Mystic Echoes: Wheel in the Sky

From the beginning of the story in Eden, humanity is given the promise of land ("let them have dominion over all the earth"), descendants ("be fruitful and multiply"), and divine blessing through which the entire world could experience heaven on Earth. In this ideal vision of Eden, humanity represents the physical presence of God on Earth to care for the world as sacred space. After Adam and Even are exiled from Eden, God restores the Edenic hope to Abraham. After Abraham's descendants are exiled in Egypt, God restores the Edenic hope to Moses. A restored Eden comes closest through King David, but the failures of many kings crush that hope. The people of Israel are again exiled during the Assyrian and Babylonian captivities and God restores the Edenic hope through various Hebrew prophets.

One such prophet is Ezekiel who finds himself in exile in Babylon. Ezekiel is given a vision in which God's throne has left the temple in Jerusalem and is now floating in the sky above Babylon like a chariot with some very fancy wheels. It is becoming clear that whether in the promised land or far away, the people of Israel will face the ongoing reality of exile. Instead of showing the world how to rule with justice and mercy for all people, their prophets tell how Israel has participated in injustice and oppression and are now experiencing that oppression themselves.

East of Jerusalem, the divine throne is now flying above Babylon with all of the imagery and symbolism of Eden wrapped into four bizarre creatures. The winged angels are a mashup of human and animal features along with the appearance of fire and the sound of flowing rivers. Above the winged creatures is a throne, and above the throne is the appearance of a human (the Hebrew word Adam). And if that wasn't enough imagery, there is also a rainbow to provide another layer of hope.

Here Eden is again represented by a divine throne in God's cosmic temple. And once again, an Adam is seated there on the throne reminding Ezekiel (called a "son of Adam") that Eden and exile are just two different ways of seeing and experiencing the same reality. From the perspective of exile, one can only see the oppressive power struggle of competing earthly empires attempting to rule the earth, a kingdom divided against itself. But from the perspective of Eden, there is just one kingdom in which the creator and the creature work together as one to care for the created world without violence or force (and thankfully without becoming a literal human-animal hybrid creature). In a unified kingdom there is no enemy, there is no outsider, and there is no end. Or as a later prophet would say, the wheel in the sky keeps on turning.

The heart of the matter is always our oneness with divine spirit, our union with all life. - Thich Nhat Hanh