Sheltering in Place

Life has taught me that every negative has a positive side. It’s good to look for the positive—not as a means of evasion—but as a means of establishing internal balance. So during this time of Sheltering in Place, I have been thinking about the gifts of solitude, and about the life of Hildegard Von Bingen. She succeeded in making the best of an extremely difficult period of isolation. Hildegard lived in the 12th Century and her story is long, but in a nutshell: She was a visionary, an artist, and someone who loved nature. Around the age of eight her parents tithed her to the church where she was literally bricked into a convent cell with her cousin Jutta. They lived inside those walls, as anchorites for decades until Jutta died. In this extreme solitude, Hildegard continued to have her visions, she managed to study, to write and paint. She composed beautiful music. After she was released, she lived into her eighties, and established two convents on the Rhine river. She was known as the Sybil of the Rhine. I think she found her salvation and kept her sanity through creative means. Creativity is a direct connection to God. When I first began exploring the mystics, I did three paintings of Hildegard. In the 2 images of her as an adult, I attempted to honor that precious feeling of peace and awe that we can experience in stillness. One is titled, Interior Life, and the second is, Hildegard Listening. I also painted one of her as a child of eight, titled, Visionary Child.

"Interior Life," by Sue Ellen Parkinson

"Visionary Child," by Sue Ellen Parkinson

"Hildegard Listening" by Sue Ellen Parkinson