{"id":8192,"date":"2022-12-30T05:27:25","date_gmt":"2022-12-30T12:27:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/?p=8192"},"modified":"2022-12-30T05:27:59","modified_gmt":"2022-12-30T12:27:59","slug":"hildegard-von-bingen-holy-spirit-of-fire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/2022\/12\/30\/hildegard-von-bingen-holy-spirit-of-fire\/","title":{"rendered":"Hildegard von Bingen – Holy Spirit of Fire"},"content":{"rendered":"

Holy Spirit of Fire
\nby Hildegard von Bingen<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

English version by Ivan M. Granger<\/font><\/p>\n

O Holy Spirit of Fire,
\nlife in the life of all life,
\nholy are you,
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 enlivening all things.<\/p>\n

Holy are you,
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 a healing balm
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 to the broken.
\nHoly are you,
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 washing
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 blistered wounds.<\/p>\n

O Holy Breath,
\nO Fire of Life,
\nO Sweetness in my breast
\ninfusing my heart
\nwith the fine scent of truth.<\/p>\n

O Pure Fountain
\nthrough which we know
\nGod unites strangers
\nand gathers the lost.<\/p>\n

O Heart\u2019s Shield, guarding life
\nand hope, joining the many members
\ninto one body;
\nBelt of Truth,
\nwrap them in beauty.<\/p>\n

Protect those ensnared
\nby the enemy,
\nand free the worthy
\nfrom their fetters.<\/p>\n

O Great Way that runs through all,
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 from the heights,
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 across the earth,
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 and in the depths,
\nyou encompass all and unify all.<\/p>\n

From you the clouds stream
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 and the ether rises;
\nfrom your stones precious water pours,
\nsprings well and birth waterways,
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 and the earth sweats green with life. <\/p>\n

And eternally do you bring forth knowledge
\nby the breath of wisdom.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 All praise to you,
\nyou who are the song of praise
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 and the joy of life,
\nyou who are hope and the greatest treasure,
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 bestowing the gift of Light.<\/em><\/p>\n


\/ Image by Julia Caesar<\/a> \/<\/em><\/font><\/p>\n

As we prepare to enter the new year, I thought I would share this meditation on the universal flow of life\u2026<\/p>\n

This song of praise is a beautiful vision of God \u2014 a maternal vision of God, earthy, yet transcendent \u2014 flowing with life, permeating all things, exuding a good and holy greenness everywhere.<\/p>\n

This Spirit of Fire, the Holy Spirit, is \u201clife in the life of all life.\u201d It is the vivifying life behind all of life. This is the \u201cHoly Breath\u201d that breathes through all of manifest existence, everything in nature, every form, enlivening it, making it holy, sharing its divinity. Life and all creation emerges from Spirit. It is not created in some mechanical sense but flows naturally, organically, fluidly, like breath from the body or water from a spring.<\/p>\n

Through this divine animating spirit, all separate things are actually one: \u201cyou encompass all and unify all.\u201d<\/p>\n

Especially notice the lovely lines:<\/p>\n

From you the clouds stream
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 and the ether rises,
\nfrom your stones precious water pours<\/i><\/p>\n

Throughout this song tangible, physical reality, the earth itself streams, pours, exudes, and permeates. All of physical reality, even in its most solid forms of earth and rock, all of \u2018solid\u2019 reality\u2026 flows. Nothing is truly fixed or stationary. All forms possess a sort of divine inner \u2018sap\u2019 \u2014 the fluid Essence \u2014 that is its true being which shows itself as life:<\/p>\n

springs well and birth waterways,
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 and the earth sweats green with life. <\/i><\/p>\n

We have delightful language of both water and fire, and yet they seem complimentary. Why a \u201cSpirit of Fire\u201d? In Christian mysticism, the Holy Spirit is often associated with fire. In deep ecstasy, the awareness is flooded with a rising, blissfully searing heat, quieting the mind, opening the heart, filling one\u2019s whole being with a sense of the interconnectedness of life. Adding to this, the inner vision is dazzled by a radiating golden-white light \u2014 \u201cbestowing the gift of Light.\u201d Paradoxically, amidst this inner fire of illumination, there is the simultaneous descent of a trickling honey-like sweetness down the back of the throat, making one drunk on bliss and beauty. Thus Hildegard gives us images of water and flow and secret springs, as well. <\/p>\n

Throughout this profound reformulation of the self we find ourselves bathed in the most profound knowledge. This is not knowledge in the sense of data or information, but in some indescribable way the living breath of knowledge itself. It is gnosis, the field of knowingness itself, that fills us.<\/p>\n

And eternally do you bring forth knowledge
\nby the breath of wisdom.<\/i><\/p>\n

Yet clearly this is not a solitary vision confined to the mystic\u2019s solitary self. <\/p>\n

Belt of Truth,
\nwrap them in beauty.<\/i><\/p>\n

This same spiritual vivification is taking place throughout the earth, through its good green life, through all things and all people, and we are, all of us, one in that life and in the eternal outpouring of that life-giving Spirit.<\/p>\n

you encompass all and unify all.<\/i><\/p>\n


\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/a>Recommended Books: Hildegard von Bingen<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n\n

<\/p>\n

\n\n\n
<\/a><\/td>\n<\/a><\/td>\n<\/a><\/td>\n<\/a><\/td>\n<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Symphonia: A Critical Edition of the Symphonia armonie celstium revelationum<\/a><\/small><\/td>\nGerman Mystical Writings: Hildegard of Bingen, Meister Eckhart, Jacob Boehme, and others<\/a><\/small><\/td>\nHildegard of Bingen\u2019s Book of Divine Works with Letters and Songs<\/a><\/small><\/td>\nWomen of Wisdom: A Journey of Enlightenment by Women of Vision Through the Ages<\/a><\/small><\/td>\nThe Book of the Rewards of Life: Liber Vitae Meritorum<\/a><\/small><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
More Books >><\/a><\/i><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

<\/center>
\n<\/p>\n\n\n
\n\"Hildegard<\/a>\n<\/td>\n\nHildegard von Bingen<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Germany (1098 \u2013 1179) Timeline<\/a>
\nChristian<\/a> : Catholic<\/a>
\n<\/a><\/a><\/em>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

<\/p>\n

Hildegard was born in Bermersheim, not far from Mainz, Germany to a noble family. She was the tenth and last child to be born to the family. At the age of eight, Hildegard was \u201cgiven to God as a tithe\u201d by placing her in the care of Jutta, a woman who had chosen a life of solitary seclusion. Hildegard would later describe Jutta as \u201cuneducated,\u201d yet she taught the girl the basic skills of reading, as well as her initial practices in the spiritual life. <\/p>\n

Hildegard\u2019s health was always fragile, but she had a rich interior life, by her own account receiving visions since early childhood. Hildegard describes one vision she had at the age of three of witnessing \u201ca brightness so great that [her] soul trembled.\u201d <\/p>\n

This experience of divine light was repeated and magnified when she was in her forties. She wrote:<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I was forty-two years and seven months old, the heavens opened and a blinding light of extraordinary brilliance flooded my head. It blossomed like a fire in my heart and breast, not burning but warming\u2026 and all at once I understood the inner meaning of the holy books.\u201d<\/p>\n

This was a light that remained a part of her perception throughout her life. Even in her seventies, Hildegard described it as a light that seemed to permeate everything without hindering her ability to see normally, as well.<\/p>\n

She is said to have had a natural gift of clairvoyance and the ability predict the future. She was also widely respected as a healer and herbalist, having written works on natural history and the medicinal uses of plants.<\/p>\n

Illness was intimately linked with Hildegard\u2019s mystical life. Bouts of illness seemed to be brought on by the tensions that existed between her divine promptings and the limitations of the roles allowed to her as a woman and a nun. She had especially severe illnesses occur prior to the major decisions in her life.<\/p>\n

Hildegard\u2019s early life was relatively quiet. A small community of women gathered around Jutta, that eventually joined the Benedictine order. Hildegard herself took monastic vows in her teens. When Jutta died in 1136, Hildegard was elected to lead the monastic community.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t until she was in her forties, however, that Hildegard began to gain notoriety for her visions. She was surprised to receive an inner prompting to \u201ctell and write\u201d her visions. She initially resisted and was soon bedridden as the inner conflict played out. Eventually she relented and began to dictate her visions.<\/p>\n

The first work she produced was Scivias, a description of a cycle of visions about the relationship of humanity and nature with God. She also composed a collection of music and poetry called the Symphonia. She also wrote extensively about medicine and herbs.<\/p>\n

Hildegard\u2019s fame quickly spread, bringing pilgrims and the curious, eventually overwhelming the capacity of the small community. A new, larger monastery was built between 1148 and 1150 in Rupertsberg near Bingen.<\/p>\n

Throughout the 1150\u2019s, Hildegard made several teaching tours through the Rhineland.<\/p>\n

Although Hildegard had received blessings from Church authorities for most of her work, toward the end of her life she ran into conflicts for, among other things, allowing an excommunicated man who had died to be buried in consecrated ground. She refused to have the body dug up and, as a result, she was not allowed to take the eucharist \u2014 a deep wound for a devout Catholic. This ban was eventually lifted near the end of her life.<\/p>\n

More poetry by Hildegard von Bingen<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Holy Spirit of Fire by Hildegard von Bingen English version by Ivan M. Granger O Holy Spirit of Fire, life in the life of all life, holy are you, \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 enlivening all things. Holy are you, \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 a healing balm \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 to the broken. Holy are you, \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 washing \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 blistered wounds. O Holy Breath, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[53,79,1733,154,153,2139,1486,462],"class_list":["post-8192","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry","tag-catholic-poetry","tag-christian-poetry","tag-green","tag-hildegard-of-bingen","tag-hildegard-von-bingen","tag-holy-breath","tag-holy-spirit","tag-womens-sacred-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8192"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8192\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8194,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8192\/revisions\/8194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}