Libra - Rainbow Bridge between Shambala and Shasta
10 July 2023, pencils and photo work
Shambala is the soul centre of the Earth and is said to be as old as the planet. There are many legends and references to Shambala and its king in different Eastern scriptures. The scriptures affirm that Shambala is in the second ethers hidden in the Gobi Desert within the geographical territory of the present day's Mongolian nation. It is hidden and inaccessible to humans. Only advanced initiates gain access to Shambala as per the call from Shambala.
The Lord of Shambala is called by many names, among others The Lord of the World, The Ancient of Days, Sanat Kumara or Shasta. Kumara means Son of God. Shasta means a synthesis of the three energies of will, knowledge and action. The Mount Shasta on the West Coast of the USA is named after Sanat Kumara. Sanat Kumara is the ruler of the beings on the planet and also the teacher and the awakener.
The lord works from Shambala in the East and from Shasta in the West, to synthesize East and West at all levels. Sanat Kumara abundantly manifests the Aquarian energies through Mount Shasta which in turn awakens the entire state of California for pioneering global evolution in the field of electronics, communications and information technology.
The effort of Shambala and Shasta is expected to manifest the golden age by the year 2424. We might imagine the rainbow bridge between Shambala and Shasta, to realize the energies of Aquarius and thereby transform the self. The painting visualises this with the help of an image of the earth produced by the geospacial Nasa WorldWind app showing a North Polar perspective of the northern hemisphere. A rainbow and a straight line connecting Shambala and Shasta give the vision of the bridge.
Libra - At the Deep
5 July 2022, pencils and photo work
Libra represents the process of subjectivity coming out into objectivity. Libra is the consciousness that separates the inner from the outer, creating the illusion of the material. When we are disconnected from the light, we feel lost; this is the symbolic fall of the soul into matter.
Libra is the fulcrum principle causing the rotation of the wheel of creation. It is the force radiating from centre to circumference, bringing diversity from out of unity. It is also the blending force bringing diversity back to the unity at the centre.
I created the image by merging seven photos taken from a hotel in Niterói, Rio de Janeiro, around sunset time and at night. The sphere around the setting sun indicates the centre and circumference of the wheel. The sphere together with the line of the horizon, accentuated by the Rio-Niterói bridge, and the lower horizontal line, formed by high-rises, also hint at the symbol of Libra. I had placed the symbol of Libra at the centre; it is now fused with the colours.
In the lower part of the painting, I designed an urban gorge in a vertical direction by mirroring the flow of traffic lights and high-rises. The traffic is seemingly crossing a river created by reflections of streetlights and high-rises in the water of the bay. The light of the traffic flowing through the gorge reminds one of a cataclysmic chasm in the earth.
You might also see the human frame, which I first had in mind when starting to work on the painting, with the Sun as Libra lifted up to Aries in the head, the outstretched arms, the spine of traffic lights and the navel centre, Libra, at the lower crossroad.
Libra - The Wheel of Creation
25 June 2021, pencils and photo work
In the wisdom teachings, creation is described as a wheel without beginning and end, which appears cyclically. Each new cycle has its own freshness, but the basic structures remain largely the same. When the impulse for a creation comes, the wheel begins its movement and radiates time and space. The point at the beginning of creation radiates and expands becoming a globe. With the movement of time, rays of light come forth. Objectivity emerges from subjectivity. The forms gradually take on denser matter; the cosmos and its stars are born and form the visible creation.
The underlying essence of everything is called Narayana in the East, the indwelling God Vasudeva and the all-pervading God Vishnu. Libra symbolises the principle of the fulcrum that causes the wheel to turn.
For the visualisation of the Wheel of Creation, I used a photograph of the Sombrero Galaxy taken with the Hubble Space Telescope (NASA/ESA). I worked on the image of a statue of Vishnu as Vishvarupa, the embodiment of the cosmic person. It stands on the serpent Ananta, the endlessness. Its many heads symbolise the variety of phenomena. The planes of creation emerging from the centre of existence are indicated by the rainbow circle.
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.
Libra - The Jewel of the Seventh Lotus
17 June 2019, pencils and photo work
In Spiritual Astrology, the solar year is called the Day of the Gods. In Aries, we have noon and in Libra midnight; in Capricorn there is dawn and in Cancer dusk. When the spiritualist has completed his journey of tracing the path from Libra to Aries, the lower pole is absorbed into the higher pole. Man is reunited with his higher pole, the God centre. He later enters into the soul of the Sun and finally attains the centre of the spiritual Sun. He then sits in the lotus above the head centre, the jewel of the seventh lotus.
In the upper part of the picture you see the cross of the year with the vertical line of Aries and Libra and the horizontal line of Capricorn and Cancer, designed with the help of an old astronomical illustration of the movement of the Sun around the Earth. It is dovetailed into the arch of a colonnade symbolizing the stages of unfolding consciousness.
The figure of the meditator was formed by the fusion of two Buddha statues. Above his head is depicted the jewel in the lotus which creates the pathway to the zodiac wheel of the and beyond to the sun. In the upper right corner, you can see the constellation Libra.
Libra – The Fulcrum Principle of the Universe
12 June 2018, pencils and photo work
Creation is compared to a wheel. The movement is greatest at the periphery; the point of stability is at the centre. The formation of the globe of space happens through a process of radiation: objectivity comes out of subjectivity. Dissolution is through a process of contraction: the creation merges again into subjectivity. The centrifugal and centripetal forces are kept in balance by the Libra principle.
In the human body, Libra is located at the navel. Its higher counterpart, Aries, is found in the head. Libra represents the equilibrium between the outgoing horizontal movement towards objectivity and the inward vertical movement towards subjectivity. When the fulcrum is stable, there is an ascent of consciousness to higher planes.
At the centre of the image you see a human silhouette with the nervous system representing the lines of force permeating the body. There is a centre of light around the navel and a higher centre of light at the head - the human brain representing the head centre. It is linked by the central vertical column of consciousness. The Libra principle at the navel is also the centre of the horizontal movement through space illustrated by expanding waves, and spheres of transparent globes representing the planes of creation.
Libra – Nyasa Vidya, Adjusting to the Planes
19 June 2017, pencils and photo work
The Eastern sages have developed a science of superimposition called Nyasa Vidya, where they imagine themselves permeating the whole earth or the cosmos. They meditate the North Pole in their head centre, the South Pole in their base centre, the equator in their solar plexus and the Himalayas in their heart. They inwardly study the currents of magnetism that flow around the earth and use them to purify the centres along their spine and to free the thoughts from personal influences.
Likewise, correspondences can also be established between the parts of the body and the planets, the sun signs or the planes of consciousness. When our orientation to a larger system is complete, the energies of our system are rearranged in accordance with the larger system. Disorder is brought back to order; thereby, one radiates and remains magnetic.
To depict these dimensions, I placed the silhouette of a human body over an image of the globe. I created the radiance of the inner centres by using photos of aquamarine gemstones and of a lotus. You see the lines of the magnetic field as the human and the planetary aura. The central axis of the spine is prolonged via the axis of the earth to a galactic axis. For visualising the seven planes of consciousness, I transformed and multiplied extracts from a NASA photo of the Sombrero galaxy.
Libra – Passing through the Sun Centre
14 June 2016, pencils and photo work
Libra teaches to turn from the outer to the inner, from the circumference of life to the centre. It is symbolised by a circle with a central point representing the Sun centre. By contemplating on the central point of the heart centre we can enter into the subtle spheres and ascend to the higher planes. The fiery spark of I AM is the solar angel, which we are in our essence. It is a ray from the Sun. On the upward journey we are returning to our source. Man is a potential solar system. The Sun we see is a gateway to the Central Sun and this in turn is an expression of the Spiritual Sun. Like the Sun, man is a micro-image of the Cosmic Person. This symbolism is a profound meditation.
Pondering on the symbolism of Libra I tried to visualise the centres of the different circles. Each being has an individual central point and thus has a unique circumference. However, as they are all expressions of the One Existence, this is described as “centre everywhere, circumference nowhere”.
On the central axis of the image I placed a human silhouette with the energy centres and a radiant heart centre. There is a larger fiery silhouette in the background symbolising the solar being. I surrounded them with circles of different sizes representing the different spheres and their limitations. Vertical lines of various lengths illustrate the stages of ascent through the different planes.
I transformed an image of Krishna to represent the Cosmic Person. The human and the solar being are looking towards the Cosmic Person, their origin. The Cosmic Person is surrounded by an aura of a starry field.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
Libra – Balancing the Higher and the Lower Pole
8 August 2010, pencils, crayons and photo work
At the centre of the picture you see the double pyramid, the top directed to heaven, the bottom to earth. It is a sign of protection called Gopura in the East. Above you see an opening to higher spheres from where light descends through the double pyramid and gets anchored to earth.
At the bottom you see a railway station. The rails symbolise the many directions of the trains of life: in Libra you come across junction points and you have to decide about the direction of your life. In the lower part of the downward pyramid you see the symbol of Venus, the ruler of Libra. Venus represents the light of the soul which will enlighten the physical sphere of life. The meeting point of the upper and the lower pyramid fuses with the lower part of the symbol of Libra in the background, the lower line symbolising the material world, and the upper part symbolises the spirit hovering over it in balance. So from out of the centre of the symbol a circle of light appears with a hovering eagle. The wings stand for the well-balanced pairs of opposites which allow living life in a good balance.
The sphere of light in the upper part is surrounded by stars. On the blue background you see the glyphs of Saturn and Uranus, the higher rulers of Libra which bring discipline and transformation into the life of a disciple on the path.