Tomorrow there is Spring Equinox and the beginning of Aries. Aries opens the astrological year and stands for the birth of spiritual man. It also symbolises the birth-place of an idea, of a spiritual impulse taking to a form.

The butterfly is a symbol of the soul. Just like the caterpillar is totally different from the chrysalis, the butterfly emerging out of it is again a totally different state: its light movements make it difficult to believe that such a being comes forth from the previous states.

In this painting I tried to illustrate the state of transformation we go through on our way to spiritual birth: you see a human head like a cocoon from out of which emerges a being of light with wings like a butterfly. I constructed the head using different layers of a picture of myself fused with a picture of Master CVV. In front of the head you see the merged pictures of an enlarged empty cocoon, a chrysalis with the butterfly still inside, and a butterfly just emerging – pictures of a Plain Tiger from an Indian friend. There is another butterfly in front of the head, like emerging out of it, and other ones are seen flying into the vastness of space.

See more pictures on the site with my paintings.

Pisces is the final sign of the zodiacal cycle. It sounds the quality of conclusion for a restart, dissolution for a fresh beginning. Pisces prepares the seeds for the coming cycle, and thus it is the subtle commencement, while the tangible commencement is in Aries.

This year, my wife and I experience the Piscean quality of dissolution in a very intense manner: In the final week of Aquarius we applied for a new apartment and got the positive confirmation at the beginning of Pisces. Already beginning of December we had received a termination notice for our old apartment and we started saying good-bye to the place where we had lived the last 3 years. Now, entering Pisces, the preparation for the move are going on – the dissolution starts manifesting:

I went through the book shelves and sorted out (I mentioned it in a previous blog-post): I took the books into my hands and felt inside if there was still some attachment to a book. If no – it came into a box. If yes, I asked myself whether it was an emotional bond and if I would miss it when I gave it away. Again more books came into the box.

In Berne, we have a huge reference library with esoteric and alternative literature, and most of the books went there – I was glad that maybe some interested reader might make good use of the volumes – and our book-shelves became lighter.

The next step was to unburden our basement rooms. A car load went to the waste disposal. But there were things which people might want to use. So I chose a website where you can buy and sell things – or give them away for free. I didn’t want to start selling but give things quickly away. The first test was extremely fast: Hardly had I published my old guitar that the telephone rang- a lady in broken German asked if she could get it. I said yes and tried to describe how she can reach our house – she lived 50 km away. Since she didn’t understand well my explanations I told her to send me an e-mail. She asked if I can reserve the guitar for her; I said yes.

An e-mail arrived – “How can I get the guitar and where are you living?” I sent the detailed description, and shortly afterwards the answer came that she is coming Saturday evening.

Saturday evening, the phone rang – she was nearby but didn’t find the house – it’s a bit back from the street. I saw her car but she didn’t see me. So I went out with the guitar. An African lady and her daughter came out of the car. The eyes of the child shone about the guitar and the lady gave me an invitation to their market shop where they sell African and Indian products and do Afro haircuts, I would get 50% off – not just what I wanted.

Two days later, my wife got a phone call: A lady in broken German – switching then to English –  told her that she wanted to get the guitar which I had promised her. The guitar was away – but who was the lady? It turned out that the first one only phoned and didn’t send an e-mail and that the e-mails were from another lady…

The other things went away with great speed and without mix-ups – especially a jigsaw – there were more than 10 requests – mostly after I had switched off the online ad, a few minutes after I had posted it. The lucky person came from a town about 40 km away… I wondered if he calculated the gas costs…

Others, when they came and saw what we wanted to give or throw away were happy to take more things – and we were happy to give them away:  my old easel, book shelves, picture frames, household articles, children comic books and games… It was a good experience to see the things disappear, hopefully finding a new phase of their lives.

The only object I wanted to sell was a string trimmer, less then 3 years old. I didn’t put a high price – but no reaction came during the last days. Today I reduced the price – I wonder if someone reacts. I’m sure, if I gave it for free there would be a dozen phone calls. But I’m determined to sell it, at least this one! Or keep it, if no-one is interested. In 2.5 weeks we will move to the new apartment…

An empty bookcase – just one book left for our study circle, the rest is already in boxes.

Today started with a cloudy sky but soon the sun cleared the way and we had a warm day with a soft golden light. I made a walk near Biglen, one of my favorite places in the nearby surroundings. During the walk, you have a fantastic panorama towards different directions.

A typical Bernese farm house

Ideal for a panorama bath…

View of Biglen

Pigs in the mud – curious but not much interested in the beautiful scenery

A living room with sky view

Way up

The Bernes Alps – Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau

Passage between winter ans spring

A snowdrop on the wayside

A Swiss bank – without money

A fantastic swing

A farmhouse garden

Curious friends

A beech besides a farmhouse

Enjoying the sun

Observing the visitor – and freezing, freshly shorn, without their wool

Spring messengers

Clay birds

Way into the sun

Two days ago I had a fascinating experience of guidance:

At 6.30 am I drove my wife to the railway station in our village. She was going to Geneva airport for a trip to England, to the next course module of her spiritual regression formation.

About half an hour later I got a phone call: My wife just had noticed that she had left her train, flight and bus tickets on her desk – if I could come to Lausanne and be there shortly after 8. I said, that’s impossible, it’s too far, but I’ll immediately start. I took the tickets, the navigation system and hurried down to the car. Soon I was on the highway – early morning rush hour around Berne…

As soon as I was out of the surroundings of the city, I speeded up, always a bit more than allowed. 115 km. – At 8.40 I arrived in front of Lausanne railway station. On the electronic billboard it said that a train was about to leave to Geneva at 8.42 from platform 5.

I did a sprint through the crowd, rushed up to the platform and saw the train still standing. I ran along the wagons. And out of one of the wagons I saw the head of my wife. She felt relieved and laughed when I handed over the tickets – the door closed and the train set off. A matter of only a few seconds.

In the evening we had a Skype call: She told me that when she noticed that she had forgotten the tickets she rang me up with the mobile of a fellow traveller. Then she did the whole rest of the journey a “tracing”, visualising how the tickets would arrive in time. (We had seen a fantastic video documentary about Anna Breytenbach, a South African animal communicator, see the blog-post. There she described how she does animal tracing to find an animal in the wilderness.) My wife asked inwardly the guides and angels for help and felt confidential that the tickets would arrive in time.

At Lausanne, she met a friend with whom she was going to the seminar in England. The lady said that they can’t wait on the train station, because it might get too late going to Geneva by car, there is often heavy traffic. They tried to ring me up but I was on the highway and without my mobile.

So they entered the train. My wife still felt confidential but the circumstances didn’t look like that. They entered the crowded train and decided to remain standing at the entrance. Just before the train started my wife had the impulse to look out of the train. And this was just the moment I came running along the wagons and saw her….

During the ride from Berne to Lausanne, my wife felt so full of confidence that the ticket controller believed her story and didn’t charge her a fine for travelling without ticket.

Lausanne railway station, platform 5 – extract of a pic from Wikipedia

Last week I got an e-mail from an unknown couple living in the surroundings of Berne asking about the group activities we do with the Circle of Good Will. With the links in their e-mail, I saw that they were doing a lot of things, among others they are running a medieval laboratory and are doing alchemical work. They invited us for a visit and I thought, that sounds interesting. Besides, I am sorting out books which I don’t need any more and wanted to give away my Paracelsus books, and that seemed a good occasion.

They are living on a small farm in the countryside next to a place where I had been working 20 years ago. In the courtyard, there was a tent – they are going on medieval fairs presenting their activities and product. A cordial welcome, long talks – and then they showed us the medieval laboratory: They had renovated the basement and created in the vaults a meeting space and a laboratory for the alchemical work.

Now the room was lighted by electric bulbs but they were also using torches.

At first, I found it a bit amusing to thus “relive” times which have long passed. Of course there is a number of people playing medieval times, arranging market-places, tournaments, music festivals and the like. But here was something more. Morpheo, as he called himself, described how when doing his alchemical work is entering into some trance-like state where he is like in another dimension and in contact with a teacher who answers his questions and guides him in his work. He is preparing essences from trees, ointments and preparations which seem to have special effects. Though I didn’t try, there was a very special ambiance.

A corner of the alchemical laboratory

They are collecting herbs in the surroundings and cultivating some in a glasshouse. He is preparing himself the alcohol for the tinctures and has an intuitive approach to the work. I felt it to be true when he explained that he is tapping at knowledge from previous incarnations which often seems to be more than what is present in today’s awareness.

Morpheo was very happy about the collected writings of Paracelsus and other books that I gave him – and I was happy that I found someone to whom I could pass them on.

The signs of the zodiac have their correspondences in the body. Pisces is not only associated with the feet but also with the area above the head, with the pineal gland and the pituitary body. When the higher consciousness awakens, a light starts to manifest between these two glands and gives rise to an ascension via this higher bridge of light beyond the limitations of the body. Pisces represents the ascent of man into God; it is therefore also called the sign of completion, of the meeting of the “alpha and omega” of creation.

For this picture I used a picture of Jesus and of the transfiguration of the Christ, from a painting of Fra Angelico (1442). I transformed this painting and fused the face of the Christ with a picture of Maitreya. I arranged two photos of sunrises on the front of the image of Jesus, thus generating the view of the radiant etheric centres. I increased the intensity of the eyes which are observing the observer and created a fusion of the subjective and the objective spheres.

For the upper background, I warped a photo of waves rolling onto a beach, producing the impression of the vastness of the etheric ocean of space associated with Neptune, the ruler of Pisces. And the colour of the sign is that of the pure sky in bright daylight. I further worked on the head centre in the middle of which you see the blessing figure of Christ.

See more pictures on the site with my paintings.

28 October 2013, pencils and photo work

I today got an e-mail informing about a global initiative to eradicate ecocide. For me this is very timely and urgent.

On their website they write: “Ecocide law is known as a ‘law for life’ – a law that puts people and planet first, a law that says ‘enough, no more mass damage and destruction.’ When we do that, humanity places the health and well-being of all beings both now and in the future at the forefront of our decision-making. It is a law that affirms humanity’s right to life, nature’s right to life and future generations right to life.”

The initiative was launched by Polly Higgins, an Ecocide law expert: “I am someone who cares deeply about the Earth. I’m also a lawyer who loves the Earth. It’s not often lawyers talk about love – and it can feel strange to do so. However, I believe love and law can be brought together and when the two meet, the potential to create new laws that put people and planet first is born. I’m rethinking law; my vision is a world that works from one simple overriding principle: ‘first do no harm.’ That is a world where people are thriving in harmony with nature. I believe in well-being for all beings.”

“Today large scale habitat destruction, massive soil depletion, extensive deforestation lead to worldwide disruption of natural cycles and the irreversibility of extinction. Today instances of mass extinction occur with greater frequency, greater rapidity and greater impact than at any other time. This destruction, damage and loss comes at an enormous cost.” There is a map showing the global ecocide hotspots but also a map for the growing global support to create a law against ecocide, which, according to Polly, is the missing 5th International Crime Against Peace. In April 2010 a fully drafted proposal was submitted into the United Nations. Already in 1972, after the Vietnam war, there had been UN attempts to make ecocide a crime against peace. For years, there had been fruitless debates, and it needs more public and political pressure.

In 2011 a “Mock Trial” was held in the Supreme Court of England and Wales. Two fictional Chief Executive Officers were put on trial for causing ecocide due to their destructive practices in the Athabasca tar sands and found guilty. This demonstrated that a law of Ecocide can work in practice, and garnered international media coverage.

Here are some proposals what you can do to promote the Ecocide law. First of all you can sign an Avaaz-petition to make Ecocide an international crime against peace and like it on Facebook. There are a number of information tools, also translated into other languages.

You find an interview with Polly in “Positive News“.

You probably haven’t yet had the opportunity to visit a space station and see how everyday life in zero gravity looks like. In her final days as Commander of the International Space Station ISS, Sunita Williams of NASA recorded an extensive tour of the orbital laboratory, just hours before she departed with two colleagues in a Soyuz spacecraft for a landing on the steppe of Kazakhstan.

Sunita takes you on an amazing tour through the different part of the ISS and shows how they are sleeping, eating or getting to the toilet in a place where there is no above and below. You have a look at their workplaces with computers and pencils, see a training machine for strengthening the muscles or peep into the cockpit of the Soyuz spacecraft with which they are going back to earth. Of course you also have a look “down” to the blue planet where you and I are somewhere living.

“A 25 minutes video worth every second of watching” wrote my Indian friend who sent me the link today. And that’s true.

Sunita Williams explaining a spacesuit, picture (c) from the video.

The Wisdom Teachings speak of Agastya or Master Jupiter as the oldest member of the Spiritual Hierarchy. Since time immemorial, he has been a great sage on the earth and his deeds have been described in the Puranas. In South India, he is also called Agathiyar and worshipped as a Siddha having his abode in the Nilagiris or Blue Mountains. He is closely linked to the energies of Sirius and on the zodiacal level he presides over the sign Aquarius.

The creation of this picture was a paradox for me: I pondered upon it for few weeks. There was the initial impulse for the image of Agastya but I thought it must be something else – and no thoughts came. I felt frustrated but finally followed the original impulse to do the picture with a photo of a statue of Agastya. For the background, I took a photo of the mountain in the Nilagiris which is said to be the location of the ashram of Agastya. Then I integrated a photo of Sirius. Using the computer and pencils, I worked on the colours and details of the expression. When the picture was ready I was thrilled about its radiance.

30 September 2013, pencils and photo work

A beautiful group life in India is just coming to the end. This afternoon the journey back to Switzerland will start. Thursday morning we had a last fire ritual in the garden of Sri Kumar.

Statue of Lord Dattatreya, the three-headed cosmic teacher principle

Kumari Garu distributing prasad (food) after the ritual

We had a question-answer session about the theme of the seminar, the 14 Manvantaras (ages/phases of incarnations of the earth), which I enjoyed very much.

In the afternoon we saw a nice Indian movie, Barfi! (see complete version online) about two deaf and dumb persons, very well played. Sri Kumar gave us a short introduction for a better understanding of the story. (“Set in the 1970s in a pretty corner of India, Barfi! is the story of three young people who learn that love can neither be defined nor contained by society’s norms of normal and abnormal.” From an online description)

Friday morning there was the closing ceremony of the seminar.Members from the 5 different countries present expressed their experiences with  the time of being in India and the seminar, which was different from previous seminars. I mentioned in my words that it was a highly self-governed group which organised well without much obvious central organising.

Sri Kumar the explained: “The 27th Group Life in India is a very good experience. … I experimented to be nearer to the group by being far. It is an experiment. All that you speak confirms that it works. Sometimes by a distance things can be done better. I am always around, like a mother being always around the child. The child would like to play free and yet have the mother. This technique of being nearer to the group by being far –  all of you have grown enough and you don’t need to be organised. We are all self-governing. Out of love some anxiety comes but it organises itself. But it would not work if all think it is going by itself. We have to take things up and not be anxious to take up the organisation. The World Teacher Trust believes in free will. We don’t believe in organising too much. You are all very self-governing persons..

My theme in the whole work is that all who come are devoted to the teachings. The teacher works through teaching. I don’t believe in reproducing what has already been done. I prefer giving it sitting here. I have spoken certain keys by which you can directly experience the manvantaras within you and relate to them, not speak about the whole chronology but make it as real to you as possible, so that we live the wisdom instead of gathering it. Many people gather the wisdom. To gather is heavy. My understanding is, wisdom is coming, whatever wants to manifest. The teaching given is to experience it in your own being.”

Presents were shared, each member received a small token by Sri Kumar and Kumari-Garu.

Unpacking the presents of the group – two wooden elephants

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Saying good-bye. Sri Kumar was about to leave for Hyderabad in the afternoon.

The remaining members then went to see the Bala Bhanu school, a regular school with 10 classes run by the WTT. It is imparting the normal curriculum together with spiritual values and moral education. It is always fascinating to see the attention and inner attitude of the students.

Navaneetam and Parvathi welcoming the group at the Bala Bhanu school.

We went around the different classes. In the upper floor the children of the 10th standard (last class) had prepared presentations of their projects about different self-chosen topics, ranging from environmental problems, cell biology, urban planification to topics from history and social system – and they were giving us visitors short introductions to their topics at the respective stands (no photo).

In the evening we saw another Indian movie, “The Three Idiots” – a comedy with a good story / message. Here is the total movie online (googling you also find a German version online and the  video from different sources, also YouTube). And a pizza with ice-cream was the evening acclimatisation for soon returning to the west…