art, Culture and Beauty’ Category

Striving and the Grace of Silence

Tuesday, October 31st, 2006

In the Neue Zürcher Zeitung (New Zurich Newspaper) there was yesterday an article on Praise of Silence, a talk of the author Ralf Rothmann, who received the Max-Frisch-Price of the Town of Zurich. In the text there were some interesting statements, one allegedly by Max Frisch: “You have to aspire for the perfect, otherwise you go crazy.” And another by Mahatma Gandhi: “The mission of every man towards the world is to become a saint, not more and not less.” Even if we don’t succeed, our endeavour has to go into this direction. Rothmann adds: “For you cannot exist without the real feeling of unity with all, that is with the cosmos, you become a cripple with body and soul, and nothing helps if you don’t realise it your whole life long. We have to want the perfect, otherwise you go gaga. And even if it cannot be successful, if our thoughts and works will never become perfect – or endeavour can be so.
And about creativity Ralf Rothmann said: “What really wants to come to light, you don’t have to press. It happens, it grows, it flourishes – everyone who writes or paints or composes has this experience. It is really grace, it comes to us – most beautifully when we don’t think of it, when we forget our ideas and concepts for a moment and, for example, peel an apple. It comes to us out of silence, out of quietude, for you have to desist from speech in order that the world speaks again with you. This might seem to be paradox, especially when a writer says this, but we are conditioned up to the most tiniest, we are even still framed if we ‘go overboard’, and our materialistic basic attitude, which doesn’t even spare language, has made us forget that nothing, really nothing has a name, that there is in reality neither inside nor outside and that the body lives in the soul and not the other way round. Only silence teaches us this.”

See also the post on Experiencing Silence.

Amazing Microscopic Art

Thursday, September 21st, 2006

A friend from California sent me the link to a site about the amazing micro-sculptures created by Willard Wigan. He makes the micro-sculptures out of dust particles, sugar crystals etc.

He quotes William Blake’s famous poem:

To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower
Hold Infinity in the Palm of your Hand
And Eternity in an Hour.

By the way, Snoopes certifies, that these astonishing artworks are not a fake, but true.

Picture of the Month – The White Island

Tuesday, September 12th, 2006

Thang-La, by Nicholas Roerich

The White Island is a secret place which, in ancient times, was located in an inland lake and is currently located in the Desert Gobi. It is the place of descent of many sublime beings of higher intelligence where the Lord of the World, Sanat Kumara, is said to be at home. The painting “Shamballa� by Nicholas Roerich shows the glacier peaks of the mountain range of Thang-La which reminds of the White Island. The painting stems from an expedition through the Himalayas, Tibet, and the Desert Gobi in the 1920s. Many thanks to the Roerich Museum in New York.

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Picture of the Month – Buddha-Statue in Bhutan

Tuesday, September 12th, 2006

Buddha Statue in Bhutan

Golden-yellow is the color of the Buddhic plane, the supra-mental, the light of wisdom. Buddha is seen as the embodiment of wisdom, and statues that depict him are often golden. Contemplation upon this helps the observer to move beyond the boundaries of the mental and to move into the higher light. The picture by Christa Bischoff, Hamburg, shows a Buddha statue in Bhutan. The arms outstretched remind us of the qualities of mercifulness and helpfulness toward fellow men.

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Picture of the Month – Music of the Soul

Tuesday, September 12th, 2006

Two Bhutanese Monks playing music

Breathing and sound are the twin aspects which conduct the creation in space and time. By continuously listening to the rhythmic sound of respiration, the mind unites with the pulsation. Thus we enter into the inner space, where we can hear the music of the soul. The picture of the two young Bhutanese monks making music, by Christa Bischoff, Hamburg, depicts very well the twin sound of respiration.

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Picture of the Month – The Angel

Tuesday, September 12th, 2006

Angel

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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Picture of the Month – The Golden Disc

Tuesday, September 12th, 2006

Golden Disc

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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Picture of the Month – Crystal Ball

Tuesday, September 12th, 2006

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.

Crystal Ball

“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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Chosing the New 7 World Wonders

Saturday, September 2nd, 2006

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.

Digitalized 3D Body Scans and Sculpturing

Thursday, August 17th, 2006

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.