Image of the Week: Let Her Be Healed
© D. Yael Bernhard
Healing miracles abound in spiritual literature. Illness was a complete mystery in ancient times (as opposed to a partial mystery today), and was inextricably bound up with folklore and faith. Miracles of nature were seen as acts of God.
This illustration is my interpretation of a Biblical passage in which a woman prays for her daughter's healing. I drew upon my own experience as a mother as I worked up my sketches. Or perhaps I was thinking of someone else's child, or a child I read about in the news. Maybe it was refugees in a war-torn country like Syria or Sudan that came to mind, or children in the cancer ward of a hospital.
In an effort to express the pure innocence of children everywhere, I created a second figure to symbolize the essence of the child – the original, untainted soul in each of us – and the potential for that being to rise up and heal. These two featureless figures are rendered in a brighter, more contrived palette, in contrast to the earthy colors of the mother and child. Revisiting this illustration makes me want to work in contrasting palettes again. It's an effective tool for creating tension in a picture – gritty but evocative . . . primal but expansive. Even contrasting words come to mind.
I remember when the book Creative Visualization by Shakti Gawain was published in 1978. Though the basic precepts described in the book seem obvious now, the concept was relatively new at the time. The book interested me because as an illustrator, I visualize creatively – bringing what I see in my mind's eye into form. Many times as my three children grew up, I held them in my arms as they battled a fever, praying with all my heart that they heal, visualizing them outside playing, running around, stretching, reaching . . . seeing that pure inner, innocent being alive and well.
In the Jewish tradition, this little girl takes the form of Miriam, the sister of Moses who is afflicted with disease after committing an offense that angers God. Moses begs God to please, please let her be healed – and the entire community of Israelites pauses in their journey across the Sinai desert to wait for Miriam to be well enough to travel again. That story came to mind, too, as I worked.
We visualize. We hope. We feel the preciousness and fragility of someone dear to us.
We sigh.