It’s summer!
The season of light and warmth.
Sometimes a sweltering heat lies over the land and tempts us into immobility. The air shimmers, and we sense a transcendent reality behind all appearances.
Just like winter, summer is a time of stasis, not dynamism. We adopt a passive attitude, let things happen.
In spring, everything is full of the movement of building up, in autumn full of breaking down. But in summer and winter, things are accomplished, and we can rest. Summer holidays! Lazing around, ‘taking it easy’.
The sun lion in the image radiates majestic calm. Nothing can trouble him.
He sits enthroned over the serene landscape and bears the representatives of two highly developed ‘summery’ civilisations.
Summer
Hand-signed art print with small original drawing,
Unique piece, 29,7 x 42 cm
On one side is Sri Krishna, the incarnation of the god Vishnu, preserver of all created things. Here he stands for the advanced Vedic civilisation of India, which, among other things, gave rise to the Bhagavad Gita. This holy scripture contains the conversation between the warrior Arjuna (the natural man) and Sri Krishna (the divine soul) on the eve of an (inner) battle.
The Bhagavad Gita is not only the standard text of the Hindus. It was and is highly valued as one of the great writings of world religious literature. Wilhelm von Humboldt, Goethe, Albert Einstein and many more were equally fascinated by its contents and the beauty of the language.
On the other side of the sun lion sits the High Priestess, representative of the advanced civilisation of Ancient Egypt, which strongly influenced our European-Western culture by way of Ancient Greece and the Roman Empire.
Although still present, they look at us from times past.
Summer brings timelessness, an eternal now.
According to Einstein, past, present and future are anyhow only illusions, albeit persistent ones.
Good thing I’ve got so much time in the summer to contemplate this!
More posts from the series ‘Contemplations’:
