Describing the Indescribable: The Mystical Poetry of Hildegard von Bingen

I was poring over Hildegard von Bingen's "Antiphon for the Holy Spirit" (translated by Barbara Newman) and thinking about how hard it is to describe things that defy explanation, especially strange, mystical things. I've heard that senior ministers often leave Trinity Sunday to an assistant for this very reason—it's a pain to find ways to explain God in three persons, especially the ghostly part of the trio. Tackling that is like staring at a Magic Eye puzzle. If you look at it too hard, you can't see the image you're trying to see. You have to come at it a bit sideways.

Hildegard of Bingen. Illumination from Hildegard's Scivias (1151) showing her receiving a vision and dictating to teacher Volmar

Saint Hildegard was a 12th century Benedictine abbess, a mystic, a woman of extraordinary vision, and a polymath. As a poet, she describes the Holy Spirit through an image of the world-tree and its root, and then shifts our gaze upward to the wind in its branches:

The spirit of God is a life that bestows life, root of world-tree and wind in its boughs.

We have the sense of something that is underground and generating life, but also noticeable and moving through the topside world in unpredictable ways. It is not the tree itself, the base matter, but the lifeforce that is within it and acting upon it. In some of her other works, she calls this force veriditas, meaning greenness, vitality, and the divine nature.

Then Hildegard leaves that image entirely and dumps us, rather abruptly, into the cleansing of a wound. We've gone from something uplifting back into humanness and hurt. The Holy Spirit takes on the role of a healer in this part:

Scrubbing out sin, she rubs oil into wounds.

The most interesting aspect of that verse, for me, is that the Holy Spirit is feminine, and she's doing what has historically been a woman's task. She knows right where the trouble is, gets rid of it, and soothes everything with an oil made just for that purpose. The other two parts of the Holy Trinity (Father and Son) seem to be in the business of creation and implementation respectively, but this feminine part (Spirit) is in the business of tending. God has an Urgent Care clinic, and it's open 24/7.

Thus far, we have the Holy Spirit as a tree's lifeforce and as a smart, capable nurse for our wounds. Check and check. But look what happens in the third and final stanza: She is glistening life alluring all praise, all-awkening, all-resurrecting. It's like Hildegard runs out of metaphors, which often happens with mystical subjects. I can almost hear her saying, "Look, I don't know how else to say this. I don't know how to bring you into my vision. What I'm talking about is the regenerative power in all things, okay?"

And that's how it is. What you instinctively know and feel as a mystic, that which defies all logic and reason, runs smack into a pile of words that function like nice, sensible bricks. You sort through the pile to find the best ones, though they are still rough and clumsy in comparison with the great mystery you want so much to reveal in some artful way. But poets keep trying. We don't know how not to try. It's our calling to swim in the deepest waters and bring back treasures. The tide pulls us ever outward and back again, and we do our best to flow with it.

Following Hildegard's lead, I wrote my own poem about the Holy Spirit, admitting in the title that it's an impossible task.

Nobody Can Explain the Holy Spirit, but I’ll Try

The Spirit of God is a minnow

swimming in the belly

with a fleeting thought of becoming

a whale.

Cloud by day, pillar of fire by night,

Shekhinah travels with the people,

spreading her skirts in the tents of the homeless

where no one thinks to look.

She places a compress over track marks,

rubs oil into calloused feet,

and holds hands too sore from grasping

at peeled carrots dangling far above them.

Thick as blood pooling on a sidewalk,

she tastes like top-shelf wine.

Pure and a cappella as the busker’s song,

she resurrects the fine hair on a bare neck

and pulls the shroud away

from a life once buried.

–Jen Miller

What mystical subject calls to you as a poet? Let me know in the comments.

If you're up for a challenge, here are a few ideas for exploration. If you use any of these, kindly provide a link back to this post. Happy writing!

1. Explain the idea of oneness or interconnectedness from the perspective of something very small like an ant or a bee or even an atom.

2. Describe the cycle of life/death/rebirth using language from a technical field like computer programming or any of the sciences.

3. Write a dialogue poem in which you have a conversation with grace. What questions do you have? What does grace say to you?