There was a great solar eruption on March 10, 2010, observed by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory – many times bigger than the earth. A beautiful outburst of solar energy. See the short video (10′):

A friend sent me the link to a beautiful music video of Leonard Cohen’s “Dance Me to the End of Love“, about love in youth and in old age. A lyrical song, which also has another, deeper dimension: Wikipedia says about the song:

“Although structured as a love song, the song was in fact inspired by the Holocaust. In an interview, Cohen said of the song:
‘Dance Me to the End Of Love’ … it’s curious how songs begin because the origin of the song, every song, has a kind of grain or seed that somebody hands you or the world hands you and that’s why the process is so mysterious about writing a song. But that came from just hearing or reading or knowing that in the death camps, beside the crematoria, in certain of the death camps, a string quartet was pressed into performance while this horror was going on, those were the people whose fate was this horror also. And they would be playing classical music while their fellow prisoners were being killed and burnt. So, that music, “Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin,” meaning the beauty there of being the consummation of life, the end of this existence and of the passionate element in that consummation. But, it is the same language that we use for surrender to the beloved, so that the song — it’s not important that anybody knows the genesis of it, because if the language comes from that passionate resource, it will be able to embrace all passionate activity.”

I loved his songs already 37 years ago (Suzanne, Bird on the Wire, Songs of Love and Hate…). And he is also a deeply spiritual personality. Wikipedia: “His work often deals with the exploration of religion, isolation, sexuality and interpersonal relationships. Famously reclusive, having once spent several years in a Zen Buddhist monastery, and possessing a persona frequently associated with mystique, he is extremely well-regarded by critics for his literary accomplishments, for the richness of his lyrics, and for producing an output of work of high artistic quality over a five-decade career.”

Have a look at his YouTube channel.

From the video

An Argentinian friend did a series of comics dedicated to illustrate spiritual principles from the wisdom teachings. The hero of the comics is Swami Urukrama, and his adventures lead him through various strange situations. He is teaching “by way of negative examples”, how it should not be… I had the good luck of proof-reading the adventures of the Swami.  They will be published on the website of WTT-Americana, you find here the first of the series. Or directly to the slideshow.

By the way, they also publish the Lunar Messenger on the website of WTT Americana.

Swami Urukrama

I yesterday was at a fascinating conference of the Swiss fundation of certified non-profit organisations about Pictorial Worlds of NGOs. It was held at the Paul Klee museum –  a place for images…

Pictures are used for fund-raising, for sensitizing the public and for informing about people in need. The discussions were about the effect of pictures, what is a good picture and what are the possibilities of the language of pictures. And where are limits and dangers of misuses.

There were very interesting inputs. The head of the media service of the catholic church showed how today there is such a flood of images, that images are destroying themselves. The speed of the image flood keeps increasing. There is a trend from static images to moving images. Images try to capture attention, to rise emotions, and this often by means of creating irritations.

As an example of irritation he showed an unusual video about accident prevention – there are more people dying by stumbling than by cars. Irritating pictures are often used, but they can (consciously or unconsciously hurt feelings like the exposition arranged with plasticized dead bodies or pictures hurting religious feeling like the Danish caricature of Mohammad. Personality rights can be violated, when images are used without the consent of the persons shown, especially with children from developing countries.

A well-known Swiss filmmaker spoke about his portraits of people living on the margin of society – people in need, physically or mentally handicapped people, so-called “local idiots”. He tries to give them a voice and show the individual reality, which might deviate from social norms. He tries to “meet levels” and not to stand above the portrayed ones.

The last speaker was from a marketing agency, he spoke about the problems of time and money in creating impact: You see about 2000 pictures a day, everybody wants to have your attention. He presented examples about what is a powerful image. He gave 9 theses, seemingly contradicting themselves:

The strongest image is positive – showing a video clip of positive emotions. The strongest image is negative – often used; is a symbol; is created in the head (he showed a text of an Indian campaign against killing female fetuses, just a text describing how you can kill the fetus and try 3 month later to get a boy…); can be just a phrase (an inspiring campaign of a Japanese city turning its destiny from a big coal mining town to a non-successful amusement park going bankrupt, and now to a city of love where there is no divorce -recreating its destiny and attracting people from all over the country); is costly; is simple; is an experience (a campaign of Red Cross Portugal selling hope in a shop); and is a reality.

The strongest image factor is the idea. And this is true also for other inspiring activities. Inspiration comes through ideas, and this is the moving factor – not money or greatness. Master DK says: “Energy follows thought”. This is an applied form of it.

The hall where the meeting took place. For me the red decoration was a symbol of the images crying for attention.

The Klee museum: Moving lines of attention

I yesterday got an e-mail with the nice story below about growing old and an old lady full of zest for life. It reminded me of four octogenarians I met in the course of the years and who impressed me a lot. One was a German theosophist from whom I inherited two big boxes of valuable books in the 80ies, shortly before he passed over. Another was an Argentinian marine officer and theosophist who started doing the Spanish translation of the Lunar Messenger, a third one a German lady from the WTT, a deeply spiritual person whom we visited last summer shortly before her passing, and the fourth a Canadian lady with a long spiritual background in the high 80ies with whom I have regular e-mail exchange (she just sent a note…). Here it goes:

“The first day of school our professor introduced himself and challenged us to get to know someone we didn’t already know. I stood up to look around when a gentle hand touched my shoulder. I turned around to find a wrinkled, little old lady beaming up at me with a smile that lit up her entire being.

She said, ‘Hi handsome. My name is Rose.. I’m eighty-seven years old. Can I give you a hug?’

I laughed and enthusiastically responded, ‘Of course you may!’ and she gave me a giant squeeze.

‘Why are you in college at such a young, innocent age?’ I asked.

She jokingly replied, ‘I’m here to meet a rich husband, get married, and have a couple of kids…’

‘No seriously,’ I asked. I was curious what may have motivated her to be taking on this challenge at her age.

‘I always dreamed of having a college education and now I’m getting one!’ she told me.

After class we walked to the student union building and shared a chocolate milkshake.

We became instant friends. Every day for the next three months we would leave class together and talk nonstop. I was always mesmerized listening to this ‘time machine’ as she shared her wisdom and experience with me..

Over the course of the year, Rose became a campus icon and she easily made friends wherever she went. She loved to dress up and she revelled in the attention bestowed upon her from the other students. She was living it up.

At the end of the semester we invited Rose to speak at our football banquet. I’ll never forget what she taught us. She was introduced and stepped up to the podium. As she began to deliver her prepared speech, she dropped her three by five cards on the floor.

Frustrated and a little embarrassed she leaned into the microphone and simply said, ‘I’m sorry I’m so jittery. I gave up beer for Lent and this whiskey is killing me! I’ll never get my speech back in order so let me just tell you what I know.’

As we laughed she cleared her throat and began, ‘ We do not stop playing because we are old; we grow old because we stop playing.

There are only four secrets to staying young, being happy, and achieving success. You have to laugh and find humour every day. You’ve got to have a dream. When you lose your dreams, you die.

We have so many people walking around who are dead and don’t even know it!

There is a huge difference between growing older and growing up.

If you are nineteen years old and lie in bed for one full year and don’t do one productive thing, you will turn twenty years old. If I am eighty-seven years old and stay in bed for a year and never do anything I will turn eighty-eight.

Anybody can grow older. That doesn’t take any talent or ability. The idea is to grow up by always finding opportunity in change. Have no regrets.

The elderly usually don’t have regrets for what we did, but rather for things we did not do. The only people who fear death are those with regrets..’

She concluded her speech by courageously singing ‘The Rose.’

She challenged each of us to study the lyrics and live them out in our daily lives. At the year’s end Rose finished the college degree she had begun all those months ago.

One week after graduation Rose died peacefully in her sleep. Over two thousand college students attended her funeral in tribute to the wonderful woman who taught by example that it’s never too late to be all you can possibly be.

REMEMBER, GROWING OLDER IS MANDATORY. GROWING UP IS OPTIONAL. We make a Living by what we get. We make a Life by what we give.

God promises a safe landing, not a calm passage. If God brings you to it, He will bring you through it.

An old lady in a doll-house

There is a beautiful river running along the borders of our village, the Aare, where we like to go for a walk. I love the scenery of sublime beauty and also like swimming there in summer. For me the river is full of spiritual symbolism.

Two weeks ago I saw a note in our local information paper of our village calling upon the inhabitants to hand in photos and texts about the Aare river for an exposition next summer “Art at the Water”, for which they also plan to release a photo book. I had a look through my collection of photos and sent them a selection. Early one morning I also wrote a poem which I now tried to translate. Here it goes, followed by some impressions

The Aare at Muri

Though you pay us only a short visit
on your journey
from the snow mountains in the background
passing on to the capital
and further on to more distant destinations,
you give us a loving smile,
youthful Aare,
when you come in through under the old wooden bridge
and pass along the pools,
to take again your leave
with a long curve towards Berne.
Sometimes, a bit vain,
you seem to change nearly daily your colourful clothes.
You friendly greet joggers, strollers with their dogs,
rejoice at the lovers.
And during summer days
boats pass by with you
and you refresh us bathers
with your cool-tickling energy,
grant us a little paradise of rest,
into which the villas on the slope
look down through the trees.
And from the other side
roaring iron birds rise into the sky.
Children throw pebbles, laughing,
while fires are burning on the banks
and surfers stand for a short time in your waters.
They feel a little of your power,
which sometimes you suddenly reveal,
when you leave your banks
and carve your way through the valley,
wildly roaring,
sweeping trees away with you,
reminding us of your wild origin.
But mostly your are more silent,
like wrapped in thoughts,
in your meditation
about grey-blue-greenish colours.
And the ferryman reminds you of the
Siddhartha of an eastern world.
Do you dream already here
of your release
into the boundless realms
of the far ocean?

With joy I saw this morning a video from an Argentinean group associated with the WTT, Escuela Claridad, where they were using the paintings I did last November/December and a number of the photos I had shared with some friends in January. So they went on a journey around the world – this being the intention of sharing them. Some more paintings have come since and some more are waiting inside for the right time. Below there is one of them.

Serpent Flower

I was today at a Social Media Marketing conference in Zurich. Marketeers and web-consultants spoke about using social trends for your website with different tools, platforms and strategies, for increasing one’s presence in the communities. While most speakers gave very interesting presentations, others weren’t much relevant for me or seemed to give an exposure of the portfolio of their agency, spicing it with slogans. As usual you had to filter yourself to get the nuggets out of the sand.

I was much interested in the way the dialogue between business and users is being orchestrated and in understanding better the strategies and technologies. It was fascinating to see how the mechanics of human curiosity and gossiping are being used in this. Most relevant is to understand the users and what they want. This is often not so clear, and easily the gap causes miscommunication.

As expected at such a conference, people were busily twittering the whole time. There was a feeling in the room of keeping oneself in a state of excitement and continuous communication. The last speaker even highlighted this as a kind of telepathic inter-relationship between all participants. I thought I don’t want this kind of permanent interconnectedness. Inter-relationship is not just in talking, but, more so, in silence and in subtle linking through meditative work – this not particularly being the sphere of social media marketing.

So I didn’t join the conference with twittering or linking in, trying to keep the everyday information overkill with some inner filters at a distance. I had some talks and took some good inspirations back home. I now ask myself if I shall nevertheless do a step into the twitter-world after some steps into Face-Booking. I saw interesting vistas, but time is scarce…

One’s own website is just the top of an iceberg where the sphere of social media networks like facebook, twitter, flickr and the like offer fields for extension of the scope of influence.

Last Friday and Saturday we were in Einsiedeln for a meeting of the Executive Board of WTT-Global. It was a very constructive meeting, where we worked out a re-distribution of responsibilities. Great care was taken of the condition and sensitivities of each individual, which is very important for a good development of such a process.

For me it was an inspiring experience to see how this group now can function, after having gone through different clarification processes in the past. It was not a top-down process, but everyone involved expressed his or her views about who is doing best a certain task and where new assignments could bring relief. Then the persons involved declared which tasks they could take over. So we slowly approached a new structure of responsibilities and cooperation, which for the moment is being finalised. Everybody felt well with the procedures we decided upon and could agree with the results.

Here are some shots of Saturday morning sunrise seen from the balcony and the flat of a group member.

Last Tuesday I participated in our department management retreat, where we worked out the principles guiding our work. The meeting was in the Study Centre Gerzensee of the Swiss National Bank. It is located partially in a Château surrounded by a beautiful park overlooking a lake, with a fantastic view of the Alps in the background. I took some shots of the springtime ambiance in the park.

The idyllic impression got a dissonance, when a biting smell came from a terrace below the front, where a gardener  in a  protective suit covering the whole body and a big gas mask was spraying poison over the rose trees – calling me brutally back into the present day environmental pollution.

A horse statue galloping through the garden. The horse is a symbol of the vital power of the fiery signs of the zodiac, where the head represents Aries, the body Leo and the tail Sagittarius.

The satyr Pan playing his flute in the garden and evoking the flowers from out of the earth

Enjoying the horn of plenty

An Easter egg on the top of a fountain

The fountain of fresh energy

A fountain in front of the Château in the sunlight

A mighty tree in the garden

Spring ambiance under a tree

Alley leading to the lake

The garden of the little Château, the seminar centre

An old cannon in front of the entrance, with a spiral inside

Magnolia bud

Fishes enjoying playing with water, with the Alps in the background