Sibyl of the Rhine

 

 

Hildegard von Bingen, sometimes known as Sibyl of the Rhine, was a visionary German writer, composer, philosopher, Benedictine Abbess, Christian Mystic and polymath. Like Bernard of Clairvaux, her illuminating writings and general contribution to the spiritual life is often overlooked by Western magicians. A colleague once suggested that this oversight of both was "probably something of a post Protestant Rosicrucian thing". He was probably right, but I hope and pray we now get over that and drink deeply of both Bernard and Hildegard's respective wells! I never fail to be enthused by Hildegard's fantastic writings.

“I, the highest and fiery power, have kindled every spark of life . . .

I, the fiery life of divine essence, am aflame beyond the beauty of the meadows,

I gleam in the waters, and I burn in the sun, moon, and stars.

With every breeze, as with invisible life that contains everything,

I awaken everything to life.

The air lives by turning green and being in bloom.

The waters flow as if they were alive.

The sun lives in its light, and the moon is enkindled, after its disappearance, once again by the light of the sun so that the moon is again revived . . .

And thus I remain hidden in every kind of reality as a fiery power.

Everything burns because of me in the way our breath constantly moves us,

like the wind-tossed flame in a fire.”

-Hildegard von Bingen, [Vision 1:2]