“A Feather on the Breath of God”
[The text and musical score of the Symphonia armonie celestium revelationum composed in 1151-8 by Hildegard von Bingen, OSB (1098-1179) includes the phrase “I am a feather on the breath of God.”]
O Lover,
I was recently seized yet again by this spiritual phrase composed by Hildegard von Bingen, one of the most remarkable renaissance persons in recorded western Christianity. This prayer is for me aspirational insofar as I long to grow farther into it more than I consistently practice it. Via it You appear to be luring me into precincts where I have much work remaining. Indeed, Hildegard’s prayer-phrase is a many-splendored thing!
There is, first of all, the sheer skewering beauty of Hildegard’s image, an aesthetic arrow. And while it may be argued that the phrase “the world will be saved by beauty” in Dostoevsky’s The Idiot is more narthex than sanctuary of Your apokatástasis (“universal restoration” [Acts 3:21]), adumbrations—sensual, enfleshed, ubiquitous—of You who are Beauty Itself can deposit us in a joy far beyond words. So it has been for me regarding the stunning beauty of Hildegard’s image.
Second, there is the macrocosmic scale of You when compared with us created finites. Rather than depicting You as with, in, around, beside or beyond us, Hildegard images You as The Encompassing Reality inclusive of all created beings, a la Catherine’s Mare Pacífica within the Oceanic Depths of whom we swim like so many fishes. Thus while Hildegard’s gently suspended feather begins in kataphátic territory (“imaged”), her mystical propensity drives it relentlessly and (for me) unvaryingly into apophática (“imagelessness”). This image, actually an “un-image,” is thus profoundly mystical.
Third, there is the implicit delicacy as well as fragility of our experience of being human. One of the companions in this my anecdotage is awareness that I am not self-originating, self-accounting, or self-immortalizing. Living in the year 2024, awash in awareness of multifaceted contingency, is a profoundly humbling experience. That that precariousness should be parlayed by Hildegard into a sheltering, trusting, and loving pointer toward You is itself as much a miracle as I could desire.
Fourth, there is the implied mode and temperament of Your sourcing, sustaining, and converging. No one could have written of You as Hildegard does having not experienced Your gentleness, tenderness, solidarity, whimsicality, and exquisite exuberance with us of both the fragility and the foible. Even though being but marginally familiar with the musical score of her Symphonia armonie celestium revelationum, I find Hildegard’s image playfully piping a haunting and homing harmony.
And finally, there is Hildegard’s vibrant word “breath,” its etymological tree heavy with fruit both Hebrew (rúah) and Greek (pneúma), all variously intertwined with meanings including wind, breath, air, and Spirit. It is a gorgeous—albeit deconstructing and thus disrupting—image, its scale and vitality not unrelated to her similarly powerful viríditas (“greening”/“fructifying”). It is one inviting this often perplexed and anxious creature toward serenity and rest, whether amid placidity or tumult.
In her “I am a feather on the breath of [You, O Lover]” Hildegard has gathered for all subsequent time a generous handful of glimpses into no less than Your encompassing Sacred Heart. No wonder she was widely viewed as a saint centuries before her canonization.
