Creating Space For Healing.....

I have so many thoughts and feelings going on in my head and heart. I mean....this world!! So here I come, back to my faithful little spot on the internet where I have processed so much through the years...just to think it out. If any of my old readers are still here, thank you! So much is different than when we began this journey together so long ago. We have found ourselves in a new place where so much is years in the past, so much healing has taken place, but because we are people who are always evolving and changing...we will continue to grow and heal and learn until the day we leave this earth. We will never be finished.

Several years ago I read a book about broken people healing. It was called God’s Hotel by Victoria Sweet. I read it right as we were bringing one of our kids home after years of living away from us. It was exactly what I needed to hear. It was in that book that I heard about Saint Hildegard of Bingen and her thoughts on the human condition and the need for "viritidas."

Saint Hildegard of Bingen was a holistic medical writer and practitioner, a German Benedictine abbess, and polymath active as a writer, composer, philosopher, mystic, visionary, during the Middle Ages. She was a complex and brilliant, spiritual, gifted, individual, but what grabbed my interest the most was her work with natural healing. Creating an atmosphere where healing can take place. Creating "viritidas." 

Viriditas: (Latin, literally “greenness,") is a word meaning vitality, fecundity, lushness, verdure, or growth. It is particularly associated with abbess Hildegard von Bingen, who used it to refer to or symbolize spiritual and physical health, often as a reflection of the divine word or as an aspect of the divine nature. 

I knew that was what we needed. What we all need at various times in our lives. An atmosphere of healing, of fresh soil where a new life could sprout and begin to grow. 

What would that look like? A space of renewal, acceptance, nurturing, clean surroundings, fresh air, hard work...both internal and external, love, healthy food,  inclusion, presence, belonging. What things could we begin to get out of the way of our healing?

We worked at creating a safe place for all of us to co-habitate. A place filled with radical acceptance, few to no expectations for performance aside from being safe, a place where we began by just accepting what was, accepting each other right where we had all found ourselves. There were so many feelings that we all were navigating...guilt, regret, shame, anger, fear, relief, but here we all were. 

To this day, I carry the word viritidas in my mind. How can I create an atmosphere of healing for my family, my clients, my friends, the people I encounter in the world each day, myself! 

Even if we aren't crushed and shattered, this world takes its toll on our hearts. How can we nurture our own greening, our own freshness, our own growth? Today, in this world that we are in, we need deep soulful, nurturing. Time, quiet, clean sheets on the bed, flowers on the table, exercise, lots of water, music, connection with our people, faith, meditation and prayer...we need things that will sustain us. We can create our own atmospheres of healing. Cultivating what is good inside and outside of ourselves and once we do it for ourselves, we can walk with other's through their own process of greening and healing and living. 

Here's to our healing... to our strength and resiliency, to our determination to do better, to create beauty in our wake. 

Annette