Sovereignty

This Week’s Quotation:

We cannot live in a world that is not our own, in a world that is interpreted for us by others.  An interpreted world is not a home. Part of the terror is to take back our own listening, to use our own voice, to see our own light. 

~ Saint Hildegard of Bingen, 12th century Benedictine Abbess, artist, composer, polymath

Sovereignty

Saint Hildegard knew the preciousness of our primal spirituality and the necessity of relying on it as we live our lives. We are co-creators with the Divine, which means that we are each designed to directly experience the world and interact with it. We are born into this world equipped with our own innate primal spirituality, our way of knowing and experiencing life before the overlays of culture and societal programming that we tend to operate from.

Her words are a call to reclaim and value our own sensing and knowing capacities instead of relying solely on others to tell us what our experience should be—most contemporary Western cultures value experts and authority figures. In and of itself, this is not necessarily a bad thing. Experts and authority figures can often inspire us and offer perspectives we have not yet considered. Where things go awry is that we are usually enculturated to value those opinions and perspectives above our own. We tend to live a life that is given meaning by others rather than trusting our innate knowing and living from there.

Saint Hildegard is calling us to embrace our sovereignty as individuated expressions of the Divine, to trust our powers of sensing and knowing, and to move in the world with assurance.  We each have an innate right to our own knowingness through our first-hand experiences.   We are vessels through which the Divine works in the world. Sovereignty is knowing this in our consciousness and embodying it in our day-to-day lives.  

About Open Windows

We, the authors of this blog, dedicate it to the transparent exploration of the world's sacred scripture and enlightened spiritual thought. We believe that the original inspiration of all faiths comes from a common source, named and revered in a myriad of ways. With that understanding, the innumerable symbols, beliefs, and practices of faith cease to divide. They become open windows to a common reality that inspires and unifies us. We find deeper insight and nourishment in our own faith and from the expression of faith from others.

We hope these weekly quotations and meditations speak to your heart and soul.