atheism for lent, day 14: unbearable light in our being

Today, AfL turns to Hildegard von Bingen, the Sybil of the Rhine. Born around 1100 CE, Hildegard was a German Benedictine abbess, polymath, writer, composer, philosopher, mystic, visionary, and medical practitioner. A Renaissance woman before there was a Renaissance. Among medieval composers, she owns one of the largest repertoires, and her lyrics are the source of today’s AfL reflection.

In 1998, American filmmaker David Lynch produced Lux Vivens, the debut solo album of British musician Jocelyn West (then Montgomery). The album takes Hildegard’s texts and puts them to music, with haunting sounds of nature — wind, waves, birdsong, screaming, the pounding of hooves, the low roar of fire — woven into the background. West’s light, soaring vocals create an ethereal experience juxtaposed with darker undertones. It’s reminiscent of Gregorian chant, Howard Shore’s themes for elves in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings series, and Enya at her most eerie.

I’m listening to the album as I write this, and the music’s effect is difficult to put into words. As I let the vibrations wash over me, I feel as though the innermost core of me is lifted up into weightlessness — and simultaneously dragged down into the heaviest, most crushing pressure depths imaginable. This music is beautiful…and terrible in its gentle power.

Our primary focus today is Hildegard’s song “O Tu Illustrata” (“O Thou Illumined”), and you can listen to West’s interpretation of it here. Hildegard wrote it and West sings it in Latin, but here’s a translation.

I think I’ll close with the best description I’m able to provide for this music I’m listening to for the first time ever: a poem that I wrote, strangely enough, 23 years ago.

Libera Me
by Courtney Cantrell

such music
such delicate, sweet sound
to deceive me so deliberately
and seductively
sucking me into luscious depths
of melody and rhythm
i have ventured entirely too near
the last, lusty edge
of the loss of all thought
all mind

this dulcet music, in its void,
has me
the whole of me

libera me

one clear voice
a questing, golden tongue
urges its own aching plea
it soars over me, enticing
with the tiniest taste of freedom
but beneath it boils
a dark undertone the color
of congealing blood
smothering me in a deluge
of something thick and throbbing

libera me

something
–the cloying undertone of darkness,
coupling gently with thin gold–
suggests a dementia behind the music
a madness creeping through
in the blur of tones that shuffle softly
but with increasing insistence across the light
and around the dark

libera me
how much longer shall i remain in the deep
in madness

please

this music
a chant so wholly innocent
it lulls my mind
into the gentle confusion of insanity
until i can no longer see
beneath me
what gapes wide to receive my trembling soul
i grasp at thin strands of gold
gossamer filigree filaments of reality
in vain
the stroking throb of the richer, heaving chant
immerses my innermost awareness
in an ever-dreaming stupor
it buries me in its own steady, unchanging rhythm
the music is all of me

libera me
please
libera me de morte aeterna

libera me.

(poem “Libera Me” © 2000 by Courtney Cantrell.)