New Jerusalem — The City Descending

Revelation 21 describes the New Jerusalem descending from heaven — not a city built by human hands but one that comes down, complete, from God. Its gates are always open. There is no temple in it because God is its temple. The river of life flows through its center, and the tree of life bears twelve kinds of fruit. Hex 11 (Peace) recurs: heaven and earth in communion, the creative and receptive perfectly intermingled. Hex 45 (Gathering Together) adds a complementary note: the lake over the earth, the king approaching the temple, the people assembling. Both hexagrams describe not escape from the world but the world's fulfillment — the gathering of all things into their proper relation. The New Jerusalem is not elsewhere; it descends here.

Cross-Tradition Resonances