17

Strengthening the Soul

for the Journey

The journey to the center of the universe, to the holy mountain, to our origins where creation begins, and to our destiny is elaborated in this vision of Hildegard’s (see Plate 17). On our journey, Hildegard tells us, we feel like “a stranger away from home.” The goal of the journey is the “crowning with the brightness of virtues.”1 (see Plate 15) In many respects the journey is a journey home, to our origins, where our Father waits for us—there are hints here of the story of the Prodigal Son or Daughter. This journey of setting up our tent (see Plate 9) is a journey to the Kingdom/Queendom of God. “Therefore hear, O human, and do not wish to turn your back on entering the heavenly Jerusalem.” To do so is to touch death, to deny God, to confess the devil. The Kingdom of God is opened up to those who hurry after it—but it is closed to those who remain content. One cannot make the spiritual journey without passion, Hildegard tells us. “O human, why are you living without a heart and without blood?” The choice to make the journey into the Kingdom of God is the opposite of choosing death or entering into death.

Hildegard’s vision is about a double column or pillar behind a woman, the soul. Cirlot tells us that “in a cosmic sense, the two pillars or columns are symbolic of eternal stability, and the space between them is the entrance to eternity.”2 There is indeed a space between the columns in Hildegard’s image, at the bottom near where the female figure is praying. The cosmic tree or world axis (see Plate 7) is also being celebrated here, for Hildegard makes the double column into a single one at the top. A single column also stands for “an upward impulse of self-affirmation.”3 Hildegard is indeed affirming the individual in this picture. She celebrates the making of choices, the taking of responsibility, the choosing of life and passion over death, laziness, sleepfulness. There is also phallic symbolism here, celebration of the female and male together, the phallic standing for “the perpetuation of life, of active power and of the propagation of cosmic forces.”4 The journey Hildegard is celebrating is no puny journey. Our lives are not trivial. They are great and demanding adventures, powerful challenges.

We are subjected to many trials in this life—“as long as a person lives in soul and body, many invisible trials disturb the soul of that person.” We are called to “hurl away the deceits of the devil.”5 But many times “God hurls tempests on humans” and we who are “fragile in flesh” cry out: “I have such great and heavy things weighing my flesh down. I am not strong enough to overcome myself.” What is needed on our part? Strength. It is the strength of the woman and soul depicted in this vision that Hildegard calls us to. “When you oppose the devil like a strong warrior opposes his enemy, then God is delighted with your struggle and wishes you to call upon him constantly in all hours in your distress.” In the picture there are many “storms” and enemies that are hostile to the woman, who wish “to hurl her down. But they are not strong enough.” That soul “resists strongly” and guards itself with heavenly inspiration. We are to be like her, grounded in strength. “Become strong, therefore, and be comforted because this is necessary for you.”

Where do we derive our strength for this journey? Where does this “heavenly inspiration” that nourishes us come from? Ultimately, from the cosmos itself. For just as Cirlot tells us that the column represents the cosmic axis and cosmic tree, Hildegard herself talks in her meditation on this vision of the soul as a tree. “The soul is in the body,” she says, “just as sap is in a tree ...for the soul passes through the body just like sap through a tree.” How does this happen? It is a cosmic process. “Through the sap the tree becomes green and produces flowers and then fruit. How does the fruit come to maturity? By the mildness of the air. How does this happen? The sun warms the air, the rains water it.” In the same manner a person’s soul develops and becomes strong. “The compassion of the grace of God will make a person bright as the sun. The breath of the Holy Spirit will water him or her just like the rain. And discretion will lead the person like the mild air to the maturity of good fruits” or good works.

When this happens, and our soul develops in strength and vigor, then “the body of a person is made solid and is sustained by the soul.” Just as the body takes delight in good food, so the soul takes delight in good work. The relationship of soul and body is one of mutual sustenance and mutual strength-building. “The soul is a teacher, the body a maid-servant. How? The soul rules the whole body in making it alive. But the body receives the regulation of the soul’s work in making it come alive.” The image of “sap” fits well the image of wetness she endorses on many occasions. What the soul accomplishes “in its body with its body” pleases God who welcomes us to the Kingdom of God.

Cirlot tells us that the pillar can also symbolize the spinal column of a person.6 It is interesting in this regard that Hildegard talks at some length here about our powers of sensation. “The body is a vessel of the soul” and the soul is a “treasure” we come to know in this vessel. A person “sees with eyes, hears with ears, opens her mouth for speaking, touches gently with hands, walks with feet and thus sensation is in humans like precious stones and precious treasures that exist in a vessel.”7

Still, how do we remain in touch with the sap, the wetness, the roots that will nourish us and sustain us during struggle and trial? Hildegard’s advice is to remember good and evil. And to take the responsibility for making choices. For “through faith you know there is one God in divinity and in humanity.” It is remembering the goodness of God, the goodness of our origins, our original blessing, that will give us strength. “God is good. God will accomplish all good things in me. When it is pleasing to him, he will be able to make me good.”8 To remember is to “look back to the oil of compassion” from which we spring. Compassion, our origin, is itself wet and sap-like in this image of compassion as “oil.”9 Hildegard derives strength from our “return to our origins,” compassionate origins. As Eckhart said: “The first outburst of everything God does is always compassion.”10 When we remember goodness we recognize evil more clearly and we are ready to make choices. “But you, o human, when you remember good and evil, find yourself placed where two roads meet.”11 Choices follow.

How often Hildegard speaks of the strength of St. Ursula and her friends, raped and martyred for their faith. Hildegard wrote thirteen poems and songs about her, celebrating her strong soul, her cosmic beauty. “The devil possessed their bodies and they slaughtered those maidens in all their noble grace. And all the elements heard those piercing cries and before God’s throne they cried out: ‘Alas! The red blood of the innocent lamb is shed on her wedding day!’ Let all the heavens hear, and in consummate music praise the holy lamb, for in this rope of pearls made of the word of God the throat of the ancient serpent lies strangled. Redness of blood which flowed from that high place touched by God, you are the bloom that winter’s serpent storm can never harm.”12

The cosmic pain of injustice is here redeemed. Indeed, Hildegard equates salvation with healing in this meditation.13 We who have lived through the martyrdom of so many in our century—and the murder of four church women in El Salvador is one example—understand from a compassionate depth the deep meaning of what Hildegard symbolizes in the murder of Ursula and her companions. We are strong, a strong people who can make proud and strong decisions and take stands that usher in the news of the nearness of the Kingdom/Queendom of God. With this strength, a successful journey is assured.