The Vision of the Earth and the Tower
I saw the earth open, and rich color and life flowed forth. In the depths, I saw a tower standing tall near a rock-cut tomb out of which light flowed like the morning sun. Birdsong and the rustling of feathers intoned wonder.
The tower held my gaze like a sister cradles her newborn sibling. Her foundation stood on a rock sunk deep in the soil, firm and true. Her cornerstone, rough and ancient like the earth herself. Each stone is a word of wisdom, crowned with glory. Its presence called me into the heart of the world. My soul danced with delight as I drew closer to the tower.
As I approached, the form of the tower grew clearer. I saw a woman draped in light holding a red egg in her right hand that shone like a ruby.
The woman sang with joy, “Hayah. Hayah. Hayah. Hu chai! Hayah. Hayah.”
I sang with her, “To be, become, to be, He lives! To be. To be.” The song filled my heart, my mind, and my spirit. My breath stilled. Peace filled the earth. Joy danced around and through us.
“Ki tov,” she said with a smile.
“It is good,” I smiled back as her blessing, the first blessing, washed over me.
As I looked around me, the whole of the earth was alive and singing with joy, “Hayah. Hayah. Hayah. Hu chai! Hayah. Hayah.”
When I returned my attention to the lady at the heart of the earth, she raised her arms and said, “I am Mary Magdalene, the Migdal, the anointer. Listen. Do you not hear even the rocks singing the glory of the One who is, was, and ever shall be?”
The whole of the world sang the glory of the Living One, and we sang with them.
The River Beneath Everything
“Behold,” the Magdalene said as she pointed to the earth.
Beneath its surface, a green river flowed and branched like the veins of a leaf. Wherever the green river ran, abundant life sprang from the soil, but its waters were not contained within it. They streamed up and through the living things and splashed into the world like everything were a fountain of life watering the ground and spreading its greening power.
“This is the greening power of God flowing throughout all creation,” the Magdalene said. “This energy, this Viriditas, is the greenness that brings life, wisdom, and joy. The stone is HaMakom, the One in whom we live, move, and have our being. The soil is the creation itself and all that it contains.”
“Is viriditas God?” I asked.
“Yes and no,” she said. “When you think of God, do not imagine a being beyond you or as near to you as your breath. This is an idol in the mind with no hands to offer or receive, no ears to hear or voice to speak. God is not a thing, and neither are you.”
“Then what am I and what is God?”
“You are made in the image of God, so once you understand yourself, you will have a better understanding of God. You are not a thing made of stone, wood, or metal, shaped and unchanging throughout your life. You are a current, a flow of life whose strength and compassion changes the world around you as you flow through it. You are also changed by the world as your flow is diverted, thinned, and deepened by what is around you over time. You live this life as much as it lives you. You are the flow living in constant participation with the world around and within you. You are the sum of these relationships as you change throughout your life.”
“So God is change?”
“God is the eternal and endless flow that we all participate in. Your actions are prayers in this river. God lives in you as you live in God. God can be change just as God can be wisdom, understanding, loving kindness, strength, beauty, splendour, endurance, foundation, and presence. We experience God as the actions or states of being we live. God is the ongoing process of creation, connection, healing, love, and becoming. God is creating, connecting, healing, loving, and becoming. Our greatest worship of God is to participate in the living God in these ways.”
“So, viriditas is participating in these things?”
“Viriditas is the flow that feeds these actions. It is why the plant’s leaves are green, but that greenness does so much more than just give color to the eye. It feeds the plant from the light that shines on it. That is what viriditas is. It is greening.”
The Magdalene dipped her hand into the rich soil and said, “What a blessing the Holy One gave us from the beginning. A blessing open to all.”
“I understand,” I said as I touched the earth, “God is blessing. The earth is blessed and blessing. We are all blessed and blessing.”
“This is what it means to live God,” the Magdalene said, “but you forgot one thing. God is blessed in all prayers, which are the actions of life. God is being, not a being. Viriditas is the greening that flows in God through all things.”
The Three Lords of Babylon
The Magdalene covered her heart with her hand, and sorrow covered her face. When I asked her what was wrong, she pointed to the horizon.
Three stood there. One was proud and gilded with a flaking veneer of gold leaf. Jewelry stiffened the wrists, ankles, and neck as they rubbed the gold leaf from their body. Another stood tall in a polished and decorated suit of armor with a sword in their hand. A strange rattle resounded from within the armor. The third sneered as their hollow, hungry eyes measured the world. They carried a gift that leaked a poisonous miasma from it.
“These are the three enemies of life,” the Magdalene said. “They are not born from the rich soil of the world, and they are not fed by the wellsprings of life. They are born when the ever-changing nature of the world and life is rejected by those who believe they can freeze life and it will somehow still live.
“The first figure you saw is greed. It believes that everything should exist for its own use. It longs to be beautiful, wealthy, and young forever. Everything should serve its wants, desires, and cravings. It hoards, steals, and traps all that fall into its shadow.
“The second figure is fear. The rattling you heard was it quaking within its armor. It is terrified of change, building great walls to defend itself and waging war to feel like it has control over others and the world itself.
“The third figure is lust for power. It seeks to have, not to experience. It lusts for conquest, not for pleasure. What it grasps, it chokes till it withers, then it grabs more. Often, it lacks the patience to wait, and grasps constantly, taking everything it can grab to itself.
“These are the lords of Babylon, the power that corrupts and draws in all things to itself, severing it from life.”
The three figures struck the ground. Greed extracted from the land what it thought would feed it. Fear waged war on all that did not obey without question. Lust for power proclaimed the glory of Babylon and enticed more followers to their banner.
Everywhere they touched the earth dried out. They dammed the flow of viriditas and built walls around the dust of their empire.
“Behold Mitzrayim,” the Magdalene said. “This is the narrow place where life is pressed from the living to feed the machine of empire. It is forged from the ever-thirsting power of Siccitas, dryness. As greed, fear, and lust for power spread their illusory power in the world, they dry out the land so everyone is dependent on them, becoming unfamiliar with the life that could keep them green and growing.”
I said, “How awful these states are. This is terrible.”
“Do not think that siccitas is wielded by the state alone,” the Magdalene said. “If greed, fear, and lust for power take root in your soul, then this power is in you too. Drink from the Living Water, and return to the path or they will leave you as little more than dry bones.”
“How can these be born in a person?” I asked.
“Like all seeds, they require the right conditions to grow,” the Magdalene said. “Siccitas grows from fear. I am not talking about the fear that strikes quickly and is not held too deep in the heart. I am talking about the fear that becomes a dread that spreads through the rest of the soul and consumes it. This dread is born from a certainty in things that are not true. It refuses to consider evidence that it might be wrong. It replaces the search for wisdom with a certainty that plugs the ears and covers the eyes. In order to protect itself from learning it is wrong, it exercises dominion in a vain attempt to keep from losing what it can never hold onto. Finally, it refuses the love of the heart that fights against the fear, certainty, and dominion they need to keep from being moved by the powers of life.”
The Checkerboard Greening
The dry land spread across the face of the earth. Its green withered to ashes. Its rich, dark soils crumbled to dust. Rivers lost their waters, and the birdsong left the sky. Even the stars were cloaked from the night sky so wonder and awe could not rise in the dry land.
Then a dot of green grew amidst the sands. Under the dry earth, the river of viriditas never stopped flowing. Greed, fear, and lust for power sealed the land so its greening power could not rise to the surface.
“Nothing is permanent,” the Magdalene said. “The hard ground eventually cracks and seeds can find the water they need to renew the land. In some places, those trapped in the dry land dug their own wells to bring the water back.”
Paths developed between the green patches, growing into roads.
“No one is lost. No one is abandoned,” the Magdalene said. “Even in the driest land, the way wends through it. At any time, people can turn and walk back to the way, and find the life within them desiring to be born. As more return to the way of life, the greener the world becomes and the more the dryness is pushed back.”
I watched regions green, dry, and then green again.
“Why does the dryness return?” I asked. “Did the greening fail?”
“The greening never fails,” the Magdalene said, “but it does not force itself on others. Just as any can turn their back on the flow of life, anyone can return. Teshuvah, the return, is available to all who seek to return to the flow of life.”
“There is a lightness about you,” I said. “Is it the viriditas that carries you through life?”
“I am greened and connected to life,” the Magdalene said. “When a soul enters into the flow of life they are like a feather floating on the breath of God. The more we cooperate in the life of God, the more we are guided by the Spirit. Become receptive and responsive to the flow of life. Let your feather float on the breath of God as you walk through this world so you will not stray from the flow of life.”
The Green Heart That Grows
The Magdalene touched her forehead and revealed a wreath of evergreen branches growing and living.
“Look closely,” she said. “This is the green power of viriditas at work in me. This is verdure, the green heart/mind that grows in us as we live in the flow of life. Everything we have depends on others. The food we eat, the language we speak, the bodies we inhabit, the wisdom we learn, the love we receive. How could awakening belong to us alone?”
“I suppose it couldn’t,” I said.
“In this life, we know awe, we make space and surrender to what we cannot control, we create, and we stand with those barred from the glories of living by the powers who seek to control and to possess. As the green power and wisdom fills us, it fills us like how water gives rise to the sap. Since we know pain, we can understand the pain of others. Since we understand the pain of others, our own suffering gains meaning. It connects us. This is true of our awe, creativity, and prophetic life in the world.”
I nodded and pondered her words.
“This is why we cultivate verdure. It is the greenness within us, and it calls us to help others grow green in themselves. When we truly see ourselves, we find others there. And when we truly see others, we find ourselves there. Compassion is what remains when that understanding becomes complete.
“We do not grow verdurous for ourselves alone, or the land we are in will dry up again and we build a Babylon for ourselves. That is far from the way.
“We green ourselves so we can share our living with others until they open up to the greening available to them in all things. Our verdure is the reservoir that sustains us through the dry times and helps others to find the life they have been denied.”
She Speaks to All Who Will Hear
Mary Magdalene took me deep into an ancient oak forest. We sat on logs of trees that had fallen and now replenish the soil below them. Here she proclaimed the way of living in this greenness:
Dearest one, this is the wisdom of the Greening Earth, the Living Word of the Christ who speaks from the stones, the trees, and the rivers. This is the way of the Wild Christ who dances in the clouds above, and the depths of the seas far below, and in the green and dried lands.
In the visions, you saw four true things:
The first is the truth of Viriditas. Everything was created in original blessing, and it overflows with the divine greening power. The soul is a garden that grows green as we flow in its energy and wisdom.
The second is the truth of Siccitas. Dryness can enter the heart through the clinging to or aversion from the ever-changing nature of the world. All pleasure fades, and suffering is a real part of life. When the greening is blocked, dryness, brittleness, and the systems of Babylon clog the streams. Fear, false certainty, domination, and the refusal of the love that animates the heart create the wasteland in the soul and the world.
The third is the truth that the wasteland can be healed. Siccitas is not the final word. Viriditas lies sleeping beneath the dry ground, waiting. The return of the waters is always possible. This greening begins wherever one soul opens.
The fourth is the truth of Teshuvah. The path of return exists. Turning back toward the green is always available. There is no guilt in this turning, but the return of those who have gone astray is celebrated in heaven and on earth.
To ensure we walk in this wisdom we learn to walk in the Ten Greening Ways. These are the dances and steps we take. We walk them together and with one another. We walk these ways not by force. They teach us to live as a feather carried on the breath of God.
The first is the way of Caritas. Caritas is love as the animating fire of all the virtues. Here we cultivate the Sacred Heart within us that drives the whole greening life outward into the world.
The second is the way of Simcha. Simcha is joy as practice and ground. It is more than a feeling, it is a way of living in this world. It is not earned at the end of the journey but received at the beginning and cultivated throughout. It is the atmosphere born from the greening that makes the whole Way possible.
The third is the way of Humilitas. Humilitas is groundedness in the soil of reality. It teaches us to be rooted in original blessing rather than inflated by false certainty. This is the soil in which viriditas takes root.
The fourth is the way of Emunah. Emunah is faith as confidence in the path. As we see freedom, liberation, and the transformation in our lives, our faith grows and it steadies us on the way.
The fifth is the way of Ahmahl. Ahmahl is effort as living faith enacted. It is when we find awe, let go, let be, make space, create, celebrate, and interfere with injustice. The work of our thoughts, words, and deeds is Ahmahl. These are the works of the heart that prove and strengthen faith. Here we learn to tend the garden through right diligence.
The sixth is the way of speaking, “Hineini,” honestly. Hineini means I am here. It is a statement of full presence, “I am completely here.” It signals readiness, availability, attentiveness, and commitment. It is mindfulness as full-body present attention. Here I am, in this moment, in this body, available to what is actually here.
The seventh is the way of Kavanah. Kavanah is the intention behind our actions, concentration as breakthrough. It penetrates into the nature of what is there so the deep waters can be seen and drawn from.
The eighth is the way of Chokmah. Chokmah is the wisdom we gain from walking the path and living life. She is the insight that frees the soul from fear, despair, and the lies of Babylon.
The ninth is the way of Discretio. Discretio is discernment as the mother of all virtues. This is the practical wisdom of knowing what each moment of the spiral dance requires; reading the paths of awe, silence, creativity, and transformation rightly. The process is simple: recognize if something is truly valuable; check if it is genuine, not a counterfeit; verify it bears the right image or intention; and ensure it has the proper weight or substance.
The tenth is the way of Tikkun. Tikkun is the repair of the world. It is the liberation of the trapped lights, the greening of creation, and shalom, the peace that brings wholeness.
The Fruit of Viriditas
When she was done speaking, she placed her hands over her heart and said a quiet prayer.
“Blessed and blessing Font of All Life, whose image is the pattern of creation, open the hearts, minds, and spirits of your children so they might live in the peace that passes all understanding through the love you share with us all.”
As she lifted her hands, the Sacred Heart of Jesus shone from her chest.
“This is the heart of Christ within every believer. Through it, mercy and love flow.”
She looked from the ground to the heavens, and I knew from the awe in her eyes that in every moment she beheld God.
“A pure heart is a righteous heart that lives in right relationship with itself and the world. All that it did not need has been let go, and it burns with the love that animates all.”
The Magdalene touched the sacred heart and said, “This is the fruit of the viriditas, the fruit of the tree the Christ hung on. It grows in all who live in love. Cultivate the tree of life within you so this fruit may grow ripe in you.”
Light radiated from her and the sacred heart.
“May the Glory of God ever guide your steps. May the Living Word enlighten your mind and ever be on your tongue. May the Presence of God ever hold you in her loving arms. Amen.”
Viriditas. The greening power. Hildegard knew it. The forest knows it. Creation’s Paths: A Creation Spirituality Primer is for everyone who has ever felt the divine moving through roots and rain and refused to call that feeling anything less than holy.
