Saturday, July 11, 2020

She was never canonized by the Catholic Church. History has obscured her, but Christian mystics, like Matthew Fox, resurrected her from the Middle Ages (1098-1179) . If Thomas Moore was considered "A Man for All Seasons", Hildegarde is "A Mystic for All Seasons", as her accomplishments included: composer, writer, artist, scientist, theologian, and herbalist. All at a time when women were banned from these activities.

The synchronicity of world-wide mysticism can be experienced by comparing "The Egg of the Universe Mandala", by Hildegarde, to the concept of "God's Divine Egg", celebrated by the Bushmen of Southern Africa.

In Southern Africa, the Bushmen throughout the ages have incorporated the concept of "God's Egg" into their mystical belief system. According to tribal elders, "Spirituality is complete. It is always born and reborn out of God's egg. We don't understand why other people around the world don't seem to know about the luminous egg that awakens God's ecstatic experiences." (translated by Bradford and Hillary Keenez, "God's Divine Egg", Parabola, Summer 2020)

Similarly, Hildegarde created a mandala, "Egg of the Universe", in which she viewed the universe as being "egg-shaped." According to Matthew Fox, "She has woven together on one amazing mandala the entire cosmology of her time: earth, air, fire, and water, the basic elements of the universe, that were understood to constitute the essential elements of the human body. Her vision awakens us to our deep relationship with all that God has made." ("Illuminations of Hildegarde of Bingen", Matthew Fox, 1985-2002)

If Hildegarde could visualize a cosmic egg in the 12th Century Germany that corresponds to the African Bushmen Divine Egg, then virtually anything is possible with mystical consciousness. Let us all heal the polarities of our present day political and religious system by uniting with the unifying symbol of the "Cosmic/Divine Egg."

For additional information, contact Donna Graves at:

thedifferentdrummerblog@gmail.com