Hildegard von Bingen

"Consciousness expresses itself through creation. This world we live in is the dance of the creator. Dancers come and go in the twinkling of an eye, but the dance lives on. On many an occasion, when I am dancing, I have felt touched by something sacred. In those moments, I felt my spirit soar and become one with everything that exists. I become the stars and the moon. I become the lover and the beloved. I become the victor and the vanquished. I become the master and the slave. I become the singer and the song. I become the knower and the known. I keep on dancing and then it is the eternal dance of creation. The creator and the creation merge into one wholeness of joy. I keep on dancing- until there is only . . . the dance."
Michael Jackson 1992

These words express the awe and joy of Michael Jackson as he danced the sacred dance of creation. They could also express the awe and joy of being alive, of being part of creation for Hildegard von Bingen, a 12th Century German nun. For Hildegard it was nature and music that uplifted her soul, that brought her into oneness with creation. But both Michael Jackson and Hildegard von Bingen had much in common. They shared that bliss state of becoming their passion, of being in unity with all that is and experiencing “the dance” or for Hildegard, “the vision”. Michael Jackson we know, but who was Hildegard von Bingen, and what message can she possibly have for us in 21st Century America?

Hildegard was an amazing woman in her own right, but because she comes from the 12th Century, what we call the Dark Ages, in Medieval Europe, her work becomes even more incredible and her accomplishments even more exceptional for all time. Hildegard was a Christian mystic and visionary prophet. She was an artist, a poet, an author and a playwright who wrote over 70 poems, 9 books, and hundreds of letters which have survived to the present. She was also an accomplished musician and composer, writing 72 songs and a liturgical opera. Hildegard was also a great healer & pharmacologist and wrote books on physiology, health and botanical pharmaceuticals. Some of her plant remedies are just now being researched by modern scientists as possible cures for some of our 21st Century deadly diseases. She was also a theologian and an Abbess, and was a spiritual counselor “extraordinaire” to peasants, clergy, popes, princes and emperors! Hildegard von Bingen shines as an inspiration to women of all times and a great gift to humanity. We can all admire her courage, perseverance and brilliance and take from her at least what it means to be illuminated.

Her Life & Times

12th Century Europe – “Christian Renaissance”

• 1096-1099 1st Crusade
• 1098-1179 Hildegard’s life
• 1147-1149 2nd Crusade
• 1140s Chartes Cathedral built
• 1160s University of Paris founded
• 1162 Genghis Khan born

******************
• 1215 Magna Carta signed
• 1450s “Black Death”
• 1492 Columbus discovered the Americas

Hildegard was born in 1098 in Bickelheim, near the town of Bingen, on the Rhine. Her father was a knight attached to the Castle of Bickelheim. She was the youngest of 10 children, and as the 10th child she became the family’s “tithe” and was from birth dedicated to the Church. She was said to be a sickly child who suffered often from disabling migraine headaches. In 1106, at age 8, she was sent to the Benedictine Monastery at St Disibode to be educated by Jutta, an anchoress. She was educated in the Benedictine traditions of music, spinning, Biblical history, prayer, and work. At 18 Hildegard took on the Benedictine habit and became a nun. 20 years later, in 1136, Jutta died and Hildegard was appointed to take over leadership of the women’s community at St Disibode.

In 1151, she broke away from the monastery at St Disibode and moved the women to Mount St Rupert (Rupertsburg) near Bingen where she built her first monastery (It had plumbed running water in it, not at all common in her time). The women’s community grew to over 50 women, so in 1165, she founded another monastery across the Rhine at Eibingen for 30 more nuns. It was from Rupertsburg that Hildegard traveled all over the Rhineland, Bavaria, the Lorraine, Switzerland and France, teaching and preaching, organizing and reforming, composing, writing, healing, studying, cajoling and prophesizing.

Hildegard had a profound spiritual awakening in 1140 through a vision. She had had visions from the time she was a child, but after this one, she took responsibility and began to write down and share her revelations and prophecies. Even the Pope got involved and gave his official sanction for Hildegard to write down her insights. She was given a secretary named Volmar, who translated her ideas and insights into grammatically correct Latin. It is thought that perhaps her nuns drew the pictures to accompany her visions. It was certainly the women of her community who played and sang her hauntingly celestial musical compositions. Hildegard was never officially canonized, but 3-4 attempts were made after her death. However, from the 15th Century her name had been included in 2 different Catholic texts as “Saint,” and in 1979, Pope John Paul II, at the 800th celebration of her death, characterized Hildegard as “an outstanding saint, a light to her people and her time who shines out more brightly today.” Her feast day is Sept. 17th .

Hildegard’s Illuminations

Hildegard describes her spiritual awakening vision with light imagery, “When I was 42 years and 7 months old, a burning light of tremendous brightness coming from heaven poured into my entire mind. Like a flame that does not burn but enkindles, it inflamed my entire heart and my entire breast, just like that sun that warms an object with its rays. All of a sudden, I was able to taste the understanding of the narration of books.” (Psalster, New Testament, Old Testament and other religious books). Hildegard was overcome by this experience of intuition, connection-making, and insight, and went to bed sick. Only when she finally agreed to write down her visions and share her insights was she able to leave her sick bed. Hildegard spent the next 10 years of her life writing her first book called Scivias, “Know the Ways”. Matthew Fox talks about Hildegard’s visions as “illuminations” or the call to speak to the people and enflame humanity with compassion. Her illuminations are meant to rescue divinity from obscurity, to allow the divine to flow from human hearts – beginning with her own – once again. As a prophet, her works forced people to wake up, take responsibility, make choices. Fox describes 8 gifts that Hildegard has left for us today:

1. She was a woman in a patriarchal culture who strove to be heard, who struggled to offer her own wisdom and gifts borne of the experience and suffering of women of the past.
2. She brings together the holy trinity of art, science and religion.
3. She broadens and deepens our understanding of the relationship of the microcosm and the macrocosm. “We are in the cosmos and the cosmos is in us.” We are seen as interdependent with all of creation and it is from this interdependence that truly wise living will be learned and practiced.
4. She offers us a glimpse of Western mysticism and broadens the way to universal spirituality. In a tradition that is considered to be superficial and literal, Hildegard provides depth and mystery.
5. She is a prophet and sees herself and her work consciously and deliberately as prophetic. She, and many mystics after her, brought the powers of mysticism to bear not on supporting the status quo, but on energizing the prophetic in church and state. She taught the themes of justice, cosmic balance and harmony. As she described her life, ”Who are prophets? They are royal people who penetrate mystery and see with the spirit’s eyes. In illuminating darkness they speak out. They are living, penetrating clarity. They are a blossom blooming only of the shoot that is rooted in the flood of light.”
6. Hildegard was deeply ecological in her spirituality. “The earth must not be injured, the earth must not be destroyed!” She warns humanity that its sins of indifference and injustice to nature will cause hardships on humanity itself, for creation demands justice. (read prophesy of page 79 in Uhlein’s book.)
7. Hildegard challenges our left-brain theological and educational methodologies by constantly employing the intuitive, the creative – right brain. She uses imagery, mandalas, poetry, music and drama – in other words, story and pictures – to get her message across to all people, peasants and popes alike.
8. Hildegard awakens us to symbolic consciousness. Paradox and personal experience, systematic imagination and diverse levels of meaning, cosmos and world patterns are all expressed by symbol. Hildegard uses symbolism to examine the mysterious kinship between the physical world and the realm of the sacred.

Hildegard von Bingen was an inspired prophet who offers us a vision of the inseparability of mankind and divinity, of creation and creator. She shows us our potential as embodied souls (not just bodies with souls) and our true purpose of compassion towards those less fortunate than ourselves and all of creation.

Meditation

I have copied 5 different mandalas for you to focus on while listening to Hildegard’s music. Look for multiple levels of symbolism including the colors, shapes, themes and emptiness, as well as the obvious meanings for the images. Let the pictures speak for themselves. (click on each image to view a larger version)

The Man in Sapphire Blue: A Study in Compassion

“A most quiet light and in it burning with flashing fire the form of a man in sapphire blue.” The color blue represents compassion, as do the extended hands of the man. This image represents the Trinity of God: Father is brightness with a flashing forth of the Christ and in this flashing forth is the fire of the Holy Spirit, and these 3 are one. This image shows us that the ultimate power of God, the universe and humanity is compassion.

Hildegard’s Awakening

Hildegard’s first Vision shows her being awakened by the Holy Spirit, the fire, which wakes her up to her own powers to communicate, to speak the truth, to critique, to lead in telling the marvelous things of God. She says, “O Holy Spirit, you make life alive, you move in all things, you are the root of all created being, you waken and reawaken everything that is.”

Cultivating the Cosmic Tree

In this vision Hildegard shows the fulfillment of human creativity as the gentle but industrious cultivating of the earth. It is what the cosmos longs to see and has longed to birth during 20 billion years of history. The symbolism of the tree denotes the life of the cosmos. This vision emphasizes psychological healing, regeneration, and joy through a fruitful mutuality between mankind and nature, body and soul working together to carry out good deeds.

Original Blessing: The Golden Tent (or Kite)

In this vision Hildegard begins to name the human journey specifically. The kite is a 4-sided symbol for the wisdom of god as it enters the womb which in turn enters the body of the fetus. It is a symbol of royal parenthood, representing the “kingdom of God”. The spiritual journey is a struggle to find wisdom in our home and in our daily life. Hildegard says that this Divine Tent came from heaven to each of us at our birth, but folded up. Our journey through life is a gradual unfolding and unfurling of this tent, or wisdom in our lives, whatever be the struggles and obstacles.

All Beings Celebrate Creation

Hildegard writes that “all of creation is a symphony of joy and jubilation. This mandala is made up of 9 concentric circles of angels and humans which represent the experience of joy that all creatures celebrate together. The tenth innermost empty circle, the mirror which is fecund nothingness, represents the totality of the universe and the core of creation.

Take a few moments now to ponder the mandalas and let the celestial chorus bring to consciousness the joy of life and creation.

July 5, 2009

Namaste,

Joy