At the Hildegard Abbey, we are taking a day of respite from having completed the Hildegard Way pilgrimage across Hildegard Land.  Setting fewer expectations allowed for an experience of seeing nature, making meaningful social interactions, and of course learning more deeply about Hildegard von Bingen. In many ways, it was like coming home as I haven’t been here since 2013 when I first started filming, The Unruly Mystic: Saint Hildegard.

Hildegard Abbey

This time, my experience is much more self-aware in that I have a greater appreciation for being back at both the familiar and new. Being with Heather (my wife) has added another layer of sweetness. We are staying at Hildegard Abbey for two nights which gives us some room for reflection. We are having our meals here in a separate area for visitors, but we have access to the non-public half of the abbey. Sitting in the cloister garden, we are both tired, spiritually, and physically, from the recent heat and pace we were setting. I am blessed with good video footage and success with my drone (almost losing it in a tree). While those excitements were fun, the question of why I am here is more profound in retrospect.

There is the aspect of Hildegard as a person who invites one to connect deeper to good, and there is the work of Hildegard that connects one closer to God. Both pathways lead to self-reflection of one’s relationship to the spiritual self, community, and the larger cosmos of being present now. The more conservative view is deeply layered with God being the only reason for Hildegard to do what she did, it removes the individual from the action. While the Sisters praise all contributions from others through their offerings of art, they see that effort as continual evidence of God’s work.

I see something different in the example as I feel the literal meaning of God is too limited. It goes to the river that we can all put our feet or whole body into, that connection to every without judgment and as a contribution to the larger good. It is the source of the Godhead Wisdom Pillar or whatever you call it. Hopefully, it is all the same thing in organized religions as in my heart.

Michael Conti’s Journal Entry from July 28, 2019

What is your experience with visiting a meaningful place twice?

Shrine of Saint Hildegard von Bingen is where my own mystic experience occured. We visited the Catholic Pilgrimage Church of St. Hildegard in Rüdesheim-Eibingen, Germany yesterday. This shrine church holds the relics of Saint Hildegard. Relic means that some aspect of that person or saint is kept on display for worship. In this case, it is the most potent of symbols, her tongue and heart are encased in a gold jewel box, known as an reliquary.

Shrine of Saint Hildegard

Our introduction to the relic was done by an enthusiastic Sister whose words were translated by a colleague in a dramatic and moving manner. I felt very connected to what she said and it transcended the Catholic dogma that seems difficult at times to wrap my modern head around. She (the Sister) then invited us up to stand in a circle around the relic made in gold and to hear her prayer. It was then followed by us offering up a Hildegard song. I suddenly found myself at ease singing, not really knowing the actual piece, but following along.

After our group offering, the Sister invited us to ask Hildegard for support in our own lives such as sickness or illness, and voices called out each of those laments. I thought of my own immediate family. She then invited us to touch the relic box which is actually a case made of glass that covers the jeweled box.

I listen intently to the Sister, her excitement and vigor was contagious, even in a language that I don’t understand. The woman sitting in front of me was moved suddenly with the miracle of hearing after lacking that ability over several days prior. As we walked with reverence to surround the relic altar, I felt a quality of connectedness with Saint Hildegard. It was pure joy that I could be so close and my face got wet from tears. My body responded with a tingling sensation that went head to toe, and I felt pulsed if by an unseen force as I swayed back and forth with my eyes closed. My hand reached into my pocket to pull forth a green stone given by a friend for this specific trip. It was at that moment I realized that the stone was greening, a characteristic of Hildegard called Viriditas. I brought the stone up in front of my body as I prayed, and I noticed the other pilgrims doing the same with whatever they had brought there too. I noticed that I held this very journal in my pocket.

I was left with the felling that the scared space and sensations that I had felt had reconfigured my longing to have a divine connection and I was in love with Saint Hildegard.

I have spent most of my life in the pursuit of being creative or to create. Saint Hildegard is that patron saint of creativity for me. Her churches are filled with art and sculpture whose pure purpose is an expression of her ideas (and a devout Catholic would say her ideas are manifested to her by Jesus Christ, the son of God). These worldly art pieces are modern, expressive, and abstract, not purely figurative like what one would usually find hanging in a Catholic church.

I realized that my mystic encounter with her is a form of expression which should make the point of presenting the mystery so that others will come to this place on their own. So that they may rekindle their own connection with the Saint, and take confirmation back to themselves and their own communities to help make the world a better place through love and creativity. There is no question in my mind that I had truly experienced Hildegard’s power. Each of us is divinely blessed with, as found in our own heart and tongue. This calling to minister her message will become my filmmaking endevour of The Unruly Mystic: Saint Hildegard.

Michael Conti’s Journal Entry from March 18, 2013

Searching for Hildegard who was a mystery to me first, then became a divine inspiration, when I made a film about this Germanic Christian mystic. As a videographer, I have spent the time capturing lectures from several theologians. Specifically, Matthew Fox who spoke of her frequently during his series of Christ Path Retreat with Andrew Harvey.

Questions About Hildegard

• Was she someone real?
• Why do some people know her and others just draw a blank stare?
• Why am I attracted to this woman who lived 1000 years in the past?
• What do people think about her now?
• What would it be like to walk in her footsteps to find the source of her inspiration?
• How has she influenced the thinking of today’s mystics, healers, and artists?
• Why does she continue to speak to us today?

The Great Awakener

These are the sort of questions I awake in the divine early morning before the earth gets delighted by a new day. This is my journey.

Michael Conti’s Journal Entry from October 19, 2012

*First time Hildegard appears in my journal. Many of these questions which I asked, eventually got answered when I started to make The Unruly Mystic: Saint Hildegard six months later in 2013 when I went to Germany as a participant on a retreat there.

In fact my first real exposure happened in 1996 when I was witness to Judy Chicago’s The Dinner Party.