Sophia's Children

“We cannot live in a world that is not our own, in a world that is interpreted for us by others.

An interpreted world is not HOME. Part of the terror is to take back our own listening, to use our own voice, to see our own light.”

~ Elaine Bellezza writing about the message and legacy of Hildegard von Bingen (1098 – 1179)**

[A version of this post was originally written in 2010, and updated again in September 2017. It arose again via a request from a long-time Sophia’s Children reader, like a Spring bloom, so here is a fresh update of an evergreen musing.

I also hit ‘publish’ mid-update — Oops! How soon we forget the ways of WordPress after a long sabbatical from it!

I hope you’re all well. See you again soon!]

 

With Spring greening now all around me in New York, revisiting this wisdom seems timely.

Spring is a soul-nourishing time, witnessing fresh growth that has been incubating beneath the ground and finally reaches the surface, blooms, and grows to a new season of lushness.

This fresh renewal of Life happens despite the swirl, the conflict, the divisiveness being fed and stoked all around us, and the deeper values and humanity that such struggles, such stark ugliness, reminds us to remember and renew.

I first started sleuthing and writing about The New Greening nearly 20 years ago and, like the seasons, have experienced Greening, release, fallowness and renewal  … the Greening gathers strength underground before sending its tender green shoots through the soil to the visible surface.

Before the Greening of a new Spring, we may be pulled into the seeming withdrawal of Life and the fallowness of Winter, or the Underworld or even through a bona fide, deconditioning Dark Night of the Soul and grieving passages before re-emergence, freshly Greened, can occur.

“Viriditas (Latin, literally greenness, formerly translated as viridity)

is a word meaning vitality, fecundity, lushness, verdure, or growth. It is particularly associated with abbess Hildegard von Bingen, who used it to refer to or symbolize spiritual and physical health, often as a reflection of the divine word or as an aspect of the divine nature.” ~ Wikipedia

Hildegard’s Viriditas and The New Greening

At the deepest level, The New Greening is very much related to the Divine Feminine; the Wise, Deep Yin; and other Ancestral ways of knowing and being — a remembrance, a restoration of a wholeness and skillfulness that we’ve known and yearned for, but that we’ve forgotten. But it calls to us, like a Siren’s Soul-Song.

It’s a way of being our most authentic and vibrant selves, and revitalizing our “Divine Sophian Gifts.”

At another level, for me, ‘The New Greening‘ is another freshly emerging body of expression and work — finding renewal or ‘greening’ of vision, purpose, creativity, communication, and vitality after a significant period of lived experience and, as with all of us, during a very chaotic, division-stoked cycle of years.

The Symbolism of “Greening”

The New Greening goes beyond what we’ve come to know as ‘going green’ or ‘being green’ as it relates to adopting eco-friendly or environmentally friendly practices like recycling, repurposing, and reusing, even as these can be practical expressions of The New Greening.

This Greening is a much greater reclamation project — one attuned to the great transformation underway, and the renewal of consciousness, of soul Voice, of our inherent humanity and humaneness, or Heart-informed mind.

The (Re)New(ed) Greening is about reclaiming our inherent vibrance, our joy, and our humanity, wholeness, dignity, and connection with Earth, others, and our true Source of real ‘power in’ and ‘power with’.

And, as attributed to Hildegard of Bingen’s message via Elaine Bellezzi’s reflection on her wisdom, refreshed Greening is also about “taking back our listening” and reclaiming our voice, which can easily be, or might have already been, colonized by the barrage of information taken in over the course of an average day or week in tech-plentiful cultures.

As our connection with the Divine Feminine or Deep Yin Creative Power & Life Force is renewed, we are ‘Greened” and revitalized, re-enspirited anew.

With a New Greening, we also reclaim the gifts of compassion, focused intention, vision, imagination, Earth-and-Body Wisdom, and other Feminine co-creative powers to create that which are Life-affirming, beauty, joy supporting, and deeply rewarding.

From timeless wisdom, applied anew from our times, we remember the ways to ‘green’ ourselves, and we take that ‘greening’ into all that we do.

As Ms. Bellezzi, reflecting on Hildegard von Bingen, the 12th century Abbess who wrote and taught about Viriditas or greening wrote, “Part of the terror is to take back our own listening, to use our own voice, to see our own light.”

Greening — Viriditas — is a renewal of soul, of spirit, of heart, and thus of mind and action.

This New Greening work is inspired by timeless Wisdom and those who held and carried, protected and shared that Wisdom over generations — including the many times when it was dangerous to do so because the powers that be (or were) were keen to hoard, rather than share, powerful Wisdom.

Newly re-greened and standing rooted in our own Center, we’re able to co-create and come into truly conscious relationship, communication, leadership, business, and the use of power that operates with, not against or at the expense of, other people, beings, and the environment.

So much of ‘The New Greening‘ is about remembering, embodying, and expressing too-long-banished or marginalized Ancestral, Earth-and-Soul-Connected, and Feminine values.

You’ll find a whole lot of inspiration and wild-heart-kindling on these themes here at Sophia’s Children.

For more Hildegard inspiration, drink of these Sophia’s Children’s nourishments:

Holy Spirit

Wise Women and Mid-Life Blooming

Hildegard and Veriditas

… and on leaving the interpreted path that Hildegard speaks about:

Separating From the Herd

One of my favorites — related, though via May Sarton:

Home, Exile, and Growing New Roots

Big Love and Graceful Greening,

Jamie

Featured Image Credit and Quotation Source

Green Nature. Photo courtesy of Public Domain Pictures.

** This wise and stirring quote is often attributed to Hildegard von Bingen, Benedictine Abbess, Writer, Musician, Mystic, Doctor of the Church … & so much more (1098 – 1179). The actual source from which this quote is inspired is Elaine Bellezza’s article, “Hildegard of Bingen, Warrior of Light,” in Gnosis Magazine, vol. 21, pp 50-62, 1991.