Ule W. Ritgen - Rivers Of Light

One morning in early 2004 after just having read a few of Zeno Roth´s beautiful poems, I had an idea: Why not composing a series of pictures based on those poems?

Since my head was bursting with ideas, I decided to do three different motives for each of the selected poems. Soon afterwards four pictures were finished and I decided to send them to my friend Zeno, to find out what he thought. When it comes to his work, Zeno is a very sensitive man - and rightly so, I should add – so I was a little nervous about his reaction. To my relief, he really liked what he had seen and soon later it was decided to release a calendar or even a book featuring the fruits of our cooperation.

Due to all our different obligations this has not happened yet, but it will, hopefully soon…

One translation of the title "Schweigen" could be ´Silence` - but in fact it means ´not saying anything´ i.e. ´saying nothing` - The poem describes the soul´s ascent from a worldly attached life, towards detachement and- finally- spiritual liberation in a kind of ´Samadhi´ -state. All this is done in a wonderful poetic and effortless language...and the title ´Schweigen´ here also reflects a state of higher consciousness, which one cant put into words.

The image of the flying, or floating ship is a symbol for the soul, breaking free - having escaped the powers of the everchanging wind and waves of the ´night´ ( a symbol for an unenlightened worldly life ) and now floating ´daywards´ .

In Namenloser Stille

´Sommerregen´ is a beautiful poem written by my friend Zeno Roth. Since it has not been published so far, I don´t want to say too much, since both picture and
poem are meant to appear together acompanying each other.
And the poem came first - so one day, when published, it hopefully will all
make even more sense.

Sommerregen

Ein leichter Hauch des Vergessens

Ophelia 1

A straight forward translation of ´In Namenloser Stille` would be ´In nameless silence`- But this time the silence is initiated form the outside, not from within. The poem describes being in a place very remote - on the top of a mountain, i.e. high above the day to day life and engulfed by the grandeur and majesty of nature.

With the Picture I wanted to capture the moment of being ´between the worlds´ - below the earth, above the sky (cosmos), below the familiar, above the ´great wide open´, here matter, there spirit. But in contrast to ´Wege´, there´s no rememberance or assessment,
here everything is felt, is feeling... like the sound of the ´Aum´.

´Wege´ is the plural of ´Weg ´, It means ´way´, which is an overall word for the ´path´or the ´road´ you´re taking to reach your destination. Like in english it can be used in an abstract ´way´as well as - for instance - in ´we have to find a way to tell him´...

Here it is meant as description of all the countless and intricate ways we find ourselves on, as we walk through life.

The Picture is meant to be an image of ´the whole world´ - in the style of the 16th century - there´s night and day, the landscape reaches out from tiny flowers in the foreground to the infinite distance of the horizont - and yet it´s all in the mind of the old man, contemplating his ´ways ´ of the past...