Connected While Apart
Monarchs and Viriditas
Mayfield Monarch Waystation — September 16, 2020
Dear Mayfield,
Today is the Feast Day of Saint Hildegard of Bingen. She died on this day in 1179. Hildegard was a twelfth century German Benedictine, mystic, abbess, healer, author, composer, scientist, one often considered to be the patron saint of ecologists.
The earth is at the same time mother. She is
mother of all that is natural, mother of all that is
human. She is the mother of all, for contained in
her are the seeds of all. (Hildegard of Bingen)
Hildegard is credited with the spiritual concept of viriditas. This “was Hildegard’s term for the greening power of God, sustaining life each moment, bringing newness to birth…the divine power continuously at work in the world, juicy and fecund.” (Christine Valters Paintner). Hidegard identified a connectedness, a relatedness among everything that is in the heavens, on the earth, and under the earth. That relatedness is made visible in right relationships of compassion and justice. Hildegard understood the necessity of our waking up whenever that relatedness with its compassion and justice is threatened.
On the wings of Monarchs I experienced viriditas in flight twice this week. The first time was on Sunday when I was out walking around North Pond, a favorite spot for me here in the city. I walk to the pond and around the pond regularly. This time I came upon a painter who had left his easel with his smartphone in hand. When I got closer, he said: “Look at all the butterflies. I want to try to get a picture.” He was right. They were everywhere. Flitting, dancing, and nectaring. They are the early ranks of this year’s Monarch migration. And neither I nor the artist could take our eyes off them. A little further down the path was an amateur photographer with very nice equipment. “She looked at me with these words, “I haven’t moved for a half hour.” She too was surrounded with Monarchs in motion. All I could think about was that it’s working. Our efforts and the efforts of so many others to restore habitat, to plant natives, to create zones free of pesticides are making a difference. My heart practically danced out of my chest.
Yesterday, I was meeting one of my spiritual directees at an appropriate social distance in the Waystation. I was making my way down the sidewalk on the north side of the garage, and she was standing stock still under the first tree at the end of the walk, staring up into it. I couldn’t figure out what had caught her attention. The Monarchs were hard to see tucked in the tree with its full green leaves. “Martha, the Monarchs, there are so many of them.” All the time we were meeting, multiple handfuls of Monarchs came through the Waystation. The slender plant above was frequently covered with at least four of them. Never before, anywhere I’ve been, have I found myself in the presence of so many Monarchs not once, but twice in four days. Hours after we met, I flashed on the wildfires raging on the West Coast. The large annual migration of Monarchs is across a wide swath of Midwestern states. There are smaller migrations on the East and West Coasts. It seems unlikely that West Coast migration can happen this year. There are places in California where the sun has not been seen for twenty-five days, and the air is too toxic to breathe. The West Coast Monarch count was just 29,000 this winter. That is 1% of the Monarchs that migrated north and south on that coast in the 1980’s. Winged viriditas, the greening power of the divine is flourishing around us right now; it is threatened beyond imagining on the other side of the Rockies.
Viriditas, the greening and sustaining power of God, asks not only for our wakefulness in appreciation, praise, and delight but also for our attentive action because the life of the whole planet suffers in light of how we live and use resources, in light of our willingness or refusal to acknowledge that the earth is under siege by fire, by water, by wind, and by pandemic all around us. We are not living in a good balance of just relations across the expanse of creation. I experienced such joy this week, such gratitude that the interconnection, the shared wellbeing, of humans and pollinators is beginning to be protected. I knew such sadness this week when I thought about the devastation faced by West Coast Monarchs. Our Waystation is a pinprick in the grand scheme of things. But it is one link in a chain of habitat restoration that is leading to positive and compassionate change. May our commitment be to both the Waystation as it is and to other additional habits and practices we can take on in collaboration with the earth which holds the seeds of all. Every day, but especially today, may we remember and lift up with Hildegard the unity of all life, the greening we hold in common, the difference one way or another that our intentions, decisions, and choices will make.
Peace, Martha
Mayfield Nature Talk #3 — Thursday, September 24, 2020 — 6:30 pm — If You Plant It, They Will Come…Gardening for the Birds
Peggy will send you the Zoom connection next week. The first two nature talks were very interesting. We all learned a lot and enjoyed it. Consider joining us next Thursday.