~April 24
What greater praise can I give you than to call you
green? Green, rooted in light, shining like the sun that
pours riches on the wheeling earth; incomprehensible
green, divinely mysterious green, comforting arms of
divine green protecting us in their powerful circle
And yet, lady, you are more than even the noblest green,
for you glow red as breaking dawn, you shine white
as the incandescent sun. Splendid virgin, none
of our physical senses can explain or comprehend you.
—Christian poet Hildegarde of Bingin,
Item de Virginibus
It is not only ancient and tribal people who have found spiritual significance in nature. The great Christian mystic Hildegarde could have been a pagan philoso-pher, so deeply did she embed natural imagery in her songs to the Virgin Mary. She did not intend heresy; she did not, in fact, perceive herself as especially unorthodox. But the senses spoke to her, as they spoke to other mystics of other lands and times. And she saw that this world’s beauty is not antithetical to the spiritual life, but rather enhances and expresses it.
Thus she speaks of the divine mother in terms identifying the Virgin Mary with the great ancient goddess of the grain and of the sky. In the verses above, Hilde-garde sees Mary as the sprouting spring plants, and as the sun that illuminates and nurtures that growth. No matter what our heritage or our religious tradition, we can find strength and inspiration in the feminine power of the natural world.
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