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Author, theologian, and spiritual elder, Reverend Matthew Fox, shares his profound wisdom and deep insights about the essential importance of our relationship with Mother Earth, our celebration of the Divine Feminine, and our connection with Creation Spirituality. Having written 40 books on spirituality, history, and culture, Reverend Fox draws upon centuries of knowledge and wisdom from indigenous and mystical traditions world-wide… particularly from the Rhineland Mystic Movement of the medieval European Renaissance, and a most extraordinary woman at its helm: Hildegard von Bingen.
In his book Hildegard of Bingen: A Saint for Our Times – Unleashing Her Power in the 21st Century, Reverend Fox discusses the towering insights, inspirations, and contributions from Hildegard von Bingen, the 12th century abbess, writer, painter, composer, theologian, herbalist, healer, feminist, rabble-rouser, and mystic known as the “Sybil of the Rhine.” Hildegard von Bingen had an extraordinary life of awakened mystical experiences (including visions of angels and stirring experiences of the Divine flowing and flowering through nature ~ especially in the form of the “great greening” life-giving energy which she called “Viriditas”), of creative “renaissance” genius, of executive leadership of her Abbess, and of engaged social and political activism, including numerous written critiques of corrupt popes, kings, and other potentates beholden to the ossified power-grip of patriarchal hierarchies.
ABOUT HILDEGARD VON BINGEN
Impacting great figures from Bernard de Clairvaux to Thomas Aquinas, Meister Eckhart, Francis of Assisi, Julian of Norwich, and Albertus Magnus, Hildegard von Bingen emanates influential ripples throughout society and across time. She celebrates music, song, joy, wetness, the dripping “sap of life”, the greening power of the Holy Spirit, and the special invitation to co-create with Divine immanence that is among our unique birthrights as human beings. With roots in the Celtic mysticism of pre-historic Europe and even lesser-known connectivity between Celtic peoples and the Hopi and other indigenous nations across the Atlantic, Hildegard von Bingen represents a certain AI – “authentic intelligence” – that is essential for the great turning that humanity is currently experiencing on planet Earth in the 21st century.
And Reverend Matthew Fox, a towering luminary in his own right, shines the light of hope, truth, inspiration, and loving compassion on all of this for us. In this episode, he discusses the web of life, the wisdom of understanding “original blessing” (and Original Instructions) instead of “original sin,” the deep pathology of dualistic religious systems that promulgate theological errors like the separation of mind and body, the separation of spirit and matter, the justification of patriarchal dominance, the oppression of women and indigenous peoples, and the diminution and desecration of the Divine ~ especially the Divine’s immanent Creation and the Divine Feminine and Creatrix aspect of Cosmic Divinity.
Although many of us engaged in the sustainability and regeneration movement might spend much of our time focused on technological developments, innovative economic systems, and ecosystem restoration practices, the fundamental worldviews / gestalts / and Weltanschauungen laid bare by luminaries like Matthew Fox and Hildegard von Bingen are essential for our deep psycho-spiritual and cultural healing. If we are going to evolve in order to heal, restore, survive, and thrive as humans on planet Earth, we are going to need much more embodiment of the wisdom that luminaries like Hildegard von Bingen and Reverend Matthew Fox reveal.
ABOUT REVEREND MATTHEW FOX
Reverend Matthew Fox is an elder, activist, spiritual theologian, and the author of 34 books on spirituality and culture. He has taught at Stanford University, and is the founder of the University of Creation Spirituality. He was a member of the Dominican Order of the Roman Catholic Church for 34 years until silenced by the Vatican in 1989 and formally dismissed in 1993. Now an Episcopal priest, he travels extensively sharing his vision of a spirituality that includes mysticism and social justice rather than patriarchal orthodoxy, and that celebrates the marriage of the Divine Feminine and the Sacred Masculine. He has written 40 books and co-founded both the Cosmic Mass Movement and the Order of the Sacred Earth.
RESOURCES & RELATED EPISODES
DailyMeditationsWithMatthewFox.org
Episode 115 – Brad Lidge & Aaron Perry Discussing his Novel “Viriditas”
Episode 062 – Pastor Brian Kunkler on Permaculture & Hopeful Theology
Episode 050 – Anita Sanchez on Women’s Voices, Indigenous Wisdom & the Sacred Hoop of Life
Episode 040 – Kimba Arem, on Sound Healing, Water, and Medicinal Music
Episode 032 – Lila Sophia Tresemer, Co-Founder of Star House Temple
Episode 019 – Brigitte Mars on the Power of Herbal Medicine
Episode 004 – Reverend Fletcher Harper on the Green Faith Movement
Transcript
(Automatically generated transcript for search engine optimization and reference purposes – grammatical and spelling errors may exist.)
Welcome to the YonEarth Community Podcast. I’m your host, Aaron William Perry. And today
we have the opportunity to visit with spiritual elder, author, and activist Matthew Fox.
Hey Matthew, how you doing? Oh, you’re good to be with you. It’s good to be with you
as well, my friend. And I’m really looking forward to our conversation and sharing it with our
audience. Matthew Fox is an elder activist, spiritual theologian and the author of 40 books on
spirituality and culture. He has taught at Stanford University and is the founder of the University
of Creation Spirituality. He was a member of the Dominican Order of the Roman Catholic Church
for 34 years until silenced by the Vatican in 1989 and formally dismissed in 1993. Now in
Episcopal priest, he travels extensively, sharing his vision of a spirituality that includes
mysticism and social justice rather than patriarchal orthodoxy. And that celebrates the marriage
of the divine feminine and the sacred masculine. And Matthew for our conversation today, I’m
so thrilled that while we’re going to discuss a few different dimensions of your work and some of
your other books, we’re going to focus for the most part on this particular work that you’ve
written about Hildegard of being in a saint for our times, unleashing her power in the 21st century.
And I’m curious to ask just to kick things off. Matthew, why Hildegard from being in what’s
important about a woman from some 900 years ago to our world today?
Well, she was a Benedictine Abbas in the 12th century. In the 12th century, she was a very special
century. A parishioner of mine meant to his greatest story and says the 12th century Renaissance
is the only Renaissance that worked in the West. At the 16th century of the Renaissance, it gets all
the news and the spotlight. It was tapped down, but the 12th century was bottom up. It was freed
serves. It was young people therefore. And it was women. And it was a different kind of
Renaissance from the bottom up. And Hildegard lived through that. She lived from 1098 to
when 1181 I think. So she lived through a big part of the 12th century and she was a big part of
that because she was such a genius in music, for example, but also in she wrote 10 books,
several of them on science. As far as they had science in that day, one book is all about
stones and rocks and animals and trees and so forth. And she had this voracious curiosity.
And she was a shaker and a mover. She was a painter. She wrote the oldest opera in the
West for 300 years, including the libretto. She was a poet. And she was a healer. And she
she was shoot her womanfully. She grew up, if you will, in a Catholic monastery, but for men and
women lived together, though in different parts of the building, but they got together. And
when her first book came out, it became so popular that a lot of women were on display with her.
So they came to the monastery to join and the men wouldn’t move over and give rooms. So she took
all her nuns and moved out with their dowries. Back then, you’d have a dowry to be in that.
And started her own monastery and it became so full. She has started a second one across the river
Rhine. And we have a letter from the abbot saying, oh, come back, come back, bring the nuns and
bring their dowries with you. And her letter back to him, which we have is all about injustice.
So she didn’t think she was treated well. So she has moved down. So she was a strong woman
in a time of great efforts by the patriarchal establishment to keep women in their place.
And she did not, can I say, go along with that, happily. So she’s a tremendous figure.
She would just canonize the saint about 10 years ago and made a doctor of the church.
And there are only three other women who were doctor of the church. So she was a genius.
No question about it and a great soul. And so she’s speaking to us today because one thing,
she’s so earth conscious that she has an entire understanding of the importance of it. She
calls guys about mother earth, who’s the mother of all things. He pays the seeds of all things.
And she says, we must not destroy mother earth. And so obviously she’s an equal prophet. She’s
great voice in favor of opening up our minds that we’re not just here to serve each other,
but to serve future generations and earth itself and the other creatures. So she’s a real ecological
prophet in that way. And she has a lot of lessons that are really important to us today.
I really appreciate how in the book it tees out so much of her wisdom and thread those lessons
together with some other more contemporary authors works. And one of the things you mentioned
very early on in the book is that pilgrimage from Bingan is a herald of the divine feminine.
And I was hoping you could walk us through. What does that mean? And why is that especially important
now given the history and the legacy of an out of balanced patriarchy?
Yes, you know, Rosemary Ruther was great,
Catholic women, theologian, feminist theologian. She says that the basis of patriarchy and its shadow
side is dualist, a separation of matter and spirit, separation of soul and body and so forth.
And Yildegard in so many ways heals that dualism. But she talks about how
forace is present and everything, how there is a radiance in all beings. And that radiance
is the docks of the glory of the divine. And so she brings us back to to this consciousness
of microcosm and macrocosm. That too is your sin. We see of this psychology. And by the way,
Carl Jung knew Yildegard very well. And he says the future psychology is microcosm, macrocosm.
So that we humans are the microcosm. We’re a small cosmos. But we relate to the whole cosmos,
the macrocosm. Well, that opens a door to web telescope and everything you’re learning about
the cosmos to the 13.8 billion year story that we’re learning about our history and that of the
earth and all the rest. So it’s a tremendous opening because modern consciousness and obviously
Yildegard is pre-modern living in the Torah century. But she thinks like indigenous people do
you see. In fact, the very first time they translated her a couple of her poems. And I share them
in class, a master’s degree class. I just shared one of her poems. And me and this young man
spoke up. He said, I’ve just returned from living on a Indian reservation for 13 years.
That lady you just cited sounds exactly like the medicine man who was my spiritual teacher,
spiritual director. I was just hit by that. I was amazed. First time in a dawn that made
that a 12th century man is thinking like a 20th century Lakota man, medicine man. And she is,
because of course all medieval mystics, Master of Eckhart and Thomas Aquinas and Francis of
Acesia of course in Julian North. They all thought more like indigenous people do than modern
consciousness does because the modern begins with the human, with the part and not with the whole
day card. I think therefore I know, Mr. Daykart, you are because 13.8 billion years
burst you, earth the earth and all that consists. So you know, it’s not all about I. And yet the
modern culture has been all about I and that’s why it’s all collapsing today. That’s why education
is a working religion isn’t working and economic and politics aren’t working. And the earth
herself, of course, is under stress. So all this is part of healed guys way of seeing the world,
seeing the context in which humans bring something special. We bring our creativity and she’s,
she herself is a proof of that with her gifts of music and painting and healing and so much else.
She’s so in touch with her deeper nature and her creative nature. So all this is part of the
return of compassion and the return of the feminine energy of creativity and wisdom. She says,
this is a great line. She says, there’s wisdom in all creative works, wisdom in all creative works.
We see our patriarchal educational system for centuries has focused on knowledge and we’ve
discovered a lot. We discovered so much. We got in their computers to store all our information.
But where are we on the spectrum of wisdom? We’re going to come to wisdom. We’re pretty short
shorted. And so we should be looking at people like I killed the guard for wisdom that matches
our knowledge because knowledge alone can grow up the world as we know and as we can see going
on in Ukraine. So she remembered that wisdom is feminine around the world,
feminine in the biblical languages, feminine around the book, cornean and all the rest.
And of course compassion is a feminine energy. It really comes from the word for womb in both
Hebrew and Arabic. The word for womb gives us the word for compassion. So and that doesn’t mean
women hold all compassion or women hold all wisdom. It’s about really recovering the deeper
dimensions of masculinity that are left out when patriarchy is defining masculinity in its very
limited way of the reptilian brain being number one and conquering everyone else like a reptile
crocodile. So this is why he’ll regard can shake up both their understanding of the feminine
but our understanding of the masculine as well and of our institutions. In fact, I am that book
and you got that far but it’s kind of a satirical my conclusion chapter is entitled
is he’ll regard a Trojan horse and the Vatican because the person who
worked for canonizer mayor Dr. Tursk is Karna Raja here at Benedict the 16th book and he’s
anything but a feminine stem. He came after me. His first objection of my work was called
I am a feminist theologian. And his second objection was that I call God mother. So that fellow
is a no-way kind of god side and it comes to your feminism. But that’s why I call her Trojan horse.
He named her a saint and adopted the church and wheeled her right into the hatch and
front door at the Vatican’s front door and this lady is going to
call out of that horse with a lot of other strong women and men who are in touch with the
feminine angle on things and could really do a job on our patriarchal institutions
and the Roman Catholic Church is a pretty good place to start.
No doubt about it. It’s so interesting to me how that
sense of spiritual connection that is so profoundly connected to the natural living world,
to Mother Earth, to creation, to the the greening power of the plant kingdom that provides life to
this planet. And it seems there’s so many of us these days Matthew who are so disconnected from
that intimate relationship that Hildegard speaks of. So many of us not even aware that we’re
disconnected, not even aware that there’s this entirely different way of being in communion and
community with the living earth. And I’m curious because I think this is such a foundational,
important aspect of Hildegard’s work and what she means in our time today. What does this
look like and mean to you, this intimate connection with nature? Why is it important? How do we
cultivate it? Well I like that you just use the the term intimate twice because that’s so much
apart of it. Recovering our intimate relationship to nature because after all nature feeds us
and nature is us and our breath is in all the languages of the world practically certainly
biblical in the but around the world. The word for spirit and breath are the same words.
So and of course we now know that breath as we know it is the air that we breathe but it
it runs out about 10 miles from here and when you get up to the stratosphere there’s no air so
you know our astronauts have to bring air with them and so forth. So you know the lesson is hey
don’t take it for granted, don’t take air for granted, don’t take healthy air for granted,
and don’t take your lungs for granted you know. So as you say what’s more intimate than air,
you know the breath that we breathe and you know a lot of spiritual practices,
meditations are indeed about paying attention to your breath not taking it for granted and following
that rhythm putting yourself in the presence of breath and rhythm but it’s not just breath that
gives us this food literally plants and photosynthesis and animals of eat plants and birds of
eat plants and all the rest. So I mean where are we without nature? We’re we’re dead. We’re out of here
and so again we can take for granted for so long and I think that again the modern era the great
rust of the whole era was about conquering and about knowledge and knowledge in itself is not
bad but let’s know it’s too little wisdom is very very dangerous in the hands of human beings
because we can tear down a rainforest in a day that has taken nature and got 10,000 years to
give birth to and once we tear down a rainforest it doesn’t come back as a rainforest.
So and rainforests we’re learning more or more so basic to our survival not just because
of the absorbed accompanied oxide and recyclence of the earth but also because there’s so many plants
that are medicinal there so many we haven’t even discovered yet that there’s so many other gifts
that the rainforest gives us but we all have to recover we’ll you say this intimate relationship
and that with earth and that’s how Hildegard talks to she actually says that the relationship of
the divine tool nature is that of our husband to wife and of lovers to each other that there’s
something intimate going on here between the the creator and creation and why would we want
not to be part of that and so her approach to ecology is not about stewardship it’s not about
we have to do this duty it is about how to lovers act with each other and you know you don’t ignore
any other and you don’t take for granted and you give and you receive and again this is a very
indigenous approach to our relationship to the earth that you can’t just be taking all the time
as a species we have to give back as well we have to return and recycle and we have to think
of future generations how healthy with our grandchildren’s world be in terms of earth air
fire energy and water though there are essential questions today as they have always been only
today we’re in a perilous situation obviously that we’re coming to the to the end of the
life in our species is so overdone our rapacious reptilian brain approach to nature that nature is
beginning to bite us and she she predicted that would have but she said we live in a in a web
of life creation as a web and we’re in this web with all these other creatures and of course
a web is flexible it goes at the wind and so forth it’s strong the flexible is not rigid
but she says if human injustice and greed breaks this web the way she puts it is God will allow
creation to punish humanity so as not God coming at us with vengeance it’s creation that if we
cannot honor the other creatures and the our relationships with them in this web that if we
break the web well and that’s what we want by scientific to see is you’re going to rise
and they’re going to be drought through already is they’re going to be more floods and more
hurricanes than there already is and more wildfires and there already is that going on so you know
she actually I think warn us what what an ego approach to nature does which includes of course
forgetting and just thinking it’s a it’s a resource that we can extract continually obviously
it’s a finite resource and we cannot just extract but you know there are many humans today a lot
of scientists who are of course seeing the children we’re in and are putting in the gear are
wonderful imaginations and intellects to create alternative energy and all the rest and she
talks about that too she says the greatest gift that humans have is our intellect and which is
a acknowledgement obviously that a healthy feminine like a healthy masculine honors the rational
as well as the intuitive and she she had both her that’s where she was so
keen on science she says all science comes from God so there’s nothing anti intellectual about
hooligan she was thoroughly curious and a student of science and so far as it was
available in her time there’s one story about it like this planet says a lot about a
one day she got a message from Switzerland that there is a a possessed woman in Switzerland
they wanted her to come down and do an exercise she woke back and said I don’t do exercise but
boy do I want to see a possessed woman so I’m getting on the next level so I just think that’s
very telling of her personality she was radically curious as any good scientist should be and she
was going to check it out for herself telling us a fun story of other things and by the way she
was preaching all over Germany and Switzerland too and we have letters from Bishop saying
will you send us a copy of your the sermon you gave people are still talking about it and it’s
been three months since you were here so and her main message was to syrup the clergy she said
the clergy are too lazy they’re not prophetic enough and she wrote letters to the emperor to the
Pope to Archbishop’s to Abbas telling them they were failing and they were she told the Pope he was
wrong about evil man who who act like hands and packing at night and so forth he’s evil people
around you and everything and she wrote the emperor of our brochure and said you know man up you’re
acting like a baby your job is to do justice it’s not to
bring yourself in all their best and she wrote Abbas instead that they acted like asses and
donkeys and bears they rumble like a bear I mean she didn’t hold back when she took on the
potentates of her time and yet they listened to her I think they were scared of her frankly because
she claimed to have visions she painted her visions and I think they figured that she had more
access to this virtual world than they did and and they were probably right wow
you mentioned Switzerland and Germany and in the book you discuss what you call the
Rhineland Mystic movement and of course the Rhine River runs from Switzerland down to the
northwest more or less to the lowlands of Germany and out toward Holland can you tell us a bit
about this region and what was going on in this time and and how there are other important
individuals some of whom you’ve already mentioned in addition to Hildegard von Bingen that were in
this region out this time and kind of what was going on in the world them sure and of course
Bingen is right on the Rhine and you can visit her monastery today by his current state the
the one she built was the store in the 17th century by the Swedish Swedes when they invaded
but they built no one better than the same grounds but yeah I call it a grandmother Rhineland
Mystics and the Rhine and Mystic movement certainly includes Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas
he studied in Cologne and Albert worked in Cologne and of course I’m nice to Eckhart because
he worked in Strasbourg and in Cologne Christian Cologne and there and Chris Arain was was a great river
not unlike the Mississippi in terms of its its dominance its importance for commerce and business and
of course on that time you didn’t have the highways we have today or you had your roads but the
point is you did most of the work by by boat and so you these great cities were on the Rhine and
so you had the the Celts settled there early and here we go there’s actually an
Celtic monastery on the Rhine in Germany and that’s why she lived in a by gender monastery because
the Celts weren’t those about bringing men and women together they weren’t as hung up on
sexes of seven Europeans were like a destined and in Italy but so the Rhine even produced I
think the Rhine and Mystics I think Francis of Assisi though he lived in Northern Italy but the
Celts sold into Northern Italy and the Francis of Sisi is very Celtic also in his spirituality like
he’ll be got very nature oriented very oriented to the animals and to the cosmos too
um his greatest poem he doesn’t even mention Jesus once but he talks about brother son and sister
moon and silver so a very cosmic view of the world very Celtic therefore and um so and then Julian
Norwich of course lived in England not on the Rhine literally but in fact she’s are the Rhine and
Mystic movement because she drew from these great mystics that came from the Rhine directly or
indirectly so Hildegard was first Francis of Sisi was born two years after Hildegard died
so the lineage goes Hildegard Francis then Thomas Aquinas mech till the Maid de Berwick
Maid de Berwick is a city in Germany and um and then myster Eckhard as I say who was um
who worked on the Rhine and and was German from Therengia and then um Julian Norwich over over
in Norwich so so it’s a wonderful movement of healthy creation centered and really Celtic based
um uh mystic prophets they weren’t just mystics they also stood up and were counted and got in
trouble I mean that’s why you know Hildegard wasn’t or was again a nice for 800 years that’s a
long time to wait that’s like a record almost and why well because when she was 81 she was
excommunicated by an Irish Bishop along with Oliver Nuns they were interdicted which means
her whole monastery was excommunicated totally shut up they couldn’t even sing the office anymore
and she wrote a letter back to the Irish Bishop and said oh dear Irish Bishop we are obeying you
we’re not singing our our office and nor our arm and uh she said you’ve silenced the most beautiful
music on the Rhine meaning her own which was literally true and uh and then she said all
prophesied music she talked about David and she talked about all the office who made music and
what but you’ve chosen to silence music and she she goes on and on at the end she signs it at
space she says those who choose to silence music in this lifetime will go to a place in the next
where there is no music now for literally for Hildegard that literary means she’s telling the
Bishop he’s going to hell because when Hildegard did her opera uh it’s about the virtues the play
of the virtues and so charity is singing away and and countenance is singing away and wisdom is
singing away but the devil in the play is walking around talking and mumbling he can’t sing you say
devils devils don’t say she thinks heaven is a place of music and um so that has to be most the
most creative way anyone has ever told the Irish Bishop they’re going to hell and I think that’s
one very important reason why she was a can of dance for 800 years it took the hierarchy that
but should I say get over that particular insult wow yeah speaking of the the virtues and I love
the music thread I’ll come back to that especially with your beautiful painting with Miles Davis
behind you there and I love how there’s some some verdant green in there like some Veridi toss right
in there uh yes and of course you took the Veridi toss Hildegard’s word for greening bar has
the title for your important novel too so that’s a special connection you to have obviously
but remember that word for her so rich she says that where this she compares greening power
Veridi toss to the sap of a tree and she compares it to the Holy Spirit she says the Holy Spirit
is green and of course green is the heart chakra color isn’t it so uh and of course it’s very
important to the Catholic people isn’t it the green Shamrock and all that so all this greening
power she is a very important concept tour it’s really her central concept and um it is about the
inherent energy and and sap of um of life and this is really what what spirituality is all about is
is getting in tune with that with that sap and that energy he says for example the only sin
in life is drying up she says and um she writes bishops and abbots and says get out of your libraries
you’re you’re drying up do whatever it takes to get wet and green and moist and juicy those are
her words the asus spiritual is about staying green and staying creative and clearly she was
walking her talk and uh preaching from her own experience there because she was so so creative
and uh uh deliberate in her awareness as she she has a form she says oh Trinity you are music
you are life so um this uh this whole idea that the music is is behind everything and you know
I think that’s today’s physics actually that vibration is what makes things go around that every
Adam and universe is vibrating well that’s what music is it’s vibration and she she picked up
the music of this fear she talks about she gathered her singular songs uh and there are 72 of them
and the titles she gave the collection was the symphony of the heavenly revelations so um you know
today scientists are picking up the sounds even of the earliest um uh sounds of the universe
and so sound is with us all the time and um you know the the Hindus talk about and the
beginning was the sound and and of course Charles gospel has it the beginning was the word
that he’ll be guarded and uh and remember the kales win flims by the hinduism i mean the kales
came from india so um in a way he’ll be guarded saying in the beginning was the music and uh
make sure this is what the aboriginal is an australia say they say that and that uh every creature has
its own is was born with its own song and the life’s journey is discovering that song and then
putting it in harmony with other beings songs so that we live harmoniously and i think it’s a very
beautiful way of seeing the world and again it’s um it’s microcosm and macrocosm finding
the sound of the universe and um in letting it stir us and keep us green i remember a reading
in one of my favorite books called nada brahma the world is sound by the german author yachim
and he apparently was instrumental in you know pun intended in bringing together some of the western
jazz musicians with some of the eastern classical indian uh raga musicians and anyway in that book he
talks about there was a uh jazz uh musician i’m forgetting his name who identified the f sharp
note as the green note and it turns out that with our uh modern instrumentation we’re able to
uh determine that when photosynthesis is occurring the chlorophyll is vibrating at a very high
frequency overtone of f sharp and so it’s indeed a green note uh yeah and so i mean there there really
is such an incredible fundamental connection between tone vibration sound music and creation
creativity and of course hildegard emphasized the importance of creativity as a way of being almost
a spiritual practice and you lay out in the in the book four different ways right the the via
positiva negative uh et cetera and i was hoping you might walk us through Matthew quickly those uh
those four different ways of approaching our our spiritual life and our our work our service
in the world yeah yes and i found these in in uh my strach are actually they weren’t
explicitly named there but they’re definitely there so the via positiva is our experience of
awe and wonder enjoy and reverence and gratitude flows from that via negative it is first of all
our experience of silence that emptiness we often call it mindfulness or or contemplation
but it’s also our experience of suffering and grief and loss chaos and or and what miss is called
the dark air of the soul so all that is part of the via negative and and we all go through these
this rhythm of positive and negative then there’s a via creativa comes next because out of this
emptying that happens in the via negative uh comes birth comes new birth new ideas and a response
that we make to both the joys of life and the suffering of life and uh that’s our creativity
but our creativity needs steering it needs direction because we can do what we want creativity we can
create nuclear weapons we can invade another country like Ukraine we can tear down
rainforest in a day that’s all creative but of a negative kind so the via transfer of
anger comes next and that’s the way of compassion and justice and it’s a way of healing and of
celebration compassion is not only about relieving pain it’s also about gathering to share the joy
and to heal and to gin up the energy of the community so i see those four paths as meaning and
they don’t stop with the via jump from it here then because i see it as an open-ended spiral that
grows and so i see it went back then to the via positive because the purpose of justice is to
bring more people to the to the banquet of life if you will and that’s then we’re back to the via
positive again and we go through those uh that journey again and you can see in hildegard this she is
playing at this depth on a regular basis at all four of the of the four paths are um named by her
they’re named in her music uh they’re named in her writing and they’re even named in her life
as the hour and in all of our lives so i think it’s a very solid way uh then assured by jewish scholars
that it is the biblical way of Judaism uh to name the these spiritual journey and in this way
that it culminates with justice and compassion but it begins with um gratitude and and notice
even Genesis one doesn’t say anything about evil it’s all about how good nature is and when
humans come on which is very late as it is in the new scientific story we’re very late um everything
is very good so that’s what i mean by original blessing it a term that got got me in a lot of trouble
with the Vatican the previous Vatican out the current one but um uh that original goodness is
is the name of the game to be born into a planet as unique and special as this that works and as
all this beautiful diversity from giraffes and elephants to rainforests and the rest um why wouldn’t
we want to call that blessing as another word for goodness and build on that and i think that’s
the big struggle we’re in is a species that we’ve got our own agenda we’ve been
going each other for long enough that seems to be one of our favorite agendas and we’ve got to tap
tap more into the mammal brain which is that brain that’s capable of kinship the family and
forgiveness and uh and compassion and so um you know that’s how we’ve got to move is a species
we’re gonna survive and uh i think that’s where we’re at kind of historically and and great mystics
that killed the garden their own way um they just out for us and you know she she wrote a lot
about evil about humane’s capacity for evil but she always balances it like she had one book
where she lists thirty six human vices but is balanced by thirty six uh human virtues if you will
powers and uh that’s how she teaches about ethics and morality that we’ve got these choices and um
you know we really ought to live up to them and grow up that’s why i say she could a size emperor for
being a baby and uh and not manning up not not being an adult choosing wisely and and the you know
to bring about justice which she considered his job is about finding ballots and it’s not just yielding
to your whims for power for power sake and all the rest yeah I’m so struck by the profound connection between creativity and justice and service, the sense of service.
I think often in our contemporary culture, we get the sense of a creative artist type as being very self-absorbed and not necessarily consciously working in service to humanity or perhaps it’s only through the art itself, right?
And with an individual like Hildegard, we see this far more expansive approach to being in service across a variety of disciplines, while also being a very creative artist.
And it makes me think of one of the vices that you call out in the book, one that gets translated as sloth, as Sadia, I guess is the term we derived this from in the Greek.
Can you tell us a bit, Matthew, about this Sadia, and really what it might mean is providing us a little bit of wisdom and insight in these days when I think so many of us and feeling like, you know, perhaps there’s not much we can do in the world right now and we decide to sit on our couches and said, right?
Yes, Thomas Aquinas defines a Sadia as a lack of energy to begin new things.
And I think that’s very practical, very down the earth, a lack of energy to begin new things.
And I think it’s so prevalent that in our lifetime, we’ve invented a new word for us, fistful around, and that word is couch potatoitis, as you just alluded to, that is being passive.
And those who make the real decisions, the corporations and the powers behind them want us to be that way.
This is the agenda that we be passive and that them make all the decisions.
Well, I think it’s been proven that making decisions to tear down rain for us and to to mine, our carbon based energy is a bad decision.
It’s going to kill the planet as we know it and certainly our species is manure.
So we’ve got a decision making and to get involved means to stand up to a city, it means to, and then Aquinas says, what’s the solution to a city?
And he says that that zero comes from an intense experience of the beauty of things.
I think it’s so beautiful.
Zero comes. That’s energy. That’s the opposite of a city. That’s getting out of our cost, but you know, zero comes from the intense experience of the beauty of things.
That beauty is an answer that being in love, and that’s another thing moving from the anthropocentric consciousness of the modern era, I think, before I am.
Hopefully more broad cosmological self is a recognition that that the beauty of things, the beauty of the earth, as you were talking about the intimacy, you know, just it can be a, it can be a hummingbird.
It can be something that small that alerts us.
They were living in a place that we didn’t make. We didn’t make this planet. We didn’t make the earth. We didn’t make our bodies.
Really, we certainly didn’t make the air our bodies breathe. So you know, let’s just get a little humble and ask, where is the future lie?
And it lies with that intuition of beauty and falling in love. So again, the modern conscience has us falling in love with one too late a person until death to us park.
Well, for sure, that doesn’t always work. Secondly, it’s an office small part of the world. No, we need to follow the world. It may be for us and maybe wildflowers and maybe animals. It may be poetry, it may be music, but that’s what we have to open up.
And that’s pathway to moving beyond the city is falling in love with something bigger than ourselves. And that’s that’s the way.
So I think that a city of names a real problem in our civilization today. So big a problem that we’ve made up a new word for it.
That’s always a good sign. Check the vocabulary. If you need a new word like couch potatoitis, well, you’re undergoing something that other species that other times of humans have not undergo.
You know, you know, there is a Australian theologian lecturing in Africa a few years ago. And he came to the combination of a study. He’d been translated after East-Santons he would pause it.
They would transcend this way. Evie. And the last sentence was the number one spiritual problem in Sydney today is loneliness.
And the translator huddled with some others that when you repeat that sentence, please, you repeated it. So they huddled and he came to my friends. I’m sorry, sir. There is no word in our language for loneliness.
Well, God, no word in the language for loneliness. And you know, if we know anything, we know about cosmic loneliness in English and in America and in Australia.
So I mean, language tells us a lot, doesn’t it? And I think, of course, we’re lonely because we’re out of touch with the intimacy, as you said, of the rest of nature.
And when you’re living enough, just a man-made bubble loneliness is a daily happening.
So that’s just an example, I think, that we have to move out of this acedia, this cost potatoitis. And the path is path of beauty and falling in love with things that are other than just the human.
I so appreciate that particular theme and thread Matthew. And maybe I’ll remind our audience. This is the YonEarth community podcast. And I’m your host, Aaron William Perry.
And today we’re visiting with author spiritual elder Matthew Fox, who’s written several books. We’re discussing quite a bit the hildegarde of being in a safe for our times.
And I want to also ask in a moment and question about your other book order of the sacred earth, your other book amongst some 40 different books.
And real quick, I’ll give a shout out to some of our sponsors who make this hot cast series possible. That includes Purium, organic super foods. And by the way, you can get special deals and discounts with many of our sponsors at YonEarth.org on our partners and supporters page.
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And a big shout out to our ambassadors who are engaged in such beautiful important work worldwide. And with whom we gather at least monthly online and or in person for ceremony for sharing for inspiration for fellowship.
And if you haven’t become an ambassador and you’d like to join connect in that way, you can go to the page on the website called becoming ambassador and engage in the journey that way.
Of course, we’ve also got our greedy toss society, which is a recent addition where we’re focusing a bit more on the ceremonial, the spiritual, the nature immersion, the wilderness immersion work, the biodynamic land stewardship work.
And this Matthew is at least in my mind and heart very, very connected in a resonant way with the organization that you’ve shared with the world called order of the sacred earth.
And I find when you were speaking about loneliness that I actually experienced this from time to time, it surprises me actually that I can experience loneliness as often as I do, given that the work that I do has me connected with so many amazing folks like yourself doing tremendous things worldwide.
But there are these moments where I do feel this, this kind of disconnection, this kind of loneliness, except when I’m in nature, I don’t, I don’t feel it.
I just don’t when I’m in the woods, when I’m in the forest, when I’m in the wilderness and just came off a multi day excursion with my son, I literally just don’t feel it in that setting Matthew. And I do feel indoors. I do feel it with, you know, the library around me and so forth.
And I’m wondering if you might share any insights you have about that and also, you know, perhaps share with us a bit about what you explore in order of the sacred earth and what you’re sharing with the world through this order that you’ve founded.
Well, I certainly resonate with your feeling of kinship in nature. And I think that the feelings we do have of loneliness of a lot of it may be mother earth reminding us that without an effort at that intimacy that you spoke of.
We are, we are selling ourselves short and we’re going to render ourselves more and more lonely. So, I think this kind of a rhythm going out there, the positive and the negative rhythm that if we deprive ourselves of the foundational relationship with nature and mother earth, including our own nature,
that we’re wandering in a desert kind of loneliness and it’s going to get worse if we, if you’ve not recovered that, the sacredness of nature.
And that takes us to the order of the sacred earth that I think, you know, religions in many parts of the world, in the western part, certainly, are losing a lot of their regular attention.
Attendees, churches are closing and record numbers and so are seminaries and so forth. So, you might ask what’s next.
And it’s my reading of religious history that there have been times, of course, in the past when, while speaking my own Christian tradition, when the church was running out of steam and energy wasn’t, was too involved, too much in bed.
With the current power is the D that were not healthy powers any longer. And what happened was orders happened. So, for example, in the fourth century, the church married the empire and by the fifth century, there was a lot of alienated young people, especially because they were being drafted into the army to kill people in the name of the empire,
supposedly, in the name of Christ or something, while they made a long story story, a long story short. They ran away to the desert and we know them as a desert father, so the desert mothers, but they went into nature in a deep way and said, you know, these humans and these Christian humans are going their way, it’s not my life.
And then, after that, you had this movement of St. Benedict, in fifth century, starting the Benedict and order, which has lasted right up to today. He’ll the Garden of England was a member of that order.
And they were men and women, his sister started a women’s branch. And this really was important, especially during the darkest stages, they kept scholarship alive and educational life and agriculture did a lot of good things.
But, come to 12th century, it was actually a kindergarten century, they were so in bed with a feudal system, which ran everything. And, of course, they were running the education in the religion, that they were going down together because feudalism was failing.
And a new spirit was arising, which included merchants and therefore capitalism. And they were land-based, they were agricultural. And the new movement was much more about travel and seeing other parts of the world, etc.
And so, that is when Francisms, CC and Dominic popped up in the early 13th century. But before them came these communes, young people fled the surf system, the feudal system, they couldn’t get work.
Because families were growing, because the weather patterns had changed in Europe. And you had a longer growing season, so family school, but there wasn’t work for young people.
So, when they go on star short, they fled to towns and overnight these towns became cities. And then you had a new movement, education movement called universities, which were no way connected to the monastic system.
And they were, it came through Islam and scholasticism, which was about asking questions. It was a much more scientific approach to learning.
So, that’s from Francis and Dominic and one started their orders. And then in the 16th century, of course, you had the Protestant Reformation. And I really look at the Protestant Reformation as a series of lay orders, because they were just enchanted by religion, no, the 16th century, which was obviously corrupt in so many ways. And so, these reformers started their own movements.
But you also had in the Catholic Church, Ignatius Leu, who was starting the Jesuits in the late 16th century. So, these are just some examples of Western history. But, of course, realize your orders among Hindus, among Buddhists, and even the Jews had the Ascene movement in the first century and so forth.
So, again, I think the thing about an order, different from a religion, is it can move fast. It can respond to a median. Religion’s like a great big shit. And the bigger it is, the slower it is, and you can’t steer it well, and you certainly can’t start it. You don’t even have breaks.
And so, I think that’s a good thing in order and in religion. And so, orders is freeing up for particular needs, and a particular time.
So, anyway, I had this dream a few years ago, and it was unlike any game I’ve ever had. I woke me up at exactly 4 in the morning, and the dream said, very loudly to me, do it with several exclamation points. That’s the language that woke me up.
To start a new kind of order, that is one ecumenical, doesn’t have any religious ideology dictated to it from behind the scenes, and the curtain.
And that is focused on one issue today, which is saving the earth. And together we would make one vow. I promise to be the best lover of Mother Earth, and the best defender of Mother Earth that I can be.
And so, I spoke to a young man who I know, and it turned out he had had a dream similar. And so, we linked up, and then his girlfriend got involved too.
So, those two, one in their 20s, one in his young 30s, are really the directors of the order. And I’m kind of the elder or something, but because the young people have to carry this.
And the Franciscans and Dominicans, it was the appeal of the vision touched the young people who felt that there was this new vision, this new possibility for healthier religion, the returns of the real teachings of Jesus, and just bypassed centuries of monastic dominance.
So, I think, and so, at our first ceremony, where we took these vows, there were like 80 some people showed up, and there were Protestants of Catholics and Jews, and Indigenous people, and Buddhists, it was actually held in a Buddhist temple in Berkeley.
And at least one atheist came up to you, 26 year old, when she said, I’m an atheist, but I read, were you about, I’m looking for community, this is my values, I’m in this too.
And the brother of Sister Dorothy Staying, who was murdered in the Amazon, he showed up too, from Los Angeles.
So, that was our first vow taking ceremony, and now we have these pads, that’s what we call these different communities around some in North America, some in Peru, and some in Australia, and so forth.
And I just think there’s a potential for this because religion and many respects is failing, but it doesn’t mean, as Deepak Chopper has said, just because people aren’t going to church anymore, doesn’t mean there’s less evil in the world.
The world has not become less evil, there’s still a lot of evil, and there’s still this need for community.
And so, we meet online once a month, and then people are doing their local things, the local, the pod gets together, and they talk about what this means to them, this vow that they take together, how do you apply it in the circumstances, the biovision where you live.
So, I think there’s something very logical about it, but when religion fails, does that mean we have nothing to look to, or do we gather in what previous generation called orders, but strip it down to the basic, and all lifestyles are welcome.
You can be solid, you can be married, you can be gay, you can be straight, that’s another reality of our time.
But the focus is obviously the future of Mother Earth, and I think the fact that the word sacred earth is in the title, because Thomas Barry says, we will not save the earth if we do not see it as something sacred.
That is not enough, it’s just a political agenda, or a moral agenda, that what we’re really talking about here is a more sacred relationship to the earth, and I would use your word again, more intimate.
I think in many ways it would intimate and sacred our sentiments.
Yeah, here, here, so beautiful. I will look forward in our behind the scenes segment, Matthew, asking you a bit more about the order of the sacred earth, and potentially even how we can plant more seeds of collaboration with greedy toss society, and some of the things we’re doing with our ambassadors.
We’ll save that for the behind the scenes segment that we do after our main podcast interview, and for folks who haven’t yet joined our ambassador network, if you’d like to, this is one of the benefits of being an ambassador, you have access to these behind the scenes discussions, as well as other video resources that we offer through the network.
I have a couple of things I will be remiss if I don’t ask you before we conclude our podcast, Matthew, and one is coming from mixed ethnic heritage, myself personally, that includes Mohawk, Native American, along with Celtic, Germanic, Slovenian, etc.
I’ve been in my adult life keen to connect with different indigenous traditions, and I notice, by the way, in your invitation called Employing Spiritual Practices in the Spirit of Illegard, being in the back of your book about her, you lay out a number of activities that we can choose to engage in and cultivate, including sweat lodge.
It struck me that that was included in there, and I’ve noticed that with many of our indigenous traditions, alongside some of our other more mainstream traditions, we’ve got information in wisdom regarding these times we’re living in, sometimes referred to as prophecy.
And, of course, the Hobie people have carried a lot of this as have Mohawk and others, and it blows my mind and my heart really to see and hear and read that Heldigard painted a Hobie-corn mother in her artwork.
Oh, I’ve got my sense of how this is possible, but I’m asking you, how is that possible centuries before Chris Columbus did what he did and all that sort of thing? What is going on here that there’s this connection with her and the Hobie in the 900 years ago?
Well, they say history is written by the winners or whatever, but when his long before Columbus came and made a mess of things, and as the Native Americans tell me, you know, he didn’t discover America, he was lost and he stumbled into America.
And the thought he had discovered it, but he was literally lost. So he ran into it, but the truth is that the, that the Celts came to America along the first months, and they went back to Europe, and first of all, they didn’t, the story things.
They, they didn’t come to redeem the Native people. They didn’t come in to convert them to Christianity. I think they arrived, and together they sat down and talked about the holiness of creation, the sacredness of the earth, and how probably about how they teach their children about the sacredness of creation, and how the others teach theirs, but whatever, but they didn’t make a mess, so we didn’t know they were here.
So they went back, but the fact is that stories were carried on, and he only got raised in a Celtic monastery. She went into the monastery about the age of six.
Well, first she went to a hermitist who was connected, and then she joined the monastery. And the point is that the Celtic legends and lore and stories were alive and well.
And she actually says the first human being was a red man. And she paints, as you say, and you know, you could put this up when you run this.
We could give you the painting, and you could put it up. So we’re talking about this, but it was actually a Native American who went this out to me.
I was showing these slides in a lecture in Santa Fe, and the discussion that Native American said, did you see the hope before mother in her painting?
I said, no, I didn’t, even though I looked at the painting, but it took a Native American to see it. So, you know, I ought to slide up again and sure enough, there are two hopey core mothers in her painting, which is about her own awakening.
There’s the fire coming over her head, like the Pentecost experience with the early disciples that he was applying to her own awakening at the age of 42.
And but she paints these two pillars that she look carefully. They are hopey core mothers, but what a perfect archetype to talk about waking up about resurrection.
And that’s what the hopey core mother means. It looks like it’s bad when the season’s over, but it comes up again. I’m spraying you see.
So it’s a perfect example of the resurrection and of our our participating in awakening and waking up and and so forth.
So, and then there’s another painting where she has what she calls a zealous head of God and God is a red that had his red and there too.
She brings an idea is about the first human being being read. So, made of red earth. So, that’s how Native American woman attuned in to indigenous.
The war 900 years ago that I think that the the akels got to the Americas and brought home some stories and they didn’t even best either sociologically or theologically and no one was killing anybody.
And so they’re forgotten. But they actually are some there is evidence fair again.
It’s a Delaware some stayed up in the Northeast that I visited. You saw some of these monuments that are very much like those in the West Coast of Ireland.
And I think more research has been done on that and more research deserves to be done.
Yeah, again, your monument in is it Rhode Island perhaps is a Rhode Island. Maybe it’s there. I’ve been there but I can’t remember right now. It’s a list.
But I’ve been very blessed to have Native Americans on my faculty.
I’ll go sources of a quota leader who was living in South Carolina but having dreams for 10 years that he should work with white people because white people are running things in the air.
Very smart. That’s what we just get of him is Judy. But he put it off and put it off and put it off and finally the James got more fierce.
And so he looked around and he saw our program in creation spirituality said, well, this might be something I can tolerate.
So my glossary short he drove in his wife out to Oakland from South Carolina and showed up at my door literally at the school and said, I’m here to help you.
My dreams tell me I should and me glossary short he joined the faculty set up a sweat lodge on campus for three years.
And one of the objections to my work by Erna Ratzinger was quote, I work too closely with Native Americans.
I think winning that but that is we had a sweat lodge on a campus in the street.
But it didn’t bring us our staff faculty students. We loved it. We learned so much from it.
And his course is he taught on native spirituality in our program that he went on to third center in the state of Washington.
And I did a vision quest within the year I was silenced. That was a big part of my vision quest.
And and then I joined them for some sun dances and so forth over the years. So anyway, I’ve been very blessed.
I’m just one native teacher because they have to be as a son of a woman and a Franciscan sister. She was on the faculty for years.
She taught me a lot about ritual in our students too.
And and about other things.
And so I’ve been.
Now I’ve attended.
Many powwow’s and of course sweat lodge and so worth of many places.
And they’ve always been very deep blessings for me. I don’t think I would have survived, frankly, without those because the ceremonies are so earthy and cosmic and grounding and bodily.
You just don’t have these in churches where there are questions in her condition and books to read and pages to read from.
You know, you don’t bring your book in purple can do sweat lodge. You bring your heart.
And I first 20 minutes in the sweat lodge, I was sure I was going to die.
I was looking for a fire extinguisher for an exit and there was neither. So finally, I yielded to the experience and asked when you go into another state.
And that’s the whole purpose of fair isn’t it to get.
Get into another state, but you know, I had earlier in the hard way.
Oh, how.
How.
Fable.
No.
How feeble.
Some of our prayer forms are in in the West that we we do have to face death together in a in a prayer circle.
And that changes everything.
I was so struck as invited Sundance, a number of years ago up in the Dakota country in Montana.
We went into the sweat lodge to cool off after that’s in under the sun, which is just bizarre.
Yeah.
There’s such a profound symbolic connection between that ceremonial right and the crucifixion of Jesus.
It blew me away to experience that unexpectedly.
No, it’s not like somebody explained to me ahead of time that there’s this incredible symbolic connection, but it’s there. It’s very real.
Yes, very interesting that you experience that I did too. In fact, in the summer day that we were dancing.
There was the sun with big and white and round and white. It was white.
And I saw it just hit me the native and the Christian.
There was right like a host is in the in the Eucharist liturgy.
And they’re meant as this tree that people are bound to.
And there’s a sack of ice and foul.
The whole thing just got hit me like symbols that the two flat crashed together in a very positive sense for me.
The church that I grew up in was called Blessed Sacrament.
And that is the host, the right host, the name for the white host that became the son.
So I do have that marriage of my Christian archetype, if you will, and the native.
And it is so powerful and real and bodily.
And you don’t forget first things.
No, no, we don’t.
Maybe we’ll pick this threat up in our in our behind the scenes, Matthew.
But before we sign off, I want to ask you about creation spirituality because I believe this is one of the threads running through so many different traditions around the world.
And perhaps one could even make the claim that it’s a thread that runs through all of our ancestral traditions.
It’s just a matter of how far back in time we go to get there.
And I want to quote you from the book, you say, I have devoted my life to recovering the creation spirituality tradition because even though it’s the oldest tradition in the Bible, the tradition of Jesus and the tradition of the greatest mystics of the church, it’s little known.
And my reading of your book on Hildegard with respect to creation spirituality is that this is along with the original instructions.
This is the living original connection, original blessing, original understanding that we can find in all our traditions, Matthew.
I love how you’re reclaiming it and restoring it and really resurrecting it within the context of the Judeo-Christian tradition, particularly where we know we need so much healing.
And I was hoping you could just share a bit with us about your view on creation spirituality.
What is it? And how is it different from some of the other versions out there? And why is it important right now?
Well, this tradition was named for me when I studied in Paris, a Dr. Stais spiritual with Perichanou, French Dominican.
And I’ll never forget the moment in classes that Paul following up his first, when he said there are these two traditions in the West.
One begins with the fall and is about the fall and redemption. And the other begins with creation.
And they are very different beginnings. And it just brought everything together for me. Yes, to begin with creation.
I grew up in Wisconsin, and in Wisconsin still has a presence of Native American spirit on this land.
I had a lot of dreams as a child of Native American dreams. And nature is there. So that was the context which I grew up.
But the whole idea that sin comes first is so anthropocentric. Human sin, right?
But the other species don’t. Thomas Merton, the great Catholic monk said that every non-toolated creature is a saint.
So that means for 13.8 billion years, there was no sin.
So why would you begin religion, talking about this anthropocentric thing? Well, because modern consciousness does that.
It begins with us. It’s all about, I think, therefore, I am. But I sin, therefore, I am.
But no, you’re pre-modern consciousness whether indigenous or these medieval saints like Hildegard and McCart and the others.
They don’t begin with sin because they don’t begin with a human. They begin with the whole, with the macrocasa.
And this is postmodern thinking too, David Bond, but physicists says, I’m a postmodern physicist who begins with the whole.
And that’s how we have to begin again because it’s the whole of Mother Earth. It’s in collapse today.
Then we can talk about our mistakes, our sins, and say, well, what do we bring to the table? Well, one thing we bring is our creativity.
We talk about it, and our science, our intellect, et cetera, et cetera, and our passion, and our caring, et cetera.
So for me, these are two different versions of religion, and I’ve chosen that second.
Now, history chose original sin, even though Jesus never heard of original sin.
But the 4th century, St. Augustine came up with the idea of original sin. But what else happened in the 4th century is the church took over the empire.
So you’re going to run an empire.
Original sin is a really practical thing to have. It gets people in line, well, big, on their knees, and going up and doing whatever they’re told to do.
It’s not biblical. No Jew believes in original sin. Jesus never heard of original sin. Yet we have a religion walking around today that begins with original sin, and says it’s Christian.
Well, it’s not Christlike. Jesus doesn’t think that way.
Ellie Wysel says, not only is original sin not in the Bible, he said it is alien to Jewish thinking.
It introduces a notion that it’s just foreign to Jewish consciousness, because Jewish consciousness is about the goodness of creation.
And it’s just one. So that’s what original blessing means, blessing is the theological word for goodness.
And that’s my language for creation spirituality. And it is these four paths we talked about.
And that power of creativity, the third path that we talked about.
That’s our way out of sin. That’s our way out of destroying the planet is to tap deeper and deeper into our creativity.
This where science comes in and technology, of course, but also music and art and new forms of education that prepare a generation to put the health of mother earth ahead of human agenda is exclusively.
And as you’re talking about, reinventing economics and politics to to match what we now know about the how we how we preserve mother earth.
So all this is the energy of free spirituality and those four paths we talked about.
And this is, as you say, is the way of these wonderful people.
And it sticks like you in the garden in Guiness and Franciscan.
And a cardic, an act of Julian.
And then when the, when the great one of Craig hit the 14th century, that kind of crashed for sure.
Because people were so freaked out by the anxiety of the plague, which is a horrible thing.
And of course, had no science to deal with it.
Don’t understand it or anything like a vaccine.
So you can kind of think about what will went through reasoning with coronavirus, but subtract science and vaccines.
And you really have a dire situation.
So in many ways, Chris spirituality kind of was, was a victim of the bubana plague.
Well, that’s the genius of Julian knowledge is that she wrote a book during the bubana plague.
It’s very like she lost a husband and a child in the bubana plague, which is not negative to our nature, just the opposite.
She says, God is the goodness of nature, et cetera.
So she, she means very committed to this creation, spiritual perspective.
But she’s the last one.
And she was ignored until the seven, she was, her book was named published until the 17th century.
And, and then it was too late in a way.
Because, proscenism went the way of, of sin and redemption and Catholicism did, if you will.
And of course, the, the invasion of the indigenous peoples around the world by European Christians was anything but pretty.
And it was based entirely on redemption that few people are savages because you don’t, you’re not redeemed, et cetera.
And that had such an impact on history and on the destruction of genocide toward indigenous peoples.
It’s so pitiful that this is by having indigenous people still with us, being able to speak these truths.
Now, again, is a wonderful gift to renew and refresh all the religions in the world.
And at this time, that’s what we need is the wisdom of all religions plus science, if humanity is going to survive.
And if the earth has we know it is going to survive humanity.
Oh, Matthew, it’s, it’s so wonderful to have this, this time with you.
And I’m sitting here thinking, my gosh, we might have to explore doing another podcast interview with you sometime in the coming months because you just have so much insight and wisdom to share with us.
And I know we should probably transition and wrap up today’s episode and transition to our behind the scenes.
I also want to ask you about Bernard of Clair Vaux, the etymology of the term cathedral.
I want to ask you something about the book you wrote with Rupert Sheldrake on the physics of angels.
But maybe we’ll save this for our little behind the scenes chat.
And then, you know, if you’d be so gracious and willing at some point a few months down the road, perhaps we have another episode together as well.
And on behalf of the YonEarth community, I just want to thank you so much for taking the time to visit with me and have this conversation that we can share out with the world and with our audience.
And before we conclude the podcast itself, if you would, the floor’s yours, if there’s anything else.
And let me say I’m sure folks would like to learn more about you, your work and get your books at MatthewFox.org.
And can also go to daily meditations with MatthewFox.org to connect with you there too.
And we’ll include those links in the show notes as well.
But before signing off, Matthew, before yours, my friend, if there’s anything else you’d like to share with our audience today.
Well, I very much enjoyed this conversation.
And that you did your homework, Field of the Guard.
So let’s close a brief pull off of Field of the Guard.
Glass of the Sun, see the moon and the stars, gaze at the beauty of earth’s greenings.
Now think.
But do you like God gives to humankind with all these things?
Who gives of these shining, wonderful gifts, if not God?
There is no creation, but does not have a radiance.
So I think that that’s via positive talk.
And we need that. Humans need to be in love in order to get out of our couches and make a difference.
So I thank you, Field of the Guard, and I thank you for our conversation.
And I love your organization, including even the name, YonEarth?
Well, thank you, Matthew. And yeah, to be continued all of this, it’s such a joy to connect and chat with you today.
Thank you.
You bet.
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