Cancer - The Force Field of Rebirths
10 April 2024, pencils and photo work
When the soul leaves the physical body at death, it continues to exist but only experiences through the causal body. In the time between leaving the physical and the next incarnation, the soul makes movements that are described as travelling through the lunar and solar spheres.
After a time, the soul seeks reincarnation again in order to satisfy unfulfilled desires. As if in a vortex, it moves down to the physical plane to re-enter a womb. With a liberated soul, there is no downward pull, but it can descend again for the benefit of humanity.
To illustrate the movement of souls through the etheric spheres between death and rebirth, I edited the photo of a fossilised ammonite shell. The subdividing chamber partitions (septa) indicate the many force fields through which the souls move. In the background, I placed a picture of the moon and above it a depiction of the earth.
The septa taper in a spiral towards a point, the symbolic point of earthly incarnation. At the centre of the circular and spiral structures is a star, the I AM as the centre of our existence. I inserted an illustration of the mother's womb behind it, which forms a light or birth canal downwards: The soul or solar angel on its way to put on physical garments.
However, the star is also solar in nature. The stars in the upper part of the picture indicate the souls that move liberated outside the force field of rebirths in higher planes of existence.
Cancer - The Descent of the Soul into Matter
2 April 2023, pencils and photo work
Cancer is said to be the gateway for the birth of souls, of humanity; this means, the descent of the soul into the form and matter where the matter completely holds a grip over the soul or spirit. The spirit finds its release from matter in the opposite sign of Cancer, that of Capricorn. These annual cycles of birth, or spiritual death, and death, or spiritual birth, through Cancer and Capricorn are imitations of the drama of evolution. The growth of the foetus in the womb buries us, the Soul, in the grave of the physical plane.
The space around the embryo is like a globe to us with ourselves as our geometrical centre surrounded and impregnated by the twelve signs of the zodiac. After the birth of the personality, we follow the path of our life with ourselves being the centre of our experience. Through our spiritual evolution, we conduct the symbolic journeys of the soul growing in awareness through experience. Thus, we slowly overcome the influences of death and rebirth.
In the centre of the painting we see a foetus designed on the basis of a drawing of William Hunter (1718-1783). It is surrounded by the zodiacal signs from an Italian church, photo of a friend. The upper dome is created with a transformed view of the Himalayas from WorldWind.earth using NASA images, and with a transformed extract from a NASA photo of a galaxy. The lower part shows the reflection of car headlights on a street seen through fog. It illustrates the arrival of the soul on earth and the beginning of its path.
Cancer - The Cardinal Cross
6 April 2022, pencils and photo work
Each day, we experience the apparent movement of the Sun rising in the East, coming to the midheaven at noon and then setting in the West. At midnight, the Sun reaches the bottom point. These four points constitute the cardinal cross of the day. On the horizontal plane, they form the four directions of East, South, West, and North. They only exist in relation to a being standing on Earth.
The year has the same four cardinal points namely the two solstices and the two equinoxes. They form the cardinal cross with the cardinal signs of Aries, Cancer, Libra and Capricorn. The full moon and the new moon, together with the two crescent moons, are the four cardinal points of the month. The four cardinal points signify the secrets of birth, life, and death and the smaller and larger cycles of time.
To depict this profound wisdom, I constructed the four cardinal points of the day by arranging pictures of the Sun taken in India and in Switzerland: sunrise, noon and sunset, and a daylight photo digitally transformed into a “midnight sun”. The background is designed with the help of a pre-sunrise picture taken on a flight over India.
The subtle shades of the sky needed special attention to modulate the colours. Rendering them for print on aquarelle paper, then drawing on paper, and scanning the image always changes the colours a lot, until the final version is ready for digital publishing and photo print. In each form of appearance the colours change, this being part of the creative process.
Cancer - The Golden Bowl and the Silver Bowl
26 March 2021, pencils and photo work
Cancer is ruled by the Moon, which reflects the light of the Sun. Cancer is a water sign; it symbolises the impermanence of our mind, which, like moonlight reflected in water, is constantly moving. The original light of the soul, on the other hand, is stable and constant like sunlight. Through the mind, the three higher principles within us are reflected in our three lower aspects, the personality. In the wisdom teachings, the Sun is considered the Father, while the Moon represents the Mother. Through her, the souls originating from the energies of the Father are drawn in, nourished and born through the lunar principle. The sunlight is golden, the moonlight is silver.
The half of the year from Capricorn to Cancer is symbolically represented as a golden bowl; in Eastern wisdom it is called the divine arch or the arch of light. With the solstice at the beginning of Cancer, the descent of the souls into the bodies takes place as an annual drama. The half of the year from Cancer to Capricorn is therefore called the silver bowl or the royal arch.
In the centre of the picture, you see the figure of the divine Mother, created with the help of a statue of Quan Yin. She is surrounded by the Moon and a field of stars shining in the darkness. In the lily pond below lies a silver bowl. Inside it shines a white and silver triangle with three water lilies blooming at its corners. Above the Mother's head is a golden bowl in which a golden triangle shines. At its corners there are three golden shining stars.
The bowls were designed with the help of a photo of a late antique Roman silver bowl, taken in 2007 during a visit to the museum of Augusta Raurica near Basel.
Cancer - Descent into Matter
12 March 2020, pencils and photo work
From summer solstice in Cancer on, the southward movement of the Sun begins. For six months the day decreases and the night increases. Matter grows stronger, the light, the spirit, becomes more hidden. Therefore, this is considered the time of darkness. During this time, we should give particular care not to lose ourselves in the outer world, but to keep the connection with the inner light. When we forget this, we deviate easily from our path.
In the picture you can see two red circles. In the upper circle there is a sunset; the sun is moving down into the sphere of the earth. In the lower circle and even below there is a railroad track, which symbolizes the path into matter. Like hypnotically attracting the gaze, it leads away from the central axis. At the beginning of the path, two people look into the tunnel; their gaze could also be directed upwards towards the light. One of them has a mobile in his hand - the symbol of the present time.
In the upper right corner you can see the symbol of Cancer and on the left are the stars of the constellation. Below them a water surface is indicated - Cancer is a water sign. The bluish bow indicates the ring of the horizon.
For the upper part of the picture two photos were used, which were taken during an evening take-off from Iguazu Airport, Brazil. The scene in the lower part of the picture is designed with two photos of an automatic train that runs through a tunnel at Zurich Airport to the terminal.
Cancer – Moonlight seals the Sun
13 March 2019, pencils and photo work
Spiritual Astrology regards Cancer as the time of dusk and as the moment where the soul enters into the body and thus, gets sealed in matter. Our mind corresponds to moonlight. It can reflect the soul, the Sun. Moon is the ruler of Cancer and Neptune is exalted in this sign. Like Earth is receiving the rays of Neptune via the Moon, our mind (Moon) is receiving the music of the soul through deep meditation (Neptune).
The image is inspired by the occult meditation no. 16 of Master CVV (see: Ekkirala Krishnamacharya, Spiritual Psychology; and: K. Parvathi Kumar, Occult Meditations): “Moon is silver. I AM the lake. Lake is moonlight, I AM healed. I AM silver. In me the moonbeam awakes. I AM moonlight. In me the Sun is sealed.”
The painting shows the Moon reflecting on the surface of the lake of mind, illustrated by the glyph of Cancer. And down below the Sun is sealed, spreading its light through matter. Behind the Moon you can see the bluish sphere of Neptune, and on its left you find the constellation of Cancer.
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.
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.
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.
Cancer – Narada’s Neptunian Music
26 March 2015, pencils and photo work
Sublime music can raise the consciousness beyond the mental to the level of the soul. This quality is related to Cancer. When music is properly used, it can open the awareness to cosmic planes of consciousness. Such experiences of oceanic consciousness are governed by Neptune. The cosmic teacher working through the power of divine music is called Narada. He is the cosmic musician whose thought, word and deed are musical. He bestows the word of the Lord with the sounds of his musical instrument, the Veena.
Pondering on Neptune, an image came to my mind which I had seen some decades ago, a round stone with a face. I finally found it googling – it was the famous “Mouth of Truth”, a stone face from an ancient Roman fountain probably representing Oceanus. I used it as the starting point, reworked it and merged it with a photo of Neptune. I surrounded it with a huge greenish wave in the vastness of the star-strewn space.
In the foreground you see Narada carrying his celestial Veena, a seven-stringed musical instrument representing the seven planes of creation or the seven tissues of the body. It is said to sing by itself and elevate people to the state of pure experience. I extracted the form of Narada from a vintage print and fused it with the surrounding waters of space.
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.
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.
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.
Cancer – The Crab, the Tortoise and the Beetle
Cancer – The Crab, the Tortoise and the Beetle
08 May 2011, pencils, crayons and photo work
Master EK explains that when the earth begins to tilt back from the highest point of the summer solstice, the Sun appears to travel sidewise from North to South. Hence Sun is described as a crab while passing through this sign. A branch of symbolism represents it as the beetle which can transform a worm into a butterfly. This marks the transformation of matter into mind, the passage to spirit. The picture illustrates these aspects of the symbolism of the sign.
I took a photo of a crab running on a beach, between water and land, i.e., the physical and emotional plane; another of a turtle swimming in the waters. The turtle is a symbol of the man who has learnt to withdraw from the outer to the inner and to come out again when needed. The swimming turtle is elegantly floating through the waters, for it has mastered the emotional plane. And above you see three ladybird beetles flying. They represent the stage where the soul has liberated itself from the dense matter of the three lower planes and is ascending into the vast worlds of the spirit.
In the centre you see the moon shedding its light on the surface of the water. Moon is the ruler of Cancer, and the reflective light stands for the illusions created when you see only the reflection and not the original. There is a movement of reddish veils around the moon for which I used a picture of a rose, representing the heart governed by Cancer. The rose also stands for the intuitive and mystic nature of the sign. In the left upper corner, you also see the symbol of Neptune, the higher ruler of Cancer, and the glyph of the sign in the right upper corner.
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.