Ridicule the Strangeness: On Hildegaard Von Bingen

“Now I deliberately hid the difference in me, away from the eyes of men in the outer world who might guess, intrude, and ridicule the strangeness in me. Then, for a while, its silence became shaming, and I began to seek it only in the times just before and after the offices and the singing of the Mass, when the sound of the chant would lend its own auditory beauty, clarity and spiritual power to bring my silent world into liturgical time.”

— THE JOURNAL OF HILDEGAARD VON BINGEN BY BARBARA LACHMAN

Originally posted on Medium.

Manuscript Illumination with the Annunciation in an Initial R, from a Gradual, Public Domain

Reading Hildegaard’s journals, as imagined by Barbara Lachman, my silenced shames seem pedantic. Elementary, or non-essential. A woman in Twelfth Century Germany receiving visions clung to, as if they were a hidden second blood pumping through her heart. Theorists wonder at whether she suffered from migraines or synesthesia as a cause, but Hildegaard knew her strangeness. As an herbalist and healer, as a mystic she interpreted her symptoms in the worldview of the fantastic. Through our post-modern lens, seeing an intelligent 12th Century woman, whose knowledge on herbs and medieval medicine were strong enough for her to write scientific and medical works, may seem strange in tandem with her spiritual tomes. While scientific advancement clarified and shifted a gargantuan amount since the 1100’s, with the knowledge she could access, Hildegaard’s Curae were sound. She was neither a luddite nor overwhelmed by the purely spiritual.

How strange for readers now, to see a woman of intelligence also be a woman of faith, when the separations between the spiritual and the rational seem as insurmountable as a woman seeking autonomy in medieval Europe?

For Hildegaard, in the powerless garb and form of a woman, she lived on the good graces of the Catholic Church and the patriarchs enrobed within. Too vocal a woman, too obscene or outside the veil, would she be seen as a demonic influence? A heretic thrown from every security she’s known? The balance between her capabilities, her visions and the allowances doted upon her was, in Lachman’s reimagined journals, a constant strain. What possible complaint could I possess, born and raised in North America’s 20th & 21st Centuries?

My childhood world was one of constant daydreaming, imaginative plays in my inner world until Gran huffed and inevitably told me to stop pretending. Stop being so dramatic. There seemed an eternal veil between my widened eyes and compatriot children in class, a veil which remained outside junior academics. The disconnect between a wealthy imaginative life and the realities of a society built to create harmonic, everyday life tore at my soul like clothes, which never fit. Sweater sets bought by a mother, who dressed me like her, jeans fought for in younger days, t-shirts instead of blouses. I could and did put on the appropriate attire for the occasion, suits and suit dresses, skirts, kilts, uniforms.

I hid and reacted to reality as if from behind fractured glass, distorted and astounding. Like Hildegaard, I feared ridicule of my strangeness. Covered my creativity and gender fluidity in a self-shamed silence until it took more years to write a book like NEON Lieben than all its’ predecessors waiting their turn. Perhaps NEON Lieben is too revelatory of my inner complications, of characters who are villain, hero, faulty people in mind-bending situations constantly seeking redefinition.

Now, purple and pink hair, a masculine cut to my suits and open authorship, the shames and traumas of the past need to crumble. How can one both hide in shame of their non-traditional self, and encourage others to read a book, which also struggles with like identities? As Lieben discovers her sense of independent self, so may I. As Fester’s body shifts from the shame of boyhood to the glory of her rightful female self, so may I stand in androgyny and be blessed. As the Assets Kate, Clive, Arun choose their gender like clothes, so may I relish the fluidity of gender’s concepts and allow the shame of silence to shift in an ever present hope beyond Hildegaard’s ‘liturgical time’.

Yet, the freedom to choose one’s representation of gender is still not sacred. Women are not equals, people within the LGBTQA community are not free in all places in this world. The microcosm I grew up in was not accommodating to gender identity crises beyond the power of prayer to ‘fix’ one, or the promised joys of marriage, babies and a quiet life. I kept silent, let the cause of my shame be covered over with bizarre, but lonely behaviours. Words, which shouted, locked behind silence.

Hildegaard’s strangeness brought her through history, a woman who commanded her presence (within the patriarchy) and eventually allowed her strangeness to drive generations of spiritual seekers. Be my muse, Hildegaard. Attack me with the reversion of silence, to allow our strangeness no shame.