Hildegard of Bingen was an abbess of a Benedictine abbey during the Middle Ages. She was also a
healer, composer, theologian, artist, poet, and mystic. She coined the phrase viriditas, or greening power, and connected it to the concept of creativity. She is walking beside me these days as I fall in love over and over again with the green of spring. My woods have turned from the starkness of winter brown, so empty and barren, to the abundant fullness of green. It’s as if my eyes and my heart are meeting this color for the first time, and I am feeling so alive in my seeing. I look and breathe and ramble among the verdant hues, and I find my own veins pulsing with a pure readiness to shed what is drab and come into color.
I think that green was born to teach us our true nature. Don’t we all walk around with this gorgeous life within us? Don’t we all yearn for something more, something we have yet to fully grasp or even dream? Haven’t we each taken a turn wondering who we are meant to be and how we will ever arrive at that understanding? Well, don’t you imagine that is the green inside of us, sustaining us, feeding us, urging us on until it is time to grow our own leaves and flourish? What a delightful way of thinking… because there are so many days when we feel dried up. There are so many days that feel more like long nights, and we are tired and lost in our tedious routines. We feel forced to color inside the lines, to play by the rules, to obtain status, and fortune, and power. We try to keep up, but often in spring, we feel a deep longing to put our hands in the dirt and tend something different. We feel a mysterious pull to linger outside at the end of the day, to hang up hummingbird feeders, to watch the sun nestle behind the trees, and pull the socks off of our tired feet and squeeze green grass between our toes.
Hildegard writes:
“Good People, most royal greening verdancy, rooted in the sun, you shine with radiant light.”
God put green in the trees so we might find it time and again in our own hearts.
Take off your mourning clothes!
Spring is calling!
healer, composer, theologian, artist, poet, and mystic. She coined the phrase viriditas, or greening power, and connected it to the concept of creativity. She is walking beside me these days as I fall in love over and over again with the green of spring. My woods have turned from the starkness of winter brown, so empty and barren, to the abundant fullness of green. It’s as if my eyes and my heart are meeting this color for the first time, and I am feeling so alive in my seeing. I look and breathe and ramble among the verdant hues, and I find my own veins pulsing with a pure readiness to shed what is drab and come into color.
I think that green was born to teach us our true nature. Don’t we all walk around with this gorgeous life within us? Don’t we all yearn for something more, something we have yet to fully grasp or even dream? Haven’t we each taken a turn wondering who we are meant to be and how we will ever arrive at that understanding? Well, don’t you imagine that is the green inside of us, sustaining us, feeding us, urging us on until it is time to grow our own leaves and flourish? What a delightful way of thinking… because there are so many days when we feel dried up. There are so many days that feel more like long nights, and we are tired and lost in our tedious routines. We feel forced to color inside the lines, to play by the rules, to obtain status, and fortune, and power. We try to keep up, but often in spring, we feel a deep longing to put our hands in the dirt and tend something different. We feel a mysterious pull to linger outside at the end of the day, to hang up hummingbird feeders, to watch the sun nestle behind the trees, and pull the socks off of our tired feet and squeeze green grass between our toes.
Hildegard writes:
“Good People, most royal greening verdancy, rooted in the sun, you shine with radiant light.”
God put green in the trees so we might find it time and again in our own hearts.
Take off your mourning clothes!
Spring is calling!
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