I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Sharon Fabriz’s reflection “A Jigsaw of Light: Hildegard’s Gift.”
Spirit of Mercy and Grace,
born from the infinite womb of creation
teach this vessel its song… (1)
With the help of my psycho-spiritual companion and my own intuition and path, a two-month pilgrimage in place came into view as a vehicle for personal contemplation as I approached my sixty-sixth birthday. Winter had been long and dark, wet and cold. February promised more of the same. A pilgrimage in place would coincide with the coming of spring, longer days, sproutings and migrations, a time ripe for me to say yes to such a planting. The Abbey of the Arts Hildegard of Bingen retreat course became my guide for the journey and a frame from which I could divine the viriditas that many decades had drawn me toward.
A song introduced in an early lesson opened my heart. “May the breath of God flow through your being”[2] became an intention, a part of my pilgrimage in place, that which had led me more deeply into the forest, to a sit spot in the manzanita grove perched on bedrock covered in green moss, above the creek now spilling with stair-stepping waterfalls that would meet with river a hundred feet down.
I visited the place of contemplation daily, becoming more and more aware of its aliveness. “May the breath of God flow through your being” became the prayer for the breath that was in me, that was me, that I recognized was the fuel for every single thing in the world, even the damp camp chair on which I now sat under a sky that held a shining visible and welcome with joy after so many cloud-filled days.
While listening to variations of Hildegard of Bingen’s musical compositions, a song of invitation, discovery, and direction arrived in me. Altered versions appeared each morning, shifting and rising until the final beginning, middle and end landed with such peace, I knew my Portal Song was complete. There is a portal has been found / patient in its waiting / for the ready pilgrim / ripe for the returning / joining heart and journey / wakefulness and blooming.[3]
With my sit spot settled and a song opening the way, my practice organized itself with morning singing, reading, writing, and afternoon sitting. But the most palpable moments of my pilgrimage came in the rendering, how viriditas awakened in me as I lived my day.
TWO
A dog barks in the distance. Then movement far above. Wingspans, black and powerful, four crows, one landing in the tallest fir on the slide down to the river and three who fly on. The signal’s been given. Pause. The dogs stand alert. My heart goes quiet, my mind blank. Me, gone. Among the trees in a flash, the moment becomes still life, found poem, reunion.
How many ways can I say that I’m not going to write about old stories anymore, that I’m living for the life I have left from here on out, that the stairsteps to heaven have been folded up and stowed in a bunkhouse behind some broken down boxes that I still need to haul to the dump where they likely won’t get recycled and I don’t want that to be true but it probably is.
It’s not that I don’t have stories to tell, ones of betrayal (but was that was it was or was that just the story I have been telling myself), ones of loyalty (but was it that or a practical matter, the ease of a compartment that felt secure and known), ones of exhaustion (but those tales succeed only at being exhausting), of blind trust and silent fury (and what was the lesson there?)…A big sigh leaves a cumulus hovering over the flashing red neon of Who Cares?
What I’m fit to do now is submit those journals and drawings and songs to the library of the wind, ash that might settle onto some ground where the soil needs amending, where the particles of yesteryear can do some good. You can’t do that! I hear the fifteen-year-old in me say. That’s how you’ve made it this far! And I have to remove her from the driver’s seat (she often ignores the exits) and replace her with the sensible one who knows full well that it wasn’t the writing that got us through. It was a story much bigger than we are, all of those selvings that keep hanging around. All their stories, imaginings, adaptations, rants, lamentations, fairy tales, unsent letters, remembered dreams, scribbles in the margins, half-assed promises, pious prayers, slumped worries, starred entries…they will do us no good now.
What we need to know is all around us. Pay attention, says the crow, that big-winged creature who silhouettes the sky. It’s all dream and flight and landings and hold on and one for the money, two for the show, and watching from the heights where the seeing is everything.
THREE
I grant myself permission to find my own ways and words from these teachings, graftings from centuries before. Hildegard’s hand guiding me, light from her container spilling into me from outside space and time. Words arrive as the teachings root, rise, and blossom in me. The greening of all things is made manifest in the very language rising from my own voice.
mirrors of all heaven’s fragrant graces,
garden of surpassing sweetness,
behold the gracious source,
its image in your eyes,
the blossom in your heart… (4)
from her secret chamber
the Song of Source came forth
a flower sprang in her womb
sweet as the buds of spring (5)
With each breath
a beginning and an end
the simple remedy
for fear and struggle
With each breath
a beginning and an end
blessed portal
joining earth and heaven. (6)
Meld with the Source of All Unfolding and sing within the Beckoning Whole… (7)
Sharon Fabriz publishes weekly on Medium at sharonhopefabriz.medium.com. Her spiritual memoir Circling Toward Home (2021) is her first book. She is part of the Sisters of the Pen writing group and works with Ann Randolph’s Unmute online writing community. She lives in the mountains of northern California with her two dogs.
[1] Song of the Virgin to Her Son excerpt, personal adaptation
[2] “Blessing the Breath of God” lyrics by Denise Pyles
[3] Portal Song recording link
[4] Antiphon for Virgins, personal adaptation
[5] found poem from “O quam preciosa”
[6] Ave Generosa (Hymn to the Virgin) excerpt, personal adaptation
[7] Scivias III 13.15; personal adaptation
