Tomorrow is Winter Solstice and the beginning of the month of Capricorn. I have just published a new painting for the month, also as an e-card for Christmas. I did it already on 11 August 2012 and called it “Capricorn – The Dawn and the Light of the Higher Heart Centre”. How did the picture come about?
Capricorn is also called The Mount. On the painting you see bright mountains in the background – Himalaya summits – which I transformed a bit – in bright sunlight, symbols of striving to the heights, be it in the outer or in the inner. In the foreground there is the dark blue silhouette of a meditator, symbol of diving into the subjective worlds. A huge eight-petalled lotus of the higher heart center carries in its center the entrance to the inner light. The stalk is rising from out of a reddish sun and fiery flames surround the lotus. The sky above the mountains merges with cosmic spheres and at the same time the inner of the meditator. At the top of his head the jewel in the lotus radiates an electric blue light.
For some days I meditated on thoughts from Spiritual Astrology, and the picture developed in the inner: I perceived the huge lotus of the higher heart centre, a dark blue silhouette over-towering steep Himalayan mountains merging with the starry sky above.
When the inner picture is clear there just remains the task to bring it down – and that is where the meditative work starts. At the beginning I ask the Masters for help, for it is my experience that the flow of ideas takes to the right direction when guided from inside. I’m in a kind of elevated state as long as there is this flow – and when I get stuck, I have lost the inner connection. This picture developed quite fast. I took a mountain range from a collection of Himalayan valleys I had googled before – the same with a huge white lotus – and compressed it a bit to give the impression of altitudinarian summits.
I transformed a picture of Master MN, cut out the contour and changed the silhouette to black and a copy of it to dark blue. I made other copies, started creating layers in Photoshop to modify the nuances and experimented with different scenes of dawn and sunrise. For the lotus of the head I took a photo I made from an artwork of a friend and transformed it in perspective. And again several layers in different gradations. Then I took a photo of the constellation of Capricorn and transformed it to form the sky. I duplicated it, minimised and rotated it to place it at the inner of the head – the outer sky reflected in the inner
Then I printed the picture and started working on the color transitions with pencils. This way the forms become softer and one color subtly transits into the other, even if they are strong contrasts there is no hard border.
Since 2 years I always listen to some songs of Davide Swarup done with a new percussion instrument, the hang. It has certain similarities with steel drums, but is more melodious. Again and again I hear the same series of songs and they are very inspiring for me. They also accompanied me with this image.
Finally I scanned the picture again, did some final retouching and then did prints of a small format until the colours have the right luminosity. Afterwards looking at the new-born child of the soul I familiarise myself with the picture and show it to my wife before putting it on the altar to shine there for some days.
