Aries – The Birth of a Butterfly
26 November 2013, pencils and photo work
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.
Taurus – Receiving the Flow
27 December 2013, pencils and photo work
In the symbolism of Puranic scriptures the flow of life is described as the cosmic waters of space that had to be brought down to earth from the plane of the creator, Brahma. There was no one on earth who could receive the intensity of the fiery flux called Ganga (Ganges) but Shiva, the Lord of Divine Will. So a solar king ardently prayed for a long time until Shiva agreed to receive Ganga.
Shiva, who carries the crescent moon on his head, opened his hair, and when Ganga came down, she was caught in the hair and her impact was reduced before she was allowed to descend from his head to the heart and then to the planes.
The head of Shiva represents Shamballa and the heart of the planet is Spiritual Hierarchy. The human beings live in the planes. Each year in Aries, a new annual impulse is received in Shamballa and in Taurus it is passed on to Hierarchy and in Gemini to humanity.
For this painting I chose a picture of Shiva with a beautiful smile. I transformed it a bit, added the crescent moon onto Shiva’s head and placed a picture of Mount Kailash into the background. Then I created the sphere with the downpour of the energies onto Shiva’s head and from there, changing colours to golden yellow, down to earth. The air is filled with the flow of etheric energies.
It must be like this to stand in the full flow of life.
Gemini – The Son of the Sun and the Great Cycles of Time
09 February 2014, A 5, pencils and photo work
The Eastern wisdom describes the unfoldment of the creational activity in tremendous time cycles called Manvantaras. They cover periods far before the creation of our present earth and go into cycles of far distant future times. A Manvantara is ruled by a solar intelligence called Manu and the Manu presiding over the present cycle is called Vaivasvata. Vaivasvata is the son of the Sun; he is the mind of the Sun and is also called the light of the soul. The Sun is called the weaver, Vivasvata; he weaves the globe of light around itself. The very meaning of Vaivasvata Manu is “the weaver of the light of the soul”, of the divine plan on earth.
This painting visualizes Vaivasvata Manu as emerging from the Sun in the background. Behind his head you see the radiance of the solar light and his headpiece has the form of the solar material shown in images of the Extreme Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope (EIT). His youthful face reminds of him being the son of the Sun.
The sages describe the creation as emerging from out of a golden egg. You see a golden egg-shape in the background and the Manu surrounded by a wheel of 14 egg-shaped figures each containing the colours of the rainbow, representing the 14 Manvantaras and the 7 planes of each creation. The whole is contained in a huge lotus, the symbol of unfoldment. Vaivasvata is in the midst of the lotus, and inside the Sun you see a higher octave of the lotus out of which the Manvantaras emerge.
Creating this picture was a strange experience. It seemed that it didn't want to come out. And while working on it, I wasn't satisfied with the way it developed and on several occasions wanted to destroy it. In the end, I realised that my concepts of how the picture should look like were blocking its emergence.
Cancer – Cosmic Musicians and the Moon Principle
02 March 2014, pencils and photo work
Pure, sublime music is associated with the Divine. The soul naturally responds to high quality music, and we get absorbed into its enchanting vibrations. At the beginning of creation, when space begins to awaken, there is a first group of cosmic devas. The scriptures call them the Gandharvas, the musicians, because they are the intelligences who produce periodicities and durations. They are the blissful devas, the musical waves beyond creation. The musical hierarchy is presided over by Soma, the cosmic lunar principle, which exists on all planes. In astrology, his energy is presented through Neptune; on the planetary plane it is Venus; on the plane of our earth it is the satellite Moon.
In the centre of the picture you see three spheres representing the moon principle, composed from photos of the moon and a Chinese ivory carving. I placed a picture of the constellation of Cancer in the background. The outer, bluish sphere is touching a lower sphere representing the reflective principle or the transmission of the lunar energies to the Earth.
In the upper part of the picture you see three angels with flageolets, taken from the works of the English Pre-Raffaelite painter Edward Burne Jones (1833-1899). I worked them over to represent the Devas of the musical hierarchy. The musical vibrations penetrating the cosmos are visualised by the rays descending from the cosmos.
Leo – The Sun Centre in the Heart
09 April 2014, pencils and photo work
According to spiritual astrology, the heart centre is the seat of the soul and is ruled by Leo. Leo is the expression of the I AM, the sun of our being. The lion is the symbol of the personality which is to be transformed by the soul. The highest point of illumination in us is the head centre, and via this centre a yogi establishes contact with the sun centre of our planet, Shamballa. On a still higher plane there is a relation to the polar star.
The painting took some inner preparation before I began the outer work. To start with, I did a print-out of a colour spectrum wheel with 7 layers per colour shade. I photographed an icosahedron cut in a rock crystal and used the form of this Platonic solid of 20 triangles as an expression of rounded-up matter, or the “diamond body” of the spiritual matter which an initiate carries. For the meditator inside the crystal, I chose a picture of a statue of an Eastern goddess in a blessing posture which I took some years ago in the home of friends. I placed her face into the centre of the triangle pointing upwards and placed the picture of a lion with its head in the middle of the downward triangle. I put the colour wheel into the background with its centre at the heart centre of the meditator, symbolising the spectrum of the one light manifesting in 7 layers of creation. The colour of Leo is gold, and so the lion radiates a hue of golden light.
Behind the colour wheel I included a photo of the Dhaulagiri (meaning “White Mountain”) of the Himalayas as a symbol of intense aspiration towards greatest heights. On the front of the meditator, I placed the symbol of the sun. I shaped the headpiece exceeding the pyramid as an etheric representation of Shamballa which the meditator contacts via the head centre. Atop of it you see a star symbolising the polar star forming a triangle with two other stars.
Virgo – The Mother and the Maturing of the Souls
10 May 2014, pencils and photo work
The earthy sign of Virgo symbolizes the slow growth in the “womb of time” through conflicts and crises to reach the light of the soul. When we have gained a pure mind, it can reflect the divine Light. When the Light gets born in the virgin mind, this is called the “birth in Light”. The light of primordial nature is described as the Mother of the World. She penetrates all the seven planes of existence. These planes are said to be the veils of the Mother, and they are also depicted as a rainbow around her head. It says that her eyes transmit the rays of grace uplifting the souls to their pristine nature.
For this picture I used the image of a little statue of the Virgin with a star-filled veil. Around her head you see the colours of a huge rainbow, the planes of creation. In the background I placed two galaxies from the constellation of Virgo, depicting the cosmic eyes of the Virgin.
In the lower sphere I arranged an extract of a group photo and on each person’s face I placed a layer of a sunrise, illustrating the reflection of the divine Light in the human minds. They are the souls maturing in the matter to experience the birth in the Light.
Libra – The Upper and the Lower Bird and the Magnetism of Life
04 June 2014, pencils and photo work
In one of the Upanishads there is the story of two birds on the tree of life which are eternal inseparable friends. One bird eats the fruit of the tree; the other rejoices the first one eating. The bird below stands for the personality, which is experiencing the world. The bird above is the soul, which is a witness of the actions of the lower self. Both are eternally united. It is a beautiful representation of Libra, which stands for relationship. Another symbol of relationship is the magnet. Its two poles create a field which attracts and magnetizes the iron filings.
In this picture I joined the two symbols: The upper bird in radiant white is hovering above and observing the lower bird. The latter is sitting on the ground, looking backwards. It is also white but a little tinged. In the background you see the two poles of the magnet vertically arranged as two suns spreading their fields of force all around illustrating the poles of the soul and personality. They also represent the trunk of the tree of life with the lines of force as branches and roots.
I drew the lines on a photo of iron filings ordered around a magnet. Spiritual Astrology describes the colour of Libra as crimson-red for the average people living in a cloudy admixture of emotions and love. For a disciple who has developed the etheric lotuses the colour is violet; and when he is established in the thousand petalled lotus the colour is a blend between blue and pure white. You see these colour tones vibrating in the picture.
Scorpio – The Master of the Violet Flame
09 July 2014, pencils and photo work
The work of Scorpio is the alchemy of profound transformation through rhythmic inner work. Rhythm, ritual and order are related to the 7th ray of violet vibration. The violet light is the most proximate subtle light; it helps us gain the vision, which reveals the subtle existence. The violet flame causes magical transformations, which slowly reorganize the energies of our life. The Master of the 7th Ray, the Count Saint Germain, is the Master related to Scorpio. He supports us to govern ourselves by following a rhythm and order.
For this painting I took some photos of a candle flame and arranged a picture of Count Saint Germain into several layers of flames transformed into violet light. In the background I merged the pictures of a rose window of a cathedral and a blue diamond. Then I started working with the colours.
After scanning the picture and further working on the colours I saw that the print-outs were quite different from the screen images. The colour tones did not give the right hues, and the violet did not render well. So I slept one night over it and then continued working: I divided the picture into two layers, worked on the layers separately. I then erased parts of the one layer and fused the two layers. After a number of print-outs the right luminosity was adjusted.
Sagittarius – Fiery Alignment
08 August 2014, pencils and photo work
Sagittarius is the fiery sign of the archer, symbol of single-minded attention. It teaches us to direct all our forces to one purpose, the goal of our life. On the spiritual path, the bow and arrow stand for the meditative discipline of lifting up the energies to the higher centres and to align one’s own will to the divine Will.
For the visualisation of the divine Will, I chose a representation of the Lord of the Divine Will: I took the face of a statue of Shiva on the banks of the River Ganges in Rishikesh, India. I cleared other symbolisms from it and placed a bow and an arrow over the bust. With the help of photos of the sun and of a lotus I created the Sahasrara, the thousand-petalled lotus over the head, the target of the alignment, the connection to the higher worlds.
For the string and the lower part of the bust I created shapes of bluish flames, expressing the electric tension of the fiery alignment. I emphasized it by intensifying the colours.
Capricorn - The Sunrise
05 September 2014, pencils and photo work
In spiritual astrology, Capricorn symbolises the time of dawn on the different scales: the daily sunrise, the dawn of the year, or the birth of the creational intelligences, the awakening of the gods.
To illustrate these different planes, I started with a photo of a sunrise seen from an airplane. The partly visible sun symbolises that our visible sun is an expression of the invisible parts. According to the Scriptures, only one quarter is visible, while three quarters remain hidden. The surrounding petals of three layers of a sunflower and the flames above depict the radiance of the subtle planes.
In the centre, you see the depiction of the three basic forces of creational activity, pervasion and destruction - Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva. I created this three-headed unity by transforming a picture of a brownish copper statue into blue with golden ornaments. The statue was done on the basis of the famous Trimurti, a huge sculpture of the three-headed divinity in the caves of Elephanta Island, Mumbai. The serpent is a symbol of the unfoldment of time and the forces of life (Kundalini).
For the background, I chose a photo of the constellation of Capricorn. In many of my paintings you see a dark blue background with stars. It symbolises the background of the unmanifest space, from out of which all manifestations emerge – you cannot illustrate the unmanifest. The blue of the statues of Gods refers to their origin from the unknowable background.
Aquarius - Apollo and the Song of Light
16 October 2014, pencils and photo work
On a very subtle plane, colour and sound converge and become one. This plane is related to Aquarius and to a supra-cosmic musical intelligence whom the Vedas call Vena the Gandharva. The Vedas say, he merrily sings the “song of light”. The Greek Apollo is no other than Vena; through his influence the sound- and light principles of the higher planes are expressed in identical scales.
Meditating on these correspondences, an image arose in me of Apollo with a musical instrument super-imposed on his face and light pouring down from above.
For the painting I chose a black and white photo of a head of Apollo and converted it into light yellow. I found the picture of a beautiful classical instrument, the “Viola d’Amore” (Viola of Love). It is used like a violin and has a sweet, warm sound. There are 6 or 7 playing strings on the top and the same number of “sympathetic strings” below – a beautiful symbol of the 6 pairs of signs of the zodiac or of the 7 planes of creation in the manifest and in the subtle spheres. I placed the instrument on the face of Apollo so that the upper part with the pegs and the head is like a stair towards the spheres of light. There is a second viola merging with the face of Apollo and a part of a nearly invisible third one surrounding the head like an aureole.
For the background, I first took a photo of Uranus and merged it with another one of a star cluster from the constellation Aquarius. Though you don’t recognize these elements anymore, they are there in the “background” of this painting. And the light coming from above looks like pouring down from out of the nearly invisible Aquarian pot.
Pisces – The Tablet of the Universe
17 November 2014, pencils and photo work
In Eastern wisdom, the content of space is called Akasha. The impressions of the past cycles of life are recorded in the ‘Akashic records’, a kind of subtle photography. In ‘Spiritual Astrology’, Pisces represents this ‘tablet of the universe’ on which an initiate can read the past, present and future of the whole creation. Pisces also preserves the information about the human frame and its relationship with the frame of the cosmic man, which is hidden in the depths of our consciousness.
To illustrate the opening of the sacred content of space with its subtle records, I used an image of the stained glass windows of a Gothic cathedral, which I transformed and duplicated. For the cosmic man I extracted from an Indian painting the face of Ishvara, the Master consciousness of the universe and in our own being. On his forehead, you see the path of light connecting the pineal and pituitary – the representatives of the two fishes of Pisces. And above there is the crown of the head centre.
Below, I placed the “blue marble” of our Earth as the sphere of our life. I super-imposed the image of an embryo, symbolizing that our frame is made in the image and likeness of the cosmic man and that it is in a process of unfoldment.
Pisces is ruled by Neptune, who helps us to merge our lower consciousness (personality) into the higher consciousness or group-consciousness. I used a photo of Neptune to create the background of the image and to give it the mystic note, for Neptune is the soul of our solar Logos and is linked to the cosmic soul of our universe.