Virgo - The Splendour of the Soul
13 June 2024, coloured pencils and photo work
Virgo stands for the purity and sublimity of virginal nature. The soul can shine through pure matter and let the splendour of its light radiate. It is through the soul that the light of universal consciousness, also known as the World Mother, makes its appearance.
In Eastern wisdom, the light of the soul is also called Buddhi and the soul itself is called Atma, the I AM. The light of Virgo is described as the pure, milky-white light from which the brilliance of the rainbow colours emerges. The interpenetration of creation with universal consciousness is symbolised by the Sri Yantra. It is a symbol of sacred geometry which contains 45 triangles.
In Western astrological symbolism in earlier centuries, Virgo and its supernatural nature were often represented by an angel. Late summer is characterised by Virgo’s golden light, a time when the fruits of nature are harvested.
To illustrate this symbolism, I merged the photo of a fruit-bearing apple tree, where the glow of the white sunlight iridesced into multicoloured rays, with a photo of glowing apples. I superimposed the edited image of a Sri Yantra.
For the angel of the Virgo symbol, I reworked the etching by Jacob de Gheyn II (c. 1565 -1629) on the constellation of Virgo from Hugo Grotius' book 'Syntagma Arateorum' from 1600. The female angel figure now carries in her right hand a lily, symbolising purity, and in her left hand a staff of Hermes/Mercury, symbolising Mercury, the ruler of the sign of Virgo.
Virgo - The World Mother and the Seven Seers
7 June 2023, pencils and photo work
Virgo helps us to develop virgin energies within us. Virginity is a state of purity in thought, word and deed, through which we can attain connection with profound wisdom. On every plane we are guided by teachers as we undertake to transform ourselves to become more refined beings.
Because of the subtlety or density of matter, there are seven planes of existence. Thus, Seven Seers or Rishis have appeared in creation. They are related to the Seven Rays and exist within us as the seven centres. The Seven Seers work on all seven planes for the Mother of the World.
We are highly recommended to acknowledge the presence of the Seven Seers in our being on a daily basis. We can visualize the Seven Seers from the head centre to the base centre and also feel their existence on the planet. This will gradually establish a connection with these most exalted beings of the planet.
For the dome of stars of the background, I used the stage design for The Magic Flute, Hall of Stars in the Palace of the Queen of the Night, by Karl Friedrich Schinkel (1847-49). I designed the World Mother with photos of a statue of Mary and a depiction of Mary.
The illustration of the Seven Seers builds on a photo by Dslcards / Wikimedia of the Apostles frieze in the Baltaha Monastery, Portugal, and a column statue of an apostle from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. A Himalayan scene shimmers in the background and the constellation of the Great Bear, the cosmic equivalent of the Seven Rishis, can be seen in the upper right.
The Mother Principle, Dattatreya and the Descent in 10 Steps into Creation
Painting from 20 November 2011, reworked on 30 April 2023, pencils, crayons and photo work
According to the Wisdom teachings, the Cosmic Person is the supreme God principle self-existing without mother and father. From there the Mother principle comes down and conceives the creation in her womb as her child. She comes down in 10 steps through 4 planes up to the gross material plane. The Mother is represented as a young lady, the planes are represented as spheres, and the10 points of the Pythagorean decade symbolise the complete creation.
In the picture, the centre of the decade lies at the womb of the lady, the top of the triangle at her heart centre. She is standing in a lotus, the principle of unfoldment. In her inner she carries a form of Dattatreya, the Cosmic Lord of Yoga. He is an embodiment of the Trinity, the synthesis of the First, Second and Third Logos. The decad is the ancient most symbol of Dattatreya. Since ancient most times he is evoked by the seers through this symbol.
There is a visualisation exercise where you imagine the Divine – be it Christ, Dattatreya or whosoever –standing over the solar plexus and the meditator becoming one with him. The delicate figure of the Mother is standing in the area of tension between the seminal emergence and the tremendous power of the manifesting energies. She carries in her heart this tension between the delicacy and the power of the presence of Dattatreya.
Pisces - Saraswathi and the Flow of Energies
3 December 2022, pencils and photo work
Pisces is a sign of synthesis that unites opposites. The two fishes of the symbol Pisces are swimming in opposite directions but forming a complementary unity. The two fishes can be thought of as spirit and matter. Spirit and matter are apparent opposites that together give rise to universal consciousness. This consciousness is the underlying current that balances the opposing forces and allows creation to exist.
The flow of consciousness is called 'the Word'. In the East, it is worshipped as the Mother of the World in the form of Saraswathi, Goddess of Knowledge and Wisdom. Saraswathi directs the movement of all things, which we can meditate as a circular flow of energies in the wheel of creation. It is a flow of light and sound through all seven planes of creation. Symbolically, this is represented by the seven-stringed musical instrument Vina, on which Saraswathi eternally plays her music, keeping the process of creation in harmony.
For the design of the picture I used elements of the NASA photo of a star nebula in the background. I integrated the photo of a rainbow over streams of the Iguazu waterfalls, seen from the Brazilian side. The colours of the rainbow symbolize the seven planes of creation. Above, I inserted a Saraswathi depiction by Raja Ravi Varma from 1894. Saraswathi is playing on a Vina, as a peacock with its multiple colours watches nearby.
Sagittarius – Preparing the Dawn
2 September 2022, pencils and photo work
In Spiritual Astrology, Sagittarius is considered the messenger of the dawn, and it rules the two hours before sunrise. This time corresponds to the dawn of the day, the first phase after the new moon, the month before the solstice of Capricorn and the preparation of the World Mother for the awakening of a new creation from out of the background of space.
At dawn, a surge of energy rushes through the atmosphere, reviving the bodies of living beings, and the Lords of the Seven Rays prepare the souls on the subconscious levels for the awakening of the Light. Thus, this time before dawn contains highest spiritual potency and is therefore most suitable for spiritual activities.
In the background of the picture there is the photo of a beginning dawn during a flight over India. Overlaying this, there is the photo of large stone statues taken in the car park of the Vietnamese Buddhist monastery Tu Vien Kim Son in Watsonville, California. In the foreground you see Quan Yin as a symbol of the Mother of the World. She holds a staff and an egg-shaped sphere in her hands. She is seated on a lion, suggesting the sign of Leo, ruled by the sun. The Buddha resting in the background evokes representations of Vishnu, resting on the serpent of time in the ocean of space.
The star at the top alludes to the cosmic source of light. Below are the seven stars of the Great Bear, symbol of the seven cosmic rays. The seven different coloured spheres of light in the lower part of the picture indicate the terrestrial reflection of the rays that bring a fresh impulse to life. And the Moon, like the Mother, is a reflector of light.
Virgo - Meditation on the World Mother
8 June 2022, pencils and photo work
The work of Virgo is that of protection, nurturing and inner maturing so that the soul can shine forth. Virgo represents the World Mother, the universal divine consciousness that expresses itself through the seven colours, seven sounds and seven planes of creation. This Mother of the World is the subtle light behind the material forms. By meditating on the Mother, her light and splendour can radiate through us, and we begin to merge with Her.
The image shows a representation of Goddess Lakshmi pouring out abundance with her right hand and blessing with her left. Instead of lotuses, the Eastern symbol of unfoldment, Lakshmi now holds roses in her other two hands. Her seat was also designed with a rose instead of a lotus.
I placed the divine Mother in a cornfield. The grain is an expression of the principle of abundance and multiplication: Through growth and ripening, numerous grains emerge from one grain and give us nourishment. I created the light of the background with several photos of sunrises. It shines through the figure of the Mother and merges with her.
Gemini - The Guiding Star
9 March 2022, pencils and photo work
The Masters of the Spiritual Hierarchy are working at spreading the wisdom required to help in the evolution of the beings on the planet. Just as Lord Maitreya and the other great Masters exist, there is also a physical embodiment of the feminine energy in the Himalayas. This grand Master in a female form is called Shaila Putri, the Daughter of the Mountain. She appears as a young woman of eighteen years dressed in garments of tiger skin and holding a trident. She is the Mother of the World for our Planet and the power that assists the Hierarchy, especially in times of crises. She is the guiding star also called “the Exquisite Jewel, the Star of the Sea”. You find her described in the books "The World Teacher" and "Man Sacrifice" written by Master EK.
To illustrate this reality, I worked on images of Shaila Putri and the leading Masters of Hierarchy. To indicate the relation to the Himalayas, I arranged the pictures on a background created with the help of the photo of a crystal.
Virgo - Ydun giving the Apples of Immortality
26 May 2021, pencils and photo work
Creation comes forth from light, which, in the Vedas, is called Aditi or the Mother of the World. We are part of this original light and are, by our very nature, immortal beings of light. However, having forgotten our true identity and having assumed a false identity, we have become mortal. Whenever violation of the natural law threatens to lead humanity to self-destruction, immortal divine beings descend to earth to once again give the law and help humanity recognise its original identity. The immortals pave a way through which mortals can once again find access to the subtle realms. When the etheric body is built from out of golden light, we can experience immortality once again.
In Norse mythology, Ydun is the goddess of immortality. She guards the golden apples that confer eternal youth and thus immortality.
The figure of Ydun in the centre of the painting was created using a photo of a statue of Ydun by the Danish sculptor Herman Wilhelm Bissen (1798 - 1868). Ydun descends from the golden light to grant access to immortality with her apples. The sphere of the upper part of the picture shows the subtle world, the lower part of the picture indicates the dense physical world - both created with images from the virtual globe "NASA World Wind". The light structures at the bottom were designed with autumn-coloured leaves foliage of the ivy called Virginia creeper.
Libra – The Exaltation of Venus
25 June 2020, pencils and photo work
Libra symbolises the fall of man into the cycle of birth and death. Through the development of sex consciousness, we have lost the awareness of our original state of immortality. This is represented as a fall from the Sahasrara, the head centre, to the Muladhara, the base centre. By directing the consciousness towards the higher centres, the lower centres are slowly neutralised and the polarity of sex is transcended. This is called the reversal of the wheel. The path from Libra to Aries in the reversed direction completes the journey. The opposition between Mars and Venus, between the male and the female, is transformed into a marriage; they unite and find their harmony. It is the marriage of the lamb, Aries, with the bride, Libra.
The image shows the stylised wheel of the zodiac with the central axis of Aries at the top and Libra at the bottom. In the central axis you see the figure of Venus, the symbol of the soul linking the opposite poles. Venus helps us to rise from the mundane identity to the awareness of being the soul. The figure is wearing a veil, the veil of nature. She is surrounded by colours of light blue and rose, colours related to Venus. For this, I used a painting of Venus from an unknown painter of the British School.
Libra represents the experience of dense matter and the death of consciousness. I illustrated this density through rock faces on the left and right side. The figure embedded in the rock at the bottom left symbolises the past, the one on the right stands for the future. Venus in the centre is the experience of the presence.
At the top on the left side you see the constellation of Libra and on the right side you find Venus designed with a NASA photo from the space probe Magellan.
Virgo - Blessing of the Mother
21 May 2020, pencils and photo work
For the divine light to express itself through us, a pure virginal mind is the prerequisite. Virgo is sign and time, when the germ of the soul matures - the probationary period on the spiritual path. After proper preparation through inner purification, the divine light can shine through us. Thus, the divine can descend into us to bless and uplift through the eyes and the voice.
It is said that the Father blesses through the Mother and thus gives birth to the Son of God in man. This is the Immaculate Conception and birth. The seven colours of the rainbow represent the unfolding grace of the Divine. The one white ray manifests through the seven colours of the rainbow.
On the left side of the picture you can see the profile of a statue of the World Mother, created with the help of the photo of a Durga statue in the Blue Mountains of South India. The germs of the maturing souls in the sphere of the earth were created with the help of the photo of a flower at the San Francisco airport. This sphere is limited by the rainbow against the vastness of blue space. Its seven colours stand for the seven planes of existence, whose seventh plane is the radiant light of the universe, which we perceive as darkness. In this darkness we can see the glyph and the stars of the constellation Virgo.
Aries - Sun cuts the Equator of Mother Earth
1 December 2019, pencils and photo work
On his seeming journey from south to north, the Sun cuts the equator at spring equinox. It is the beginning of Aries and the Sun is directly overhead at the equator. The equator is an imaginary circle around the earth. South of the equator is the tropic of Capricorn and north of the equator is the tropic of Cancer; at both of these points the Sun seemingly changes direction. In Spiritual Astrology, cutting the circle is seen as the beginning of a new cycle.
The image visualises the Sun cutting the equator from an inner perspective. Inwardly, the equator corresponds to the navel centre. The picture shows Mother Earth sitting inside the globe and the Sun at her navel cuts the plane of the equator. Above and below are the two tropics. At her heart there is the shape of India and the Himalayas as her breast jewel. The North Pole is at the top of her head.
For the Mother Earth I used a statue of Quan Yin. The globe lies in a huge lotus, signifying the principle of unfoldment. The detail of the globe is created with the help of a picture from WorldWind.earth using NASA images. The reddish colour is from the overlay of a photo of a sunrise over India at a Christmas morning. The red Capricornian sunrays are seen as the blood of the Sun, the saviour.
In the upper left corner, you see Mars, the ruler of Aries, and in the right corner there is the constellation Aries.
Virgo – The World Mother, Planetary Chains and Root Races
09 May 2019, pencils and photo work
From the background of space, there are periodic emanations of creation. They are seen as the radiations of the World Mother coming down through seven planes and in seven colours. Therefore, the Mother is symbolically depicted with a rainbow around her head. The Secret Doctrine speaks of sequences of time periods with a periodicity of seven like the biblical seven days of creation. There are units of seven planetary incarnations called a planetary chain and seven great cycles of humanity called the root races.
To illustrate the World Mother, I transformed a picture of Mary into the blue colour of the background. She is surrounded by a rainbow and seven globes of the planetary chain of our Earth. The globe at the bottom symbolises the physical manifestation of the fourth globe.
Radiant orbs around the Earth indicate the different stages of matter. The chain of seven smaller orbs above the Earth stands for the descent and ascent through the seven root races; the chain carries the glyph of Virgo. At the upper right corner, you can see the outline of the constellation.
Gemini - Through the Throat Centre
23 February 2019, pencils and photo work
Gemini is related to the throat centre which is governed by the element akasha, the content of space; it is represented by the light of the blue or white sky. Gemini stands for duality in creation. In Eastern wisdom, it is symbolised by a male and a female and not by twins. The throat centre is governed by Mercury, the ruler of Gemini. The right use of speech enables us to rise above duality and reach the unity of consciousness.
To visualise the throat centre, I reworked the colours of a water lily. One of its petals forms the pathway leading through the portal of the glyph of Gemini, symbol of the vocal cords. The duality of male and female is depicted by the faces of Hermes/Mercury and of Aphrodite/Venus looking at each other. Over the head of Mercury there is a picture of the planet Mercury.
Virgo - Spiritual Light and Spiritual Food of Mankind
18 May 2018, pencils and photo work
Virgo represents the “womb of time” wherein the spiritual seeker is slowly matured through profound crises. He needs to grow into the light of knowledge and learn to use his free will in a responsible way. When nature considers him mature she leaves him to himself for further evolution to higher consciousness. Our earth is also in a slow process of ripening in the womb of the Mother Nature.
Virgo stands for the virgin nature of the Divine Mother. She is depicted with an ear of corn in one hand and a light in the other. They symbolise the spiritual food for the souls and the spiritual light which lightens the way.
For the illustration of the Virgin I reworked a photo (by Sailko, Wikimedia) of a statue of Hera, the Greek queen of the gods. In her womb I placed a human silhouette on the globe surrounded by a field of light. The goddess is walking on a forest path. In her right hand she carries two ears of corn and in her left hand she carries a flame lighting the way. The ears are pointing to the Pleiades, the Seven Sisters, the mothers of the seven aspects of form life. In esoteric astrology, this constellation is deeply linked to Virgo.
Cancer - The Reflections of the Divine Mother
13 March 2018, pencils and photo work
The primordial light permeating creation is called the Mother of the World. The seers realized different stages of reflection of this light into the various states of creation. The reflection is called with different names at different planes but all are understood as expressions of the moon principle. The satellite of our Earth is just one dimension of this principle. Neptune is seen as a higher dimension, and on a supra-cosmic plane the principle is called Soma in the Eastern scriptures. The reflective principle functions in us as the mind, mirroring the light of the soul. The sixteen phases of the ascending and of the descending moon phases are called the sixteen syllabled name of the Divine Mother. They correspond to gradations of light and of consciousness.
For the illustration of the Divine Mother I reworked a Chinese painting of Quan Yin. The halo around her head is formed by merging an image of the Sun and of Neptune. She holds Neptune in her hands, lying in the crescent. From there, water, the vital energy, pours down to Earth. For the downpour I used a photo of the Staubbach Fall in the Bernese Alps. The bottom is created from a view over the lake of Geneva seen from an airplane. In the background of the Mother there is a dark blue moon representing the background of the cosmic moon principle. It is surrounded by the bright and the dark halves of the moon phases, where the lower sphere forms another crescent. Above the upper half you see a sphere of stars indicating the vast dimension of the Divine Mother.
Virgo - The World Mother and the Four States of the Word
17 May 2017, pencils and photo work
The World Mother is the most sublime aspect of creation. She is the unlimited light of consciousness that emerges from the background of existence as the pure virgin nature. Virgo represents this aspect of the Logos as Mother. From there, the creation emerges in four states. They are called the stages of utterance of the Creator. The objectivity is the fourth state; three states of emanation of the Word are hidden in the subjectivity. The objective state is like the vocal sentence of our speech. Prior to that, there is the mental sentence coming from an idea, and prior to that the idea emerges from consciousness.
To depict the World Mother I transformed the photo of a statue of the Mother standing at the Godavari River in Rajahmundry, India. The four states of the Word are illustrated by different circles. At the heart centre and in the background you see the Sri Yantra, a symbol of the Mother, which contains the wisdom of the goddess.
The “landscape” where the Mother is standing is created with a lotus flower. For the background colours I used the photo of a sunrise in the Nilagiris. The stars of the Pleiades constellation, the seven Mothers, are generated with the help of the Stellarium software.
Cancer - Artemis, Layers of Reflection
18 March 2017, pencils and photo work
The visible Moon is just the physical body containing the Moon principle. Moon is the Lord of Cancer and it is related to our mind. Like the Moon reflects the light of the Sun, our mind reflects the solar light of the internal Sun principle, the soul. Moon also reflects the light of the higher Moon called Soma in the Eastern scriptures. Soma, the divine musician, presides over the cosmic mind; his rays are received by the Moon via Neptune. Moon stands for the female principle, the mother. It stimulates the fertilisation and the birth and growth of the fauna and flora on earth. Cats attract the magnetism of the Moon; therefore the Egyptians considered them as sacred. Artemis, the Greek goddess of the hunt and of the Moon, can be understood as a symbol of the mind and quick thoughts.
To depict these spiritual dimensions, I worked on the image of a bust of Diana/Artemis with a contemplative countenance. The face is surrounded on one side by a cat and on the other by orchids dotted with starry reflections. On the top you see moon light from beyond reflecting on the bluish globe of Neptune and coming down to the sphere of the Moon. The Moon again fuses with the head of Artemis.
Gemini – Ardhanari, the Male-Female God
18 February 2017, pencils and photo work
When creation comes forth from the background of absolute existence, it manifests as existence with awareness. It is also called Father-Mother, the interplay of the male-female God. We don’t say it is male and female because it is an inseparable unity. It is the Ardhanari of the Indians, the Hebrew Adonai or the Greek Hermaphroditus. Ardhanari is usually depicted with the right side being the male Shiva and the left side being his consort Shakti, his energy.
In astrology, the male-female God is called the soli-lunar principle, the light and its reflection. It is associated with Gemini, where the unity is bifurcated into two. In our body, the left eye is associated with the Mother, the lunar principle and the Ida Nadi (subtle nerve); the right eye is associated with the Father, the solar principle and the Pingala Nadi; whereas the Son is the Sushumna and the Ajna centre or the third eye.
For the face of Ardhanari, I fused photos of a Durga statue and of the central face of a Dattatreya statue, symbolizing Vishnu. At the right eye, I created the aureole of the radiant sun, at the left side the crescent moon surrounded by a field of dark blue. I transformed an image of Aldebaran, the “Eye of the Bull”, to be the third eye; and Regulus, the blue-white star of the constellation of Leo, is placed at the centre of the crown.
Virgo – The Rainbow Aura of the World Mother
14 May 2016, pencils and photo work
Virgo is the month of the World Mother, the universal awareness or the basis of creation. She is called Gayatri in the Vedas, the Light of the World, and worshipped with the famous Gayatri mantra. She is depicted with five visible faces and a sixth invisible one. Of the five faces, the one on the extreme right represents the brilliant solar light and the face on the extreme left the soothing light of the moon. In between there are the three faces of the primary colours in the order of red, golden yellow and blue. The invisible face in the background stands for the absolute light of the background.
The World Mother is depicted with the aura of the rainbow indicating the seven planes of existence or the seven rays of the original Light. Each plane is subdivided again into seven sub-planes creating the kaleidoscopic beauty of creation.
To depict the World Mother, I used an Indian image of the Mother and transformed it by changing the colours and replacing the faces with extracts of women portraits of Western painters mainly from the 19th century. I kept the colour expression of the faces. Then I created a circular rainbow aura around the Mother and added seven rainbow hemispheres on a blue starry background indicating the expansion of universal awareness through all the planes of creation.
Cancer – Descent and Growth of the Soul in Matter
06 March 2016, pencils and photo work
Cancer represents the descent of the soul into matter and the relation of mother and child. At birth the soul 'falls' from the spiritual world into matter, imprisoned in the dense sheath of physical incarnation. The mother nourishes the child and gives her affection. Mother Nature protects the child until it awakens to the soul and consciously ascends from matter back to the spirit.
Meditating on the symbolism of Cancer I caught a glimpse of a converging spiral. In the spiral I perceived the different steps of the descent of the soul into matter, and this linked to the mother protecting the growing child. Their interaction reminded me of the glyph of Cancer, ♋.
However, it took some time of searching until I found access to the actual composition of the painting. As a point of departure, I chose a Shalagrama stone, an ammonite, whose spirals are regarded in the East as a symbol of the universal principle or God. I transformed light reflections from butter-lamps in an Indian temple to represent the stages of the descent of the soul, superimposing them on the spiral in different colour shades. For the mother and child I used elements of two Italian Renaissance painters: the mother from a painting of Fra Filippo Lippi (1406-1469) and the child from a painting of Fra Angelico (1395-1455). The spiral ends and also begins in the heart of the child, being near the heart of the mother – Cancer rules over the heart centre. The looks of Mother Nature come out of a veil of light; the face of the child radiates strength and purity. The surrounding greenish blue hints at the higher ruler of Cancer, Neptune.
Pisces – Alpha in Omega, Omega in Alpha
12 November 2015, pencils and photo work
Pisces is seen as the end of the zodiacal year which leads to the next annual cycle beginning with the vernal equinox. For a disciple on the spiritual path Pisces is the beginning of the cycle, since he moves in the retrograde direction towards the origin. In mundane astrology, Pisces corresponds to the feet, whereas for the disciple it is located above the head. In the body of the yogi, it is related to the pineal gland and the pituitary body which aid to produce light of the Higher Bridge to cosmic realms of consciousness. This light is the expression of the eternal NOW, the fusion of the beginning and the ending of creation.
The picture I received in meditating on Pisces consisted of two globes touching each other with a light in between and a head below. I understood the spheres of the globes as the contact of the past with the future in the light of the presence. The two touching spheres give the glyph of the sign of Pisces. I created it by fusing several photos of the Earth, the star Fomalhaut of the Pisces constellation and a lotus.
For the head I fused a wood-carved and a porcelain head of the Bodhisattva Quan Yin, the female correspondence of Buddha worshipped especially in the Far East. She is the Goddess of Mercy and thus a form of the World Mother related to Pisces. On the crown, symbolising the head centre, she wears a figure of Buddha, the light of the jewel in the Lotus. On her front I integrated the bridge of light between the pineal and the pituitary linking to the cosmic light.
The deep blue light of the background fuses the stars of the firmament with the night lights on earth and the aura of Quan Yin into one whole.
Libra – From the Periphery to the Centre
13 June 2015, pencils and photo work
The spiritual path is from objectivity to subjectivity and via the subtle planes to the reunion with the divine centre. In the movement through the zodiac, Libra stands for the complete unfoldment of objective life, where you can lose yourself in the “scales of the balance” or return to the centre of rotation, which corresponds to the centre of our existence. Objectivity is horizontal life, subjectivity is vertical life, and both need to form a right angle, a balance in the centre.
When I was inwardly searching for the new image, nothing showed up until there was a window of time to start working on the image. I perceived a horizontal and a vertical line formed by galaxies. I started searching the “Google quarry” for elements to approach the inner image and found many a galaxy and other interesting objects but the inner image did not fit with the outer pieces of the puzzle. I felt dissatisfied.
Next morning in meditation I clearly saw the structure and the needed elements. For the vertical line I took a photo of the milky-way and for the horizontal line, the field of light, a photo of the Sombrero galaxy. I super-imposed elements of star-fields and a star and added the eyes as symbols of the Mother of the Universe. Then I worked out colours and details with the pencils and gave the image a final digital finish. And yes, this was the image which wanted to manifest.
Virgo – Mother Nature Protecting the Solar Child
14 May 2015, pencils and photo work
Occult symbolism is a way of describing subtle truths, which to a common understanding appear as contradictory or nonsense. An intuitive approach helps gain deeper insights.
Virgo stands for the slow unfoldment of the soul on the spiritual path, secretly growing through crises in the womb of material life. The aspirant is compared to a child, whose soul / Sun silently develops a pure, virginal nature under the protection of Mother Nature. Nature again is a reflection of the spirit and thus is compared to the Moon, who is the ruler of Virgo on the subtle planes.
Meditating on the painting for the month of Virgo, I received the image of a chasm at the bottom in which there was the soul and at the top the head of the Divine Mother. The chasm was like penetrating through the seven planes of creation. A few days later the hint came, Isis and Osiris. I googled for a statue of these Egyptian gods and studied about their symbolism. In the plethora of meanings I found that Osiris, the “Lord of Truth”, is compared to the Sun. Isis is described as his wife, his sister and even his mother, and also as the Virgin Earth. I found the image of a grey stone statue with Isis protecting the child Osiris. Her headgear is like a solar disc hiding the true spiritual sun, thus being the “moon” to the higher sun, which is carried by Mother Nature. Osiris wears a headgear like a receptacle receiving the divine flame.
I transformed the statue into golden colour and did some digital restoration. I then created the chasm penetrating through the seven planes and surrounded Isis-Osiris by an aura of radiating energy - the veil unveiled. When the clouds of conceptualisation are left aside, the symbolic presentation provides a view of Mother Nature protecting the Solar Child.
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 Ascent of the Soul from the Abyss
20 May 2013, pencils and photo work
In the symbolic journey through the zodiac, Libra represents the illusions into which the soul loses itself when it gets disconnected with the thread of Light.
I visualised it as a ravine and superimposed on it the structure of a labyrinth, depicting the windings of our intellect, our brain. There is a bridge of Light leading over the gap, and in the background there is the light of a huge unfolding flower of consciousness. A pilgrim, symbol of the eternal part of the soul, is standing at the left side and looking down into the abyss. At the left rock face, you see the volumes of a library, representing the great masses of knowledge where you can get lost in concepts. An old man is sitting in front of the wall of books, absorbed in studying. A sage with a rod is observing him. He represents Saturn, the Lord of Time and the inner ruler of Libra. He is the guardian of the threshold who keeps you in a situation until the lesson is learnt. At the bottom you see a snail, symbol of the slowly moving spiral of time. At the centre, a young lady in white, representing the aspiring soul, is looking up to the guiding angel at the right. She is listening to him and is ready to ascend from the narrow abyss towards the Light.
The figures in this picture are taken from photos or transformed from paintings of Edward Burne-Jones (1833-1889) and Louis Janmot (1814-1892).
Virgo: The Sons and Daughters of the Virgin
12 April 2013, pencils and photo work
The book “Spiritual Astrology” is a storehouse of profound concepts of wisdom, which let images come to my mind’s eye. Thus when reading the chapter on Virgo impressions came to me of purity and virginity, of the world saviours as the Sons of the Virgin, of the rainbow of creation, the veil of the Mother of the World.
I wanted to give a new perspective to the often misunderstood concept of the Virgin and to replace the child with a group of great messengers of God and World Saviours.
I used a painting of Fra Angelico for the central figure of the Virgin. I added a helix galaxy structure and a rainbow in the background above her head, forming the Eye of God. The head and the halo of the Virgin at the centre symbolise that the World Mother is the first emanation from the background of creation. She is sitting on a red and golden veil, the sheath covering the pure existence and giving rise to the multitude of expressions in space. Full of loving attention the Mother is looking at the group of messengers of the pure Light, which are inserted into the form of the infant Jesus, who is holding in his left hand the ball of the globe. Wrapped into her blue robe you see smiling people who feel blessed and protected through her presence. Her Light is radiating into all directions.
Leo - The Entrance
17 March 2013, pencils and photo work
In symbolism Leo is connected with the transformation process in the inner cave of the heart. With the help of respiration you enter into the “cave of the lion”, the Heart Centre, where you can encounter the higher self, when the lower self is well adjusted. The cave also symbolises the inner ashram, of which an outer ashram is the externalisation. The image illustrates this entering into the ashram.
The painting shows a circle of 12 stars, symbolising the 12 signs of the zodiac. A woman is climbing a stair, entering through the circle of the “gate of stars”. The point in the centre is represented by a door leading to the Sanctum Sanctorum, and so the entry is a path from the circumference to the centre. At the threshold before the centre there is a white figure representing the Master in the Heart, the Divine Self. Above the centre you see the figure of an angel, the guardian of the ashram and the link to the cosmic spheres. The ashram is represented as a crystal cave. The crystals on the sides symbolise the purified, transparent matter, which can receive the Light. At the bottom on the left, outside the starry circle, there is a group of people waiting for their turn to enter.
Cancer - The Descent of the Solar Angel into the Body
28 February 2013, pencils, crayons and photo work
Cancer is the sign of the return of the soul into a physical body and thus it is related to the process of reincarnation. The Moon is also the symbol of the generative life which gives birth to forms.
In the upper part of the image you see the Moon and behind it the glow of the Sun. Two angelic figures, solar angels, observe the descent of a soul into the embryo in the womb of the mother. You see the embryo head downwards behind the descending soul. Another name for the soul, the I AM, is the Solar Angel. It is the eternal part in man which in the cycle of evolution goes through series of incarnations. The body is also called the Lunar Angel; it serves as a vehicle for the incarnation of the Solar Angel. For the left angel I chose an extract from a painting of Franz Dvorak, and for the one on the right side an extract from a painting of Edward Robert Hughes; a drawing of William Hunter for the embryo in the uterus. For the illustration of the descending solar angel, I took an image of Ilmatar, the virgin spirit of the air, by Robert Wilhelm Ekman.
Gemini: Pulsation – The Song of the Swan
10 February 2013, pencils, crayons and photo work
Pulsation is a fundamental principle in creation, which I wanted to express with this picture. Before my mind’s eye I saw a huge white swan with outspread wings. Hamsa is the Sanskrit word for swan, and it is the symbol of the centripetal and centrifugal movement. At the centre of its heart you see an open flower which is white inside, the pulsating centre. The ballerina sitting on the beach symbolises the moment of contraction, the one flying high symbolises the climax of expansion. I merged photos of several waves to visualise the pulsating movement of ebb and flow (behind the swan). I used very light colours at the border of reproducibility to give expression to the delicacy of pulsation.
Libra – Birth of the New Earth
16 June 2012, pencils, crayons and photo work
The picture came to me from out of the experiences of the previous months and weeks, culminating in receiving notice of termination of my work contract after 21 years of service. I felt free, after a very turbulent time. I saw the old structures collapsing, and at the same time felt the seed of the new sprouting, though not yet manifest.
At the top you see a skyline - brightly illuminated high-rise buildings on a burning ground which is about to crumble down. In the depth there is the formation of a new globe out of shining etheric flowers manifesting in a field of deep blue. A group of angels are observing the beauty with rapt attention.
There is a tremendous contrast between the subtlety of the new earth and the display of grandeur of the old structures, which are ready to sink into the abyss.
Virgo – Kwan-Yin, the Mother of Grace
12 May 2012, pencils, crayons and photo work
Kwan Yin is a female figure of the Buddha of compassion. She came to me mind while I was searching for a picture for Virgo.
I took the photo of a statue of Kwan Yin in the house of a friend. Her look is totally turned inwards. Above her head you see the light of the sun in a huge flower. The light is pouring down on her right and left, I represented it with the picture of a waterfall. Her head is surrounded by spheres of light, from where emerges a circle of moon phases, with the full moon / new moon behind her head. The warm golden yellow symbolises the power of her loving compassion for all beings.
Cancer – The Mother and the Birth of the Soul into the Body
09 April 2012, pencils, crayons and photo work
In the upper part of the picture you see a semicircular bowl opening to the starry sky. From the stars energies are radiating down to the moon, who, receiving, is lying in the middle of the bowl. The moon is the reflective principle receiving the light from higher spheres. From there The lunar light flows to the Pitris, the builders of the forms, who also create our bodies. At the bottom of the picture lies the mother; the embryo (on the right) floats in the waters of the womb, surrounded by the waters of earth. Above the earth you see the sun. The surrounding circles indicate that he has, like a human being, a body and a soul and is an expression of the spiritual sun. From its centre the soul is coming down to enter into the body of the child.
Gemini – Saraswathi and Mercury
17 March 2012, pencils, crayons and photo work
The sign of Gemini is ruled by Mercury, who in the east is represented by Saraswathi, the goddess of wisdom. For Mercury I used the photo of a brass statue from the 19th century. And for Saraswathi I found an illustration of the goddess flying on her vehicle, the swan. It is holding a lotus flower in its mouth, symbol of the messages of the divine Word conveyed to Mercury.
Mercury is holding a rod surrounded by serpents. It is a representation of the vertebral column, with the wings of the Ajna Centre, and the pineal gland, the seat of the higher awareness. In his other hand he holds a purse filled with gold coins, being the God of merchants, and he wears the winged cap of the fast messenger. The keyboard in the background is a symbol expressing that the whole creation is done with the letters of the divine Word. And behind the keyboard you see a NASA photo of the surface of the planet Mercury.
Taurus – The Woman in the Heart of Man
12 February 2012, pencils, crayons and photo work
This painting in a way is a continuation of the Aries painting. I took a silhouette of a man and placed a picture of Lakshmi sitting on a lotus to be in the cave of man's heart. She is showering her grace and thus the energy centres unfold. You also see an unfolding “heart above the head” at the centre of the huge lotus at the top, the connection to the cosmos. The body is interwoven by energy lines.
Aries – The Mother Principle and the Descent in 10 Steps into Creation
20 November 2011, pencils, crayons and photo work
According to the Wisdom teachings, the Cosmic Person is the supreme God principle self-existing without mother and father. From there the Mother principle comes down and conceives the creation in her womb as her child. She comes down in 10 steps through 4 planes up to the gross material plane. The Mother is represented as a young lady, the planes are represented as spheres, and the10 points of the Pythagorean decade symbolise the complete creation. Its centre lies at the womb of the lady, the top of the triangle at her heart centre. She is standing in a lotus, the principle of unfoldment. In her inner she carries a form of Lord Vishnu, the Lord of permeation. There is a visualisation exercise where you imagine the Divine – be it Christ, Vishnu or whosoever –standing over the solar plexus and the meditator becoming one with him. The delicate figure of the Mother is standing in the area of tension between the seminal emergence and the tremendous power of the manifesting energies. She carries in her heart this tension between the delicacy and and the power of the presence of Vishnu.
Pisces – The Mother Blessing the Earth Through the Grace of her Looks
22 October 2011, pencils, crayons and photo work
In the Eastern wisdom Meenakshi is the Mother who blesses the earth through the grace of her looks. For the Mother I took an illustration of an Indian goddess, but replaced her eyes by bright blue eyes. For me, they symbolise the unfathomable depth of the motherly love. Her light radiates from the centre of her forehead. Beside the earth you see the hands of Meenakshi; they hold and bless the earth, whose aura thus becomes a radiant blossom.
Opening the Sheaths of the Soul towards the Greater Light
11 October 2011, pencils, crayons and photo work
For many years till I was in the mid-40ies I had the feeling that my life hasn’t yet come to flourish, and that I was in a bud-like state. I knew that there were veils around the soul, which slowly started to unfold and widen. This was the origin of this painting.
To visualise the closed state, I took a photo of a water lily bud and that of an egg and fused them together. I then added the figure of a woman inspired by a pre-Raphaelite painting. She is holding a dove in her hand which is waiting to fly. The sheaths open in the upward direction allowing the soul in incarnation to unite with its counterpart which is radiating in the light of pure consciousness.
Aquarius – The Mother with the Aquarian Pot
01 October 2011, pencils, crayons and photo work
Traditionally Aquarius is presented as a man bearing the pot from which the waters of life pour down. For this image I chose to take a female figure for the water bearer. I came across an image of a Madonna by Botticelli. I added an Aquarian pot instead of Jesus, and created a downpour of light from a sunset. I also integrated golden rays and a NASA picture of the earth. At the end I created an opening on the backside of the pot, as a symbol that the energy is pouring out into manifestation on one side, but on the other side there seems to be nothing coming into it.
Now the Mother is blessing the earth with the Aquarian energies.
Capricorn: Aditi – the Mother of Light and the Birth of the Twelve Lights
11 September 2011, pencils, crayons and photo work
In the Vedas Aditi is the original light, the light of the world, from which the 12 basic qualities of light emerge. They are the 12 sons of Aditi, the qualities of the 12 signs of the zodiac. In spiritual astrology the qualifies of the signs are not identical with the constellations, but are the great thought forms that impregnate the space around a globe and shape the energies of the beings into certain specific qualities. I visualised the 12 qualities as 12 radiant energy centres around the Mother holding a child, like in the presentation of Mother Mary with the infant Jesus Christ. I took the inspiration from a picture of the Hungarian painter Franz Dvorak.
Expansion and Fulfilment
27 August 2011, pencils, crayons and photo work
Laskhmi is worshipped in India as the Mother of Splendour, in golden-yellow colours. She represents wealth, good luck and beauty.
For this image I used a picture of Lakshmi and placed behind her a NASA photo of a sunrise over the earth. Lakshmi is always presented holding lotuses and showering her blessings in the form of gold coins. She is accompanied by elephants. So I placed an Indian and an African elephant on either side. The central sun of our system is Alcyone in the Pleiades, the constellation of the 7 Mothers. Spiritual astrology says that from there energies come down to our system. So I digitally created a downpour of a starry flow over our planet. May spiritual blessings pour down on the onlookers.
Scorpio – The Dark Mother and the Consequences of Blindness
01 August 2011, pencils, crayons and photo work
The qualities related to Scorpio are hidden activities, power, as well as the loss of consciousness and death.
I used a photo of the burning oil platform Deepwater Horizon, which has sunk in 2010 in the Gulf of Mexico, surrounded by fire-fighting vessels in their futile attempt to save the platform from sinking. I arranged a black-and-white drawing of the Kali, representing the dark and fearful aspect of Nature as part of the divine, and integrated it into the image. It thus becomes a symbol of human arrogance exploiting Nature and thinking that they can escape from the consequences. Kali holds a sword in one hand and a stab with a skull surrounded by a serpent in the other – symbols of the vital energy of Kundalini. The serpent can bring death, but can also resuscitate consciousness to ascend to the higher spheres. Between her feet you see the Yantra of Kali, the power which keeps man in the clutches of desires and sex as long as these energies are not directed towards ascent.
The fire of the burning platform becomes one with the fury of the Divine Mother, the halo mingled with the dark clouds of the burning oil look like an apocalyptic beacon of destruction.
Libra – The Mother with the Tiger in the Jungle of the City
11 July 2011, pencils, crayons and photo work
In many of the pictures I use symbols of the east and transpose them into a western setting. For this picture I took the inspiration of Durga, the impermeable mother with the tiger, who is ruling the time of Libra. It is considered to be the time of the descent of the spirit into the life in densest matter. In this phase of life you can easily get lost on your way and forget the purpose of your life.
I visualised this life in densest matter as the life in a metropolis and took a photo of a street canyon in New York. For Durga, I used a painting of an English Pre-Raphaelite painter illustrating nature and transformed its position, colours and expression. I added a sword and a lotus – the sword as a symbol of strength and the lotus as the symbol of unfoldment. I used a picture of a Siberian tiger which is about to jump. I then worked out the etheric movements of city life as the movements of the energy which surrounds the figure of Durga.
Virgo – Purity and Holiness of Virgin Nature
19 June 2011, pencils, crayons and photo work
Virgo is the sign of the original nature, which is also called the virgin nature. She is an expression of sublime purity and transparency. She is the guardian of the spirit descended into matter and ripening there in silence and secrecy. So you see her represented as a woman radiating light and purity. She is sitting amidst withering flowers indicating that the heat of the summer is over and that the seeds are ready to fall down and go into the ground. She is holding an ear of corn in one hand and a flame of light in the other, the symbol of the light of consciousness, which is brought down by Mercury, the messenger of the Gods. He is the ruler of the sign of Virgo.
Leo – The Mother with the Lion
11 June 2011, pencils, crayons and photo work
In eastern wisdom it says that one of the forms of the Divine Mother is the shape of Saila Putri. She is regarded as a form of Parvathi and is also called the Daughter of the Mountain, the personification of the Himalayas. She is said to exist even today and to live in the form of an 18 years old woman accompanied by a white lion. From time to time she gives her presence to the initiates in the Himalayas through the roar of the lion which accompanies her.
For this picture I didn’t want to use an Indian-looking woman. I searched for a lady with royal posture and I found a figure of Elisabeth of Thuringia, queen of Hungary. It is said that once when she was threatened by her husband, a transformation of bread into roses happened to protect her. I gave her a huge rose as the symbol of the Heart. In the background I fused the pictures of a sunrise above Mount Everest and a panorama of Mount Kanchenjunga. And the white lion lies in his fiery cave, which is the symbol of the Heart Centre.
Gemini – Union beyond Duality
16 April 2011, pencils, crayons and photo work
According to the ancient Indian tradition, Gemini represents a pair of supplementaries, subjectivity and objectivity. Subjectivity is called the Lord and objectivity is called the power of the Lord in relation to his Lady. Gemini is worshipped as the temple of the Lord, at the entrance of which there are two pillars. The picture shows on three planes, between and above the pillars, Lord Krishna and Radha as a symbol of duality and union.
On the physical plane they are surrounded by an aura of light. On the solar plane you see them in the network of the energies linking the planets. And on the cosmic plane they are one with the far-away stars.
Pisces – Fusion. Synthesis of Existence
06 November 2010, pencils, crayons and photo work
Spiritual astrology says that Pisces represents the blessing through the look of the eyes of the Mother.
For this picture I used an image of Maria and transformed it into blue. I surrounded it with the ring of eternal existence. The fishes surround her on the ascending and descending arc of the circle / of evolution. On the top of the left side, one fish is gliding through the depth of space, where you see the sign and the constellation of Pisces. At the bottom on the right side, the other fish is diving into the depth of matter, where you see a group of souls incarnated into human bodies on the material plane. You can discover Sri Kumar standing at the left side of the picture, and the author sitting at the bottom right side. The night-blue colours represent the background of existence, the potential space in which all forms manifest.
Virgo – The Light in Matter
18 July 2010, pencils, crayons and photo work
I used a photo of a rose lily as a symbol of purity and virgin Nature. The figure of the Virgin merges with the lily with the pistil at her womb, a sign of her creative power.
The Virgin holds an ear of corn in her right hand, to nourish the world, and in her left the symbol of Mercury, as a lamp of spiritual light. Mercury is the ruler of Virgo.
Above her head you see seven stars, presenting the seven rays of light, and from the centre the light descends upon her and surrounds her. She is the representative of the Mother of the World, from whom the entire creation manifests through seven planes. So she is surrounded by the seven colours of the rainbow on the blue background, the cosmic consciousness. Behind the Virgin you see the sphere of the earth in red with seven seeds, germinating for future harvests. Around the lily you see a meadow with flowers on a reddish background, signs of the growth of spiritual unfoldment.
Leo – The Mother on the Lion
27 June 2010, pencils, crayons and photo work
Leo is ruled by the Sun. Here you see the glyph of the Sun in the upper centre showering streams of light downward. The full moon of Leo is the future festival of Hierarchy, and many masters of wisdom are born in this sign. In the centre you see the three great Masters, Kuthumi, Maitreya and Morya.
The cave of the Heart is said to be the cave of the lion, and the pulsation is called its roar. You see the glyph of Leo as the cave of the Lion. The Mother sitting on the Lion with Ganesha on her arms is a symbolic presentation of the majestic energy of Leo.
Cancer – Mother and Child
24 May 2010, pencils, crayons and photo work
Cancer represents the mother and child relation. The sign stands for the birth of the soul into matter, when at summer solstice the sun takes its southern course and the days start getting shorter again in the Northern Hemisphere. There is a movement of ascent and descent in the year, which is depicted here with the descent of the waters on the left side of the picture, representing the lunar energies, and the ascent of the solar energies on the right side.
At the top you see the face of the Mother, taken from a picture by Michelangelo, surrounded by the rays of the sun. At the bottom you see an embryo in the arch of the moon. They are separated by the waters where the glyph of Cancer is floating. Above you see the symbols of Neptune and Uranus, the energies of which are reflected by the ruler of Cancer, the Moon, to Earth.
Metamorphosis – from personality to the soul / consciousness, to the super-soul / universal consciousness, the Mother of the World
20 March 2010, pencils, crayons and photo work
This painting is an expression of a process of metamorphosis I went through.
At the bottom of the painting you see an extract of a painting of John Everett Millais, called Ophelia, which impressed me deeply. A flower is sprouting from there with a young lady as a symbol of transformation. And above you see the Great Mother surrounded by a rainbow of energies, emerging from the waters, with the deep look of infinite space.
So this painting illustrates how from out of old shadows and wounds new impulses of life sprout. The past gets transformed to grow into vaster dimensions of experiences.
The Birth of the Soul / Venus from out of Space / Ether / Jupiter and Time / Matter / Saturn
15 December 2009, inks, pencils, crayons and photo work
I am very much fascinated by the symbols of cosmogenesis, the creation of cosmic existence. How can the apparent something come out of seeming nothingness? The wisdom teachings explain that when creation comes into existence, there is the manifestation of time into space. In space you find the potential manifestation and when this happens the cosmic fire appears. I tried to depict it in this painting.
So for this picture I used a photo of the old astrological clock at the Zytglogge-Turm (Time-Clock-Tower) in Berne, as a symbol of the different time cycles governed by Saturn. Saturn also stands for matter.
At the top I placed a photo of a galaxy, as a symbol of space, and also of the spirit.
In the middle you see the famous Venus of Botticelli standing in a shell. Venus is the symbol of the soul, and the shell represents the female principle.
Consciousness manifests out of spirit and matter inter-penetratingly. So the hair of Venus is drawn into the whirl of the cosmic movement of the stars. And the shell holding her emanates from the centre of the clock, of time.
The naked Venus is also Isis or Mother Nature in her full beauty. Here she does not emerge out of the ocean, but out of fire, the cosmic principle of heat or the flames of the solar principle.