Introduction

This painting, by Hanna-Eliza Omer, was inspired by the vision of Yitzhak Hayutman (cyber-architect and city planner), which became the subject of an ongoing dialogue between them, that resulted in a series of paintings of the quest for the Heavenly Jerusalem, and its promise of a better world. The underlying structure for the painting was provided by the Tree of Life, showing each of us, as pilgrims in search of our own Heavenly Jerusalem, the way to return from the physical, profane world below to the spiritual, divine world above.

Realizing, A Mandala of Return

Over the prominence of Jerusalem's Temple Mount, rising from the Valley of Kidron, and surrounded by the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem, the panorama spreads to the horizon of the earth's expanse, beyond the Holy Land, where the spirit of the ideal of humanity (the 'soul of souls') manifests itself. Centered in a standstill, between the cool northern breeze and the warm desert wind (where then is now, and far is near), we see, in a bird's eye perspective, a coming together, followed by a symmetrical diffusion of streaming currents over the lowlands into the calm sea. This pictorial meditation on the accord between myths, theologies, symbols and beliefs, takes place in the gold domed, dynamic vessel of the meeting place of man and God, which has landed on four pillars of hope in Jerusalem. We see the king of beasts, the lion, appeased, and at ease with the unicorn, that intuited creature who inhabits the virgin forests of mysterious lore. Gazing expectantly at the dynamic vessel is a Madonna sitting on the floor nursing her baby, the genius of man that she has brought forth into the world. Exposed, she appears to be vanishing into the gold and violet spheres of the inner vault, girdled and laced with seven skylights, manifesting their light as an alchemical vessel that forms the trunk of the seven-branched Menorah. In the gold-domed, dynamic vessel, Gaya, Goddess of the earth, holds in her right hand the triune-spiral of healing, and in her left, the chalice of sentient life's red fluid. Her son descends, his body constituted of souls who have overcome all obstacles to understanding, and levitate onto him in joy. Spreading the potential of his fully comprehensive and comprehending mind, he covers the land with consoling waves of understanding, like flowing, resplendent hair.

Celebrating the happening, the twelve initiated representatives of the Free Brotherhood dance around the Dome of the Rock, dispatching their higher selves, which rise to the sky as kites filled with living spirit, and transfigure themselves into 'soul of souls'. This transfiguration, which takes place on the south-western slope of Mount Scopus, is viewed in a quadruple screen suspended between the four pillars by the participants in the amphitheatre who watch the son of man, standing erect above the eagle's eye, conduct a symphony of celestial harmony, which he has mastered. Beneath the Dome of the Rock, nourishing the slopes of the ancient city's walls, flows the water of the well of the original source of the essential substance of the growth and development of man, which has seeped through the crusts of history's sediment, and penetrated to the roots of the Living Tree, which is the foundation for everything in the painting. Vaporized in the purple dusk, the water distills and vanishes into the void beyond the framed space that meshes in a unfolding network of the interwoven wings of the red and blue angels. The magnetized web of the network is engulfed by the sap of the wish-fulfilling Living Tree, which is distributed through seven branches, which split into additional delicate branches, and into a budding constellation of forty-five light seeds, the Kabbalistic number for the restored, transformed man (Adam).

The painting contains more than 100 symbols relating to the quest for one's true identity, and place in the physical and spiritual world, and how to find it. These symbols are enumerated and explained on other files (see The Realization Of Heavenly Jerusalem, the Anticipated Return Of The Spirit Of Peace), where also can be found other interesting, informative and illuminating material relating to the quest (and how to get there), the Tree of Life (and how to use it), and the Heavenly Jerusalem (and what it can mean to, and do for, you).