October 2021 – Gray Bear in the Middle

Here is my introduction of a sequence of four poems inspired by my personal and idiosyncratic experience of Hildegard of Bingen, her life and her varied works.

I first came into contact with Hildegard when I was at university studying Mediaeval History and Literature. I spent a lot of time in the 12^th century, Hildegard’s century. Even at that time I came to her life and works from inside the church box, albeit an Anglican one. For nearly a quarter of a century, however, I have been engaging her works as a pagan, specifically as a Druid, as one of my ancestors of spirit.

This, naturally, colours how I approach what she says and more importantly how she says it. It is the reason I am picking up Latin again, for the third time and now after thirty-four years, because I want to translate and read her words from very far out of the box into which she is confined by the church.

It will take some time to achieve this, but I want to see how she reads with a very different light shone on her. I believe it will be illuminating in more ways than one. From these readings I know will issue further poems than the four I am setting out here.

From how I understand and perceive her, she both more and less than what the current Hildegard ‘craze’ makes her out to be. She was a woman of contradictions and contrasts. She was fierce and formidable as well as faith-filled, potent combinations for a woman at any time, let alone the 12^th century.

By way of elaboration – in the second poem of the sequence I use the word: viriditas, a Latin word that means essentially greenness. Hildegard, however, makes it her own by extending its meaning, in various translations rendered as: freshness, vitality, fertility, fecundity, fruitfulness, verdure, or growth. In her understanding, viriditas is a metaphor for spiritual and physical health. It is a word and concept as multi-faceted as the woman who used it so creatively, and it says so much about Hildegard’s approach to life and to belief.

Feather on the Breath of God – for Hildegard of Bingen

One

When you stood 
before the archbishop of Mainz
being questioned,
interrogated,
challenged
regarding your visions – 

You responded:
I am a feather on the breath of God.

Ironically,
or perhaps most fortunately,
the learned churchmen
never really understood,
would have found it
quite impossible 
to understand – 

What a feather, 
not a soft downy one
nor a flashy ornamental one . . .

Oh no . . . 
You were a flight feather,
strong and unyielding,
a feather that took you far,
enabled you 
to fly,
soaring with your musics,
allowing you 
to travel in your visions,
discovering 
the mysteries of life,
revealing
the wonders of nature,
probing the secrets
of the Divine.

Oh yes . . . 
A feather on the breath of God
you may have been,
but ooh what a feather.

We will never really know
what the archbishop thought
at your assertion,
maybe:
ah . . .
a docile abbess,
a humble leader of nuns,
a dutiful daughter of the church.

They were, of course,
both right, and so very wrong,
for you were
a strong willed,
migraine suffering woman,
who did not relent,
nor acquiesce in the face
of the wrongs of the church
as they pertained to you
and your community.


A feather on the breath of God –
indeed!

Two

You were overawed
by the power and necessity,
physically and spiritually,
of what you termed 
viriditas; 
and in these times,
your message 
takes on a different deep hue,
your viriditas means 
so much more now
as we see the fragility
of ecosystems
and engage in environmental
degradation.

Or,
did you see so far ahead,
see things you
knew you could not 
write in full?

People are meant to be green – 

Out of context,
or is it?
Do we know with certainty
the context of your visions
couched in language
and explanations
that preserved them for us?

Three

Doctor of the Church
you were made,
one more and final
attempt to make you safe – 
to sequester your thought
and constrict the understanding 
of your words,
attempting to hold firmly 
in an ecclesiastical grasp
what you said,
what you saw,
what you knew.

Still – 
your feather 
remains a flight feather,
for you can still soar
and your word-wings 
beat above and beyond
how the church chooses
to interpret you.

Your antiphons and responses,
sequences and hymns also ascend
far above the abilities 
of male voices;
you wrote musics
only women can sing,
leading them
to fly with you
above the ranges of men’s
comprehending,
taking them
to the realms
of the Divine.

Four

Your word-wings,
powered by your flight
feathers rising on God’s breath
bring you to our times,
where you have become famous,
because you were,
eight centuries ago,
a woman who dared
to go beyond the limits
that sought to restrict you – 
you wrote chiding letters
to the powerful,
both clerical and secular,
you preached 
abroad in the Rhineland,
you stood your ground
against interdict and proscription,
for neither your conscience,
nor your voice
could easily be confined.
and certainly not silenced.

Oh yes . . . 
You were a feather on the breath of God,
a strong feather,
flight feather,
quill feather
that did not gently fall to earth,
but took you soaring
where now we may,
and indeed must,
follow,
for your words ring out
timely and clear:

People are meant to be green.

The earth must not be destroyed.

This afternoon I helped a friend inter the ashes of her beloved cat, Oscar, who had to be escorted to the Pearly Catflap on St Francis Day - 4th October. It was his time as he was suffering from heart failure. Oscar was a real character and is much missed.

Oscar Cat ~

Rest gently now and at peace
in the ground
of your guarding.
May the earth you knew and prowled in life,
hold your remains safely in death.

On the far side of the Pearly Catflap,
may you experience 
the companionship of you Catcestors,
at the place where
Bastet-Ailuros presides,
and all cats,
wild and tame, great and small,
who have gone before you
find welcome and release.

If you would like to use the words I created for Oscar Cat for your own feline companion at his or her burial, please feel free to do so.

Gray Bear in the Middle

Month: October 2021

Wood Burner

Feather on the breath of God

Oscar Cat