Hildegard of Bingen

Hildegard of Bingen has sparked my interest.

Hildegard was an anchoress in 12th century Germany. To put her on a global mystics timeline, she died 38 years before Persian mystic Sufi poet Rumi was born.

Hildegard began reporting visions as a very young child. Oliver Sacks has since confirmed her descriptions as a common visual hallucination that often happens just before a migraine headache.

Luckily for us, no one told Hildegard that she was experiencing pre-migraine symptoms.

Instead, she became a student of the Catholic church.

When she was eight years old, Hildegard became a student of Jutta, a Catholic abess. When she was fourteen, she was enclosed as an anchoress, probably with Jutta. Jutta taught Hildegard to read and write, she taught Hildegard the psalms and the liturgy. Jutta was an extreme ascetic. When Jutta died, Hildegard took her place as abbess. Hildegard was more moderate.

And Hildegard was a mystic.

A mystic is someone who relates directly to the divine, and knows it. Many times, they relate to the divine like a lover, writing passionate poetry or music or through ecstatic, untiring dance. Mystics can be unusual folks. I think this is because they must experience the divine through their own map of the world (um, like we all do), and every person's map is different. Some mystics record that interaction with the divine through stories or poetry or music. That's the most personal expression in the world! Because we're all unique, our individual interactions with the divine are quite unique, and they can seem unusual to others.

But that's a story for another day. Back to anchoresses.

Anchoresses lived their lives in a small cell adjacent to a church, called an anchorage. Anchorages typically had 3 windows: one window into the church, in direct view of the high altar; one window through which they could communicate with assistants and scribes and receive food; and one window to communicate with the public.

Anchoresses tended to be very public hermits. Although they lived lives full of prayer and some solitude, they also wrote books and music, and people came to them for advice and prayers.

Hildegard even went on 4 preaching tours, the only woman of the Middle Ages to have done so.

Hildegard dictated the story of her life to her scribe. And she wrote music. Stunning, haunting, transcendent music. Hildegard is the first music composer for whom history has left a complete biography.

And we all go through life like an anchoress, set aside for life here in physical bodies, with "windows" into the world. Our windows are our experiences. It's how we manage what passes through those windows and the meaning we make of those experiences that dictates whether we become more open and connected, or less so.

Why am I so intrigued by Hildegard?

Choose to Feel

If you enjoy hauntingly beautiful music that takes you to unexpected places, I highly recommend that you join Steve Daniel's email list, where he sends his didgeridoo upcoming events.

My husband Keith and I drove out to Bastrop State Park last weekend. There's a place outside the Austin city limits where the landscape transforms. Scrub mesquite and grasses give way to elm trees and pecan trees and tall pines. Bastrop State Park is in the middle of these tall trees.

Eighty feet high or more, this stretch of pine trees is probably the tallest group of trees you'll find in Central Texas. They're named the Lost Pines because they are "hidden away" in between the Hill Country brush land of Austin and the swamps of Beaumont and Louisiana.

I noticed a bumper sticker on a car during our ride: "Choose to Feel," it suggested.

I liked the sentiment. In a society plagued with distractions, feeling is something we must decide to do.... and that takes some courage. It turns out, there's a very good reason we slip into distractions: it can be uncomfortable to feel.

I wondered what the driver would look like. Keith sped up, and I looked at the neighboring driver.

He had a friendly, relaxed face... and then, I noticed he was didgeridoo player Steve Daniel!

"Choose to Feel," indeed.

The bumper sticker made sense. If you ever wanted to choose to feel and needed a little encouragement, or someone to help you to do that, listening to Steve Daniel play the didg is a good thing to do. He approaches everything from saying hello to blowing the voice of the didgeridoo, with presence, gentleness, and heart.

Steve's didg playing is all about opening and connection. The deep, percussive sound of the didg moves through listeners, taking them deeper and deeper into something very familiar. At least that's how I experience it. Listening to Steve is like a journey inward, yet even more familiar, even more primal, than the journey within. It's the journey back to something we all know, perhaps.

He makes his own didges, often out of hollowed-out agave stalks. At even given moment, he has several didges with him, each with a unique voice.

Steve's didges are surprisingly light. He brought one to a recent Best Resources Night Walking class. Whenever it was time to walk, he just propped a didg against his shoulder and took off.

But that's a story for another day.