Image courtesy of spiritualityandpractice.com

“There is the music of Heaven in all things.”
— Hildegard of Bingen

The world fell away, my body melting into the earth. Light-filled tonalities danced in the darkness, lifting my spirit upward into a Divine embrace of soul-stirring spaciousness. . . . This was not a Near Death Experience but rather how I described in my journal my first experience of meditating to the music of the 12th-century mystic, Hildegard of Bingen. In short, it was a taste of Heaven. Each time I return to Hildegard’s music, I feel a bit closer to the angels.

When I wrote “light-filled tonalities,” I meant that each note feels like light — as if luminous angels are flying gracefully about in the darkness — soaring, dipping, and lifting again to heights of ecstasy. The melodies fill the listener with vibrating light from head to toe! This experience makes sense because of Hildegard’s continual reference to the Divine “Living Light” which she experienced in visions and felt compelled to express in many forms, including music.

It is easy to think of her music as angelic, other-worldly — and yet it is inspired by her love of all things earthly. She was madly in love with creation! To her, every tree and flower and whale and person is infused with a divine melody. As the Celtic mother of “creation spirituality,” is it any wonder that she finds “the music of Heaven in all things?”

In this way, her music embodies her panentheism — that is, that all things are in God, and God in all things. This means God is embodied in this world, but more than this world. Her music, then, is that marriage of heaven and earth, that “more than” united with earthiness.

Her modal tonalites remind me of Gregorian Chant, but her music is far more expressive, soaring, and ecstatic. According to Matthew Fox, singing her music takes extraordinary stamina. Many feel faint or experience a “high” as her vocals span several octaves in a single phrase! Few can sing her music, but we can all find refreshment, centering — and even ecstasy — in meditating with her music.

I have found meditating with Hildegard to be a richly rewarding immersion into Divine Beauty that both transcends and embraces this world. It feels cosmic, as if embracing the universe with tender, motherly love. That is why her music works so well as a lullaby to the spiritual seeker — especially for those of us who need a little help going to sleep!

Hildegard scholar Sheryl Kujawa-Holbrook says, “Hildegard’s theology of music is closely associated with her view of celestial harmony. For Hildegard, music is an integral component of her spirituality. All music and the arts in general, are divinely inspired.” Hildegard’s cosmic sense of “celestial harmony” finds ecstatic musical embodiment. At the same time, her music incarnates the process idea (a la Whitehead) of Beauty as intense harmony, bringing us back home to our interconnectedness with all earthy life — and with heaven itself.

Practice: Find a quiet place to sit or lie down with headphones. Take a deep breath and begin to listen to a Hildegard’s music. I recommend starting with the Canticles of Ecstasy by the early music ensemble, Sequentia. Listen to only one or two pieces at a time. Simply be with the music. Don’t worry about following the Latin text unless you want to; just breathe with melody. Hildegard often referred to herself as “a feather on the breath of God.” Be that feather and feel yourself floating with the rise and fall of each phrase. If your attention is drawn away by a thought or worry, simply let it go and return to the music. Even two or three minutes of Hildegard’s music can change your entire day!

To find out more about Hildegard and her music, Spirituality & Practice has many resources, including a sampling from the page, Feast day of Hildegard of Bingen. I also highly recommend Sheryl Kujawa-Holbrook’s Hildegard of Bingen: Essential Writings and Chants of a Christian Mystic and Matthew Fox’s Hildegard of Bingen: A Saint for Our Times.

This essay is also published on spiritualityandpractice.com. and openhorizons.com.

As millions of people world-wide mourn the death of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II, I remember her beautiful Christmas message from 2015. As the head of the Church of England, she was a devoted Christian, but her words of unity, hope, and love surely resonated with many people, including those who do not share her faith:

“It is true that the world has had to confront moments of darkness this year, but the Gospel of John contains a verse of great hope, often read at Christmas carol services: ‘The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it’. . . . Despite being displaced and persecuted throughout his short life, Christ’s unchanging message was not one of revenge or violence but simply that we should love one another.”

This simple message of “love one another” has been sadly lost by many today, so the Queen’s wisdom, born of 70 years as the head of the Church of England, was a breath of fresh air to people around the world. Such a relational message fits the relational power the monarchy exerts in today’s world. Since 1215 (The Magna Carta), Britain has slowly evolved from a coercive Empire with a dark past into a democratic constitutional monarchy that presides over a free Commonwealth of Nations. Of course, there is much to be acknowledged and repented of from past sins of imperialism, slavery, and racism. (The same is true of slavery and oppression in our own country.)

Today, the monarchy exercises what some call “soft power,” which is no longer controlling but rather influencing as they partner with Parliament and citizens to nurture democracy and offer reassuring cultural identity. Queen Elizabeth has been an integral part of that transformation.

The Queen’s death is a momentous moment in history. As I watched thousands of mourners waiting up to 20 hours in line to pay tribute to their beloved Queen, I was deeply moved. It is as though she served as a unifying and reassuring presence — a kind of royal grandmother to all. Her strength, generosity of spirit, and maternal power — even in death – awaken something tender within me and no doubt to millions of others.

Whatever you may think of Britain’s monarchy, this transformation of power relations from controlling to influencing is cause for celebration. It is the difference between what the systems scientist Riane Eisler calls “Domination systems” and “Partnership systems.” (See Nurturing Our Humanity: How Domination and Partnership Shape Our Brains, Lives, and Future.). Domination systems (autocracies) impoverish people while partnership systems (democracies) empower people.

Many people associate God with domination systems, which is bad theology. God is not a coercive, all-controlling dictator but rather our Divine Partner who beckons us toward partnership in all our relations, both personal and political. It is our responsibility to respond—and that means doing what we can to bring out more partnership-oriented power relations, which center around the notion of loving and empowering one another.

Rest in peace, Queen Elizabeth. Your message of unity, hope, and love lives on. 

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“The sunflower is mine.” –Vincent van Gogh

Distressed Hearts

One year before his death, Vincent Van Gogh wrote to a friend that he yearned “to make of painting what the music of Berlioz and Wagner has been before us. . . a consolatory art for distressed hearts.” This was the purpose behind his art—to console the distressed and comfort the brokenhearted. Perhaps this is why we feel comforted by his loving brushstrokes of variegated hues. With his palette knife, he tenderly worked the fragments of light into textured waves of consoling colors and forms. He gave us what he had hoped to give:  a “consolatory art for distressed hearts.”

As the darkness of war rises in the East, we admit our need for consolation in art and in life. We long for Lenten light — lengthening light to combat the darkness within and without. And yes, after a long winter, we long for flowers! We can, in any season, turn to Van Gogh’s flowers, especially his favorite, the sunflower—a flower he associated with both light and gratitude.

Because the sunflower is the national flower of Ukraine, we have been wearing and posting these “little suns” as they represent solidarity with Ukraine, hope for the future of democracy, and resistance against Russian aggression. But these luminous beauties represent even more for the people of Ukraine, and the world, too.

Sunflowers Instead of Missiles

A peaceful democracy, Ukraine once possessed the third largest nuclear arsenal in the world. But on June 4, 1996, Ukraine gave up its last nuclear warhead on a former Ukrainian missile base. On this celebratory occasion of becoming nuclear free, the then US Secretary of Defense William Perry said to a crowd that included dignitaries from the US, Russia, and Ukraine, “Sunflowers instead of missiles in the soil will ensure peace for future generations.”  Then, they scattered and planted sunflower seeds on the site.  

Sunflowers then became more than a national flower. They gave us a symbol of peace worldwide, an icon of sun-drenched beauty to free the world of nuclear weapons.

Van Gogh would have loved this. In 1888, in a letter to his sister, he wrote that he wanted to decorate his studio with nothing but sunflowers. Nothing but sunflowers! Is it any wonder that he filled no less than twelve canvases with sunflowers? The sunflower became his own personal artistic signature, telling his brother Theo in a letter in 1889, “the sunflower is mine.”

What if we all claimed the sunflower “as mine” in the sense of all it stands for. Could we then become like these little suns, reflecting light to the world?  What if we scattered sunflower seeds all over our neighborhoods and communities? And especially in places where tragedies have left a dark void. Would this not offer comfort, consolation, and beauty to our brokenhearted world?

Sunflower Souls

Science reveals that the sunflower is more than just a pretty face. In the aftermath of the Chernobyl disaster, the sunflower stood alone as survivors in the desolated nuclear wasteland. They not only survived but thrived and blossomed afresh. That’s because sunflowers are, in scientific terms, “hyperaccumulators” that can soak up toxicity at a high rate, healing the soil of heavy metals and the air of radiation. Sunflowers help speed up the process of making water drinkable again. Sunflowers may not be able to stop disasters, but they can help heal and restore. Their beauty is more than skin deep. They have huge sunflower souls that can take in the bad as well as the good for the sake of the world.

“Beauty will save the world,” said Dostoyevsky. In the sunflower we begin to see glimpses of this declaration unfolding in bright fields of yellow suns. Sunflowers are, in life and art, light bearers of consolation, sharers of sorrow, resistant fighters against toxic forces, and restorers of life and beauty.

As the embodiment of undaunted resilience in the face of decimation, sunflowers hold within them the very spirit of resurrection hope. May that hope bring peace in Ukraine and in every distressed heart.