Two weeks ago I received an e-mail of a person describing himself as partly living as a hermit and partly helping in a parish in Fribourg, Switzerland. He had found my paintings of the “Way of the Cross” series on the web. He wanted to use them to illustrate a brochure for a Way of the Cross walk on Good Friday of the parish St. Johann in Fribourg. A hermit with a website.
I was pleased – it was the first time someone showed interest in these paintings I had done beginning of 1983, 33 years ago, at the conclusion of a profound crisis which had shifted my life into an entirely new direction. And so I told him that of course he can use the images but that I had “dissolved” nearly all my early paintings in 1997. The images on the web are reconstructed from photos. So I don’t have high resolution images.
Nevertheless, he wanted to use the paintings and he digitally worked them over to fit for print. He sent me some images of his hermitage – it reminded me of places in Siberia but not in Switzerland…
2 days ago he also sent me the brochure he distributed yesterday, on Good Friday, in the Parish, at the walk of the Way of the Cross. Thoughts of my youth came up – for some years I was an altar boy and grew up in a very catholic family environment – a long way till now, over many stages of inner unfolding.
The topic of overcoming death and transformation is a profound theme on the path. It has often made me ponder upon – also when composing texts (also here) on the basis of the wisdom teachings of my spiritual teachers. And the symbolism of Good Friday and Pass-Over to the higher spheres is of most sublime significance.
“Resurrection”, 26 January 1983
