I'm the Reverend Dr. Lauren Artrus, Canon of Grace Cathedral in San Francisco.
It's a privilege to share with you the life and work of a wonderful woman from the 12th
century, Hildegard of Bingham.
Starting in the 12th century, Hildegard shines into our night sky through her legacy of
numinous art, music, and writing.
She illuminates a unique vision of the sacred through her own mystical and intimate relationship
with the archetypal figure Sophia, or Mother Wisdom, the female figure in the Bible who
was with God from the beginning.
It is her voice that Hildegard always hears, singing in her own inner ear.
Hildegard of Bingham was a remarkable woman by the standards of any time.
Born in the Rhineland of Germany in 1098, she was to become known in her lifetime as
mystic, author, composer, visionary, reformer, activist, herbalist, and healer.
She began as a sickly child with a bent for unusual visionary experiences that no one
around her understood.
Her well-to-do family complied with the custom of their day and gave her, their tenth child,
as a tie to the church.
At age eight, she entered a Benedictine monastery at Dizzy-Bodenberg, which is populated by
monks and a small group of nuns.
Here she was personally mentored by the abbess Judda, and at 18, she took her vows as a Benedictine
nun.
She thrived in convent life, and when Judda died, the 38-year-old Hildegard assumed her
position as abbess.
Around the age of 50, Hildegard decided to establish an independent community of Benedictine
nuns solely for women, much to the dismay of the church authorities who relied upon
these women's dowries as a means of support.
Never one to be deterred by the agenda of others, Hildegard did indeed establish her
cloister in 1150 at Rupertsburg, along the Nahee River, close to where she was raised.
In 1165, she created the second daughter house nearby at E. Bingham, which operates to this
day as a Benedictine order of St. Hildegard.
Hildegard experienced the church as a birthing place for her own creativity, but it did not
come to her easily.
Although she lived a religious life, she did not open to the Spirit of God moving through
her until she was 42.
After bouts of severe depression and constant frail health, she began to have lucid visionary
experiences in which she heard a voice command her to speak and write what she saw and heard.
From that point on, her life began to change.
Inspired by Hildegard, women came to her convent to serve God through their creativity as she
did, and even today, many women who long to discover their individual gifts identify with
her struggle.
Hildegard authored six major books, some of which illustrated her visions and interpretations
of sacred texts and events.
She wrote poems and songs, created the first morality play, and composed brilliant liturgical
music that has become immensely popular today.
Related to justice and right action, she was a feisty social activist who carried on three
decades of correspondence with popes, emperors, royal families, and clerics, often taking
them to task.
She studied medicine in Paris and was renowned as an herbalist and healer who understood
the divine connection between humans and nature.
She wrote two medical books.
These volumes covered everything from the healing properties of plants, metals, and
precious stones, to the human temperament, women's health, and holistic healing based
on the principle of the body-mind relationship.
Her mystical visions were authenticated by Pope Eugenius III, and her work was endorsed
by the influential Saint Bernard of Clairvaux.
These visions, first illustrated by Hildegard's sisters in accordance with her instructions
as she described what she saw, date from a time when paintings were two-dimensional
and the available color palette was limited to five colors.
Perspective would not be discovered until the Renaissance.
But these symbolic paintings can guide us in our personal exploration of the spirit
because Hildegard's visions are themselves holograms that serve as portholes to the divine.
Perhaps her greatest love was creating sacred music for her sisters to sing.
Her legacy of Gregorian chant composed for and sung by women is unique and innovative
even by today's standards.
She devised her own musical notation system and explored sophisticated thematic development.
Hildegard said that singing words reveals their true meaning directly to the soul through
bodily vibrations, and she believed that all of creation is a song of praise to God.
Her theology embraced the natural world, the whole of creation.
She understood that God is at the same time both imminent and transcendent, both within
and without.
It has been said of her, Hildegard saw the garden, the field, the kitchen, the pharmacy
and the chapel as essentially one room.
She saw the relationship between what grew in the field and her own spiritual life.
Hildegard describes the human condition as full of suffering and challenge, yet she never
loses sight of the moist and joyous life force that animates us all, which she calls veriditas,
the greening power of God.
This greening power is the Holy Spirit in all its majesty.
It is the power of the divine within.
It weaves us all into the tapestry of this physical life.
She encourages us to celebrate the fact that we are all embraced by the web of creation
that nourishes and unites us all.
It is important for the contemporary audience to understand how to approach Hildegard's
body of work, which is truly a path for personal transformation and growth.
Hildegard herself provides us with the key.
She prophetically foretold that the fullness of her work could only be completely appreciated
if the viewer was in a state of intuitive receptivity and allowed herself to be, in
her own words, showered with the gentle raindrops of divine inspiration.
Her words and images are of a highly archetypal and symbolic nature, comparable in many ways
to other esoteric mystery traditions such as the Tarot and the I Ching.
They comprise, along with her music, an immensely powerful and timeless tool for those of us
today who wish to explore our own sacred path.
Engaging her work invites our full and open interaction.
Hildegard demands of us that we plunge ourselves into the living waters of our own intuitive
insight and share in the joyous, co-creative process with her.
When I was forty-two years and seven months, 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 the sun that warms an object with its rays.
I looked up to the true and living light and a voice from heaven instructed me as to what
I should write down.
For every thing I had written and seen in my visions I saw with the inner eye of my
spirit and grasped with my inner ear under the influence of heavenly mystery while my
body was fully awake.
And I heard a voice from heaven say to me, Speak therefore these marvelous things taught
in this manner.
Now here is the image of the power of God.
This firmament is an all-encompassing circle.
No one can say where this wheel begins or ends.
Divinity is in its omniscience and omnipotence like a wheel, a circle, a whole that can neither
be understood nor divided nor begun nor ended.
No one has the power to divide this circle, to surpass it or to limit it.
I saw a tent decorated with the sun and bright stars.
It had four corners turned to the four parts of the world.
I saw a woman who had taken in human seed and a complete infant was formed in the secret
chamber of her womb.
Behold, through the hidden plan of the heavenly creator, this bright form set itself in motion
with the movement that begins life.
By secret order from the will of God, the infant in a mother's womb receives a divine
spirit always at the right time.
It shows it has life by moving its body, just like the earth reveals itself by bringing
forth flowers and fruit after the dew falls on it.
After the infant receives its soul, it is born into the trials of the world.
This soul then wanders and struggles to set up its own tent, where am I, a stranger in
the shadow of death, and which way do I go, and what consolation do I have.
When I remember that I was created through a gift of God, then amid these trials I have
a response to the temptations of the devil, in this way, I will not yield.
As long as a person lives in soul and body, many invisible trials disturb the soul of
that person.
When a person loses the freshness of God's power, he is transformed into the dryness
of carelessness.
He lacks the juice and greenness of good works, and the energies of his heart are sapped away.
Paradise is a place of pleasantness, which blooms in the greenness of flowers and herbs,
and is flooded with the pleasures of all aromas, filled with the best smells, richly endowed
in the joy of blessed souls, giving the strongest sap to the dry earth.
That paradise is not darkened in the shade and in the destruction of suns.
When you oppose the devil like a strong warrior opposes his enemy, then God is delighted with
your struggle.
I have such great and heavy things weighing my flesh down.
I am not strong enough to overcome myself.
O human, why are you living without a heart and without blood?
For you have eyes for seeing, ears for hearing, a heart for reflecting.
Through all these gifts you are capable of lifting yourself up or casting yourself down,
of being asleep or awake.
There was a worm of wondrous size lying on its back.
This is the ancient serpent which people know has been put in the world, a world which can
contain good and evil.
There were flames and very sharp arrows coming from its mouth.
A very foul fog of deadly poison came from this worm.
It stunk and it infected people with its perversity.
But a great crowd of people shining with brightness came and trampled this serpent underfoot.
These people shone in faith and were noticeable because of their good works, which were like
a thousand eyes looking on high and into the depths.
They are a royal people who penetrate mystery and see with the Spirit's eyes.
They are a living clarity.
They are a blossom on a shoot that is rooted in the flood of light.
A monstrous and very black head appeared having fiery eyes and ears like those of an ass and
nostrils and mouth like those of a lion, crunching with a great jaw and cutting with horrible
iron teeth.
Beasts were standing in the north.
The lion signifies the time of warlike people.
The wolf signifies the time when many souls are ensnared.
The dog signifies the time when people will bite at each other.
The black pig signifies the time when rulers will bring a great blackness and sadness.
All the beasts were turned to the setting sun in the west, signifying the falling times.
For as the sun rises and falls, so do people.
All things on earth stretch to their individual ends and the world, which is curved, is pressed
down with so many hardships and calamities that it can bring about its own end with its
own powers.
The world is now in the seventh age, just before the coming of the newest day.
This prophecy stands firm through the complete, full number of the time of times.
O humankind, you are fragile like the dust of the earth.
You are dull to preserving the justice of God by which the hidden mysteries have been
revealed.
It is through water that the Holy Spirit overcomes all injustice, bringing to fulfillment all
the Spirit's gifts.
With these gifts, humankind may thrive in the moisture of justice and stream to spiritual
things in the current of truth.
I saw a marvelous, secret, and very strong column.
The unity of God exists as a perfect column of complete goodness, and it penetrates the
highest and lowest places, as well as rules the whole circle of the earth.
The best treasure your Creator gave you is living intellect.
Through God I learn, I find my path.
If I call in truth, God directs my steps.
I run like a deer that seeks its spring.
The soul that is full of wisdom is saturated with the spray, a bubbling fountain of God.
A wondrous head appeared in the north.
It had a terrible face and three great shining white wings.
I change my face and I am twisted with sorrow.
Sometimes I am full of delight, at other times anger, and at other times sadness.
While blood flows in my veins, I am changeable.
I am changeable.
Through animate eyes I divide the seasons of time.
I am aware of what they are.
I am aware of their potential.
With my mouth I kiss my chosen creation.
I uniquely, lovingly embrace every image I have made out of the earth's clay.
I the fiery life of divine essence.
I burn in the sun and the moon and the stars.
The earth sweats germinating power from its very pores.
I am a flame beyond the beauty of the meadows.
I ignite the beauty of the plains.
The air is life, greening and blossoming.
I awaken to life everything in every waft of air.
The moon is rekindled with life.
The stars shine, radiating life light.
The sun is lit with life.
I have a voice of thunder, living sound.
I sparkle the waters and the waters flow with life.
All of creation is gifted with the ecstasy of God's light.
The earth is the mother of all that is natural, all that is human.
I am the one whose praises echo on high.
I am the breeze that nourishes all things green.
I encourage blossoms to flourish with ripening fruits and to put forth seeds and become fertile.
I am led by the spirit to feed the purest streams.
All of creation has a radiance, be it greenness or seed, blossom or beauty.
I am the rain coming from the dew that causes the grasses to laugh with the joy of life.
I adorn all the earth.
I call forth tears, the aroma of holy work.
I am yearning for good.
Humanity is small in stature, but powerful in strength of soul.
With head directed upward, with feet on firm ground, humanity can set all things in motion,
things above as well as things below.
By this supreme instrument, in the figure of an egg which is the universe, invisible
and eternal things are manifested.
O Holy Spirit, you are the mighty way in which everything that is in the heavens, on the
earth and under the earth is penetrated with connectedness, penetrated with relatedness.
Good people, most royal greening verdancy, rooted in the sun, you shine with radiant
light.
In this circle of earthly existence, you shine so finely it surpasses understanding.
God hugs you.
You are encircled by the arms of the mystery of God.
God has formed humanity according to the model of the firmament and strengthened human power
with the might of the elements.
God has firmly adapted the powers of the world to us so that we breathe, inhale and exhale
these powers like the sun which illuminates the earth, sends forth its rays and draws
them back again to itself.
Now God has built the human form into the world structure, indeed even the cosmos, just
as an artist would use a particular pattern in her work.
The brightest fire which you see stands for the living God.
And God says, I remain hidden in every kind of reality as a fiery power.
Everything burns because of me in such a way as our breath constantly moves us, like the
wind tossed flame in a fire.
All of this lives in its essence and there is no death in it, for I am life.
The same flame extended itself in fire and burning to a little clod of muddy earth lying
on the ground.
The flame warmed it so that a body and blood were produced.
It poured heat into it by way of greening power and the flame breathed on it so that
a living person arose.
Creation is allowed in intimate love to speak to the Creator as if to a lover.
Creation was fashioned to be adorned, to be showered, to be gifted with the love of the
Creator.
The entire world has been embraced by this kiss.
Lady, ground of all being, greetings to you, lovely and loving mother.
Lady, O luminous mother, holy, healing art, ask for us life, ask for us radiant joy, ask
for us the sweet shining ecstasy that is forever yours.
From your womb the seed sprouted forth, your womb's fruitfulness is food for humankind.
Great is the joy at this delicious banquet.
Lady, God delights in you so much, God was so taken with you, he sank his love's fire
deep within you.
So full of ecstasy is your body that it resounds with heaven's symphony.
These mysteries show the end of the world when temporal time is changed into the eternity
of God who has no end.
For fire will stir the air and water will cover the land, all things will be cleansed,
whatever is foul in the world will vanish as if it had never been, just as salt dissolves
when it is put in water.
When a person understands justice, the self is let go.
The first seed of the longing for justice blows through the soul like the wind, the
taste for good will plays in it like a breeze.
The consummation of this seed is a greening in the soul that is like that of the ripening
world.
All of creation is a song of praise to God.
Through the power of hearing, God opens to human beings all the glorious sounds of the
hidden mysteries and of the choirs of angels by whom God is praised over and over again.
We would be empty were we not able to hear and comprehend.
It is easier to gaze into the sun than into the face of the mystery of God.
Such is its beauty and its radiance.
The Holy Spirit is a burning spirit.
It kindles the hearts of humankind.
Like tympanum and lyre it plays them, gathering volume in the temple of the soul.
Holy Spirit is life-giving life, all movement, root of all being, purifier of all impurity,
absorber of all faults, balm of all wounds, radiant life worthy of all praise.
Be not lax in celebrating, be ablaze with enthusiasm.
Let us be an alive, burning offering before the altar of God.