2002 Margaret Pasquesi – Hildegard’s Viriditas: An Imagination of the Cyclical Relationship in Incarnational, Ecstatic Music-Making.pdf

HILDEGARD’S VIRIDITAS:
AN IMAGINATION OF THE CYCLICAL RELATIONSHIP
IN INCARNATIONAL, ECSTATIC MU5IC.MA11116.IIZ,
IIE
by Margaret Pasquesi
for certification at the School of Music-Thanatotogy
August 2002
Final Draft

H ITDEGA RD’S VI RI D IT AS.,
AN IMAGINATION OF THE CYCLICAL RELATIONSHIP
IN INCARNATIONAL, ECSTATIC MUSIC-MAKING.
by Margaret Pasquesi
for certification at the School of Music-Thanatotogy
August 2002
Final Draft
PREFACE
I first heard of Hitdegard of Bingen (1098-1179) white trying to find the CD Dolmen Music
by Meredith Monk in 1996. It may seem absurd that this twentieth century New York
performance artist, known for expanding modern sensibilities of the voice’s potential woutd
be linked to a 12th century German nun, but there was the CD staring me in the face at the
record store, entitted Monk and the Abbess.l The first four songs were renderings of
Hitdegard’s work by the choir Musica Sacra. The rest were Meredith Monk’s innovative, 20th
century compositions which contained echoes of Hitdegard’s compositionaI styte. About a
year after discovering this CD, I was dumbfounded to discover that one of the many
professors I was then working for had done most of her scholarty work on Hitdegard. This
gracious woman proceeded to introduce me to the transcriptions of Hil.degard’s neumes by
Christopher Page. I fett as though I had discovered gotd.
I was not abte to work musicatly with those sequences and antiphons until four years
later. A series of events brought me through my masters program and on to the certification
program of the School of Music-Thanatology in Missouta, MT. In my first semester,
Hitdegard appeared again when I helped a friend find one of Hitdegard’s chants whose

poetry woutd be suitabte for her wedding. My friend then asked if I woutd sing the
chatlenging sequence we had chosen. The strange modatity was very difficutt for my
untrained, Western ear, but I did the best that I could. Nine months later, after compteting
my first year at the School of Music-Thanatotogy, I sang the same chant for another
wedding. This time, the performance was much easier, thanks to the superior musical
education that the School of Music-Thanatology was providing. That same summer I was
working for the schoofs founder Therese Schroeder-Sheker. hersetf a former art student,
and had the privitege of cataloguing her exquisite visual stide coltection, which inctudes
images of works by Remedios Varo, Barbara Berger and Hitdegard of Bingen. A few months
later, when Ms. Schroeder-Sheker was giving one of her lectures, the class discussion turned
to how a student might choose a topic for the music-thanatotogy professional paper required
for certification. She gave hel.pfuL suggestions to each ctass member, and in the process
reminded me of my interest in Hitdegard of Bingen.
I do not know what happened exactty to me in that lecture, but it was as if a fire
had been lit in my sou[. Inspired, I was on a library feeding frenzy, spending hours looking
up artictes, following their bibliographic sources, finding those books, looking up their
sources. I was in a playground puzzle of mystery, intrigue and scholarty debates, learning
about this incredible medieval nun. In my excitement, the patient paper committee had to
reign me in. “Margaret,” they said. “0ne cannot enter the wortd of music-thanatotogy
lll

exclusivety through an individual biography. You need a universal concept to back this paper
up.”
I am ever so gratefuI for their suggestions, for their wisdom, and their kindness in
tetting me go where the fire of my heart [ed, and I want to be ctear about the intention of
this paper. It is the intention of this paper to speak about an imagination of music-making
for the music-thanatotogist using the historical and musicotogicat sources by and about
Hitdegard as a springboard. I do not mean to impose anything extra on this historical.
figure, as some literature has been want to do.2 5o I woul.d tike to be clear: As a musician,
visionary and physician, Hitdegard of Bingen had a wonderful imagination of the
body/sout/spirit that can potentiatty assist the music-thanatotogisfs imagination at the
bedside; much as the monks of CLuny in the 10th century were mode[s for, not of, music-
thanatology.3 Music-thanatotogy is a late twentieth century concept conceived and
devetoped by Therese Schroeder-Sheker, in response to the attitude of “forbidden death”o
that permeated the nursing home where she worked as an undergraduate music student.5
Schroeder-Sheker, as an artist, musician, schotar, medievatist and composer integrated her
interests and life experience to form and inform music-thanatotogy. Marrying what I have
learned in my formation process at the School of Music-Thanatotogy and this unforeseen
draw to the “Hitdegard academic trait,” it is my hope in this paper to speak about the
cyclicat, generative nature of incarnation, viiditas, and ecstasy in the vigiL setting, and the
gesture of praise that enfotds it att.
iv

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
For having the opportunity to even write this kind of a paper, I would [ike, first and
foremost, to thank Therese Schroeder-Sheker. Without her vision, courage and charisma, I
woutd not be in Missoula, Montana. I woutd also tike to thank her and the Chatice of Repose
Project’s Chief Financial 0fficer, Deanna Hotzer, for going to bat for me both in fundraising
and employing me so that I could stay in schoot.
I woutd [ike to thank atl of my teachers: Lois Mandelko-Steinberg, RCM-T for making
me laugh and chattenging me to listen; Jocetyn Botkin, RCM-T for knowing that I have a
free, limber spirit within me, and for hetping to draw that out. Linda Schneck, RCM-T is an
amazing, imaginal instructor both in ensembte and particutarty at the bedside; as wetl as
Sharon Murfin, RCM-T whose exquisite musicotogical lectures explaining the mysteries and
complexities of our thematic materiat have also lit a fire in my sou[. Thank you for having
the patience to answer my many questions and challenges! Thanks to the Tty-in facutt3r”:
Fred Paxton, Atice Reich, Robert Sardelto and Ken Thorp. I express my deep gratitude to you
for expanding my mind, heart, spirit and sou[ in some very chatlenging times. I woutd also
like to thank the other residents with whom I have had the privilege of working: Ann
Dowdy, RCM-T, Michael Sasnow, RCM-T, and Cynthia Ferrara, RCM-T. Thank you for
continuing to be present, to listen to my concerns, to chattenge me and to hetp me grow.
Thank you to the School of Music-Thanatotogy ctass of 2000, who took the ctass of
2002 under their wing. I woutd [ike to thank in particular Andrea Partenheimer and Anna

Fiasca, who served as our graduate assistants, and Laurie Moore and Sharityn Cohn for
teaching us A&P and music theory during the first semester. I woutd Like to thank my own
ctass for their witness and hetp throughout my own, not atways pretty, metanoia process.
Thank you for being with me through the reat-tife process of personal incarnation.
To the staff at the Chalice of Repose Project office: Deanna Hotzer, Ann Andre,
Cynthia Ferrara, Annette Kastetitz, Jason Kurtz, Laura Moya, Tony Pederson, Amelia
Tatlman, and Jessica Serfass – thank you for your dedication and patience.
I woutd Like to thank my spirituat, emotiona[ and financial patrons and benefactors,
without whom I woutd not be where I am today: Janet and Robert Pasquesi, Our Lady of
Perpetual Hetp Parish, The Good Catalog Company, Debbie Powett, Robin Kitey, John
Macnab, Margie and T-Ray Jacobs, PTO educational sorority, The Monastery of St. Gertrude,
5t. Francis Xavier parish, The 5:15 women, Agnes Pasquesi, my many brothers, sisters, and
accompanying significant others, Donna Caputo, and literatty hundreds of others. Thank you
to Co{ette Cornetius for iltuminating the crux of this paper so beautifuLty and patientty.
And lastty, I woutd like to especiatly thank my good friend Tony Pederson, whose
constant love and support has been one of my most cherished btessings.
This paper is dedicated to the memory of my maternal and paternat grandfathers,
Cobby Caputo and Dominic Pasquesi. The winter and spring of 2Q02 saw each comptete his
transitus, a process which I was unabte to attend. I would like to honor the memory of the
64 patients I have attended thus far in their stead.
v1

Introduction
A question often posed by the School of Music-Thanatotogy’s Assistant Academic Dean
Sharon Murfin is, “Why can’t we do thaf atl the time?” Sometimes “that” is perfectty ptaced
pitch. Sometimes “that” is being rodically receptivei at the bedside. Sometimes “that” is
making music with such depth and connection of soul that one experiences art transformed
into “compassio nate action.”7
I have chosen to meditate upon this question in this paper, finding some
ittuminations (both titeraLty and figurativety) in the work by and about the twetfth-century
visionary, poet and composer, Hildegard of Bingen. WhiLe other writers, philosophers and
teachers have informed this paper as we[[, my fascination with Hitdegard has served as the
fertite ground in which to cuttivate a response to the conundrum: How does a Zlst-century
music-thanatotogist make effective, intimate, specific and pattiative music on a daity basis;
i.e., “How do I do ‘thaf a[[ the time?” This paper devetops the answer to this question in an
image of a cycte; which moves from the Divine, to earth, then reincorporates back to the
Divine. In order to “paint” a picture of this cycte, I would like to rectaim the words
“incarnation” and “e6tasy,” align them with the word viiditas, and appty them to the
music-thanato [o gy vigiI setting.

Incarnation & Ecstasy
Musicat-sacramentat-midwifery…is not merety a fingertip skitt. Rather,
it is a contemplative practice with ctinicaI apptications. This requires serious
inner work: integration of the physicat, emotionat, mental and spiritual
aspects of the caregiver. 0f course, this kind of work remains an ongoing
process and is never a goal that is achieved once and for att.t
In order to facilitate this physicat, emotional, mental and spiritual integration in the
students of the School of Music-Thanatotogy, Therese Schroeder-Sheker has established an
“infused curricutum, reflecting wisdom from four distinct educational modets: conservatoire,
seminary, medical school and the ctassic liberal arts tradition.”n
The intent of this pedagogical model is to attend to the many layers of personal
development required in a formation process. To be a music-thanatologist, one seek to
embody music and medicine in order to “lovingty serve the physicat and spiritual needs of
the dying with prescriptive music.”
lo
As part of the prescription, the ctinician must atso
reconcile – must tend to, as if tending to a garden – the physicat, emotional and spirituaL
futtness of one’s own human biography.
“Embodiment” is a term which Schroeder-Sheker frequently emptoys in music-
thanatotogy studies. A student “embodies” the raw materiats of music, the studies, and the
disparate etements of one’s setf. One does not simply learn concepts intellectuatty. Through
contemptative practice, one attempts to embody these concepts within their very
musculature. In the lxford English Dictionary, the term incarnotion is often synonymous
with the term embodiment.” In is a Middte Engtish prefix borrowed from Middte French, and

uttimatety, Latin; meaning “within.o12 Corn, asin carnal is from the Latin coro, or “flesh.”
Carnal is defined as, “bodily, corporeal; marked by sexuality; retating to or given to crude
bodity pteasures or appetites.”l3 Incarnation, then, is “a becoming incarnate; investiture or
embodiment in flesh; assumption of, or existence in, a bodity (esp. human) form.”
1o
According to Christian theologian Kar[ Rahner, the Incarnation (with a capital I) is the
mystery of God becoming man in Jesus Christ, thus simuttaneousty being both separate and
one. As a deity, he lived free of sin, but as a human, he lived fulty invotved with atl that
comes with a human body.tu He experienced the confinement, the inwardness of suffering,
as wetl as the movement, the freedom, and the outward soul gesture of ecstosy.
Ecstasy may seem tike a word out of place in the work with the dying. An evotution
of the Middte English, ecstasie, from the Latin ecstosrs, is taken from the Greek ekstasis.
Ekstasis is related to the Greek existonoi meaning, “to derange.” Ex, the prefix meaning
“out” plus histanli, “to cause to stand.”16 The Latin root stasls means “stoppage, or
stowing; a stabte state.”
17
Ecstasy, in ifs basic form. impties dynamic movement, and
dynamic movement is a definition of heatth, according to C0RP facutty member Dr. Ken
Thorp.l8 Dynamic movement is the essence of atL tife. Most often in the dictionary
definitions of ecstasy, such motion can occur through intense e-motion: “An exalted state of
feeling which engrosses the mind to the exctusion of thought; rapture, transport… Intense
or rapturous delight, [but] the expressions “ecstosy of woe, sorrow, despoir” stitl occur.”
1e

As music-thanatotogists, we are calted to the bedside to support a patienfs process
of unbinding from this life with music.zo The very nature of music is movement, and
therefore it is an appropriate compensatory medicine for a patient who is “stuck”
emotiona[ty, physicatly or spiritual.ty. For exampte, a music-thanatology team was catted in
for a case which had the nursing staff baffled. An el.derly patient had stopped renal diatysis,
eating, and drinking atmost a month prior, yet stiL[ continued living beyond his prognosis. It
was as though he was unabte to leave his body.’1 Though no one was quite clear whether he
was btocked emotionatty, physical.ty or spirituatty, the nursing staff did know from
experience that the movement of prescriptive music – which perhaps can be understood as
ec-static – had assisted many patients’retease, or excarnltian,zz vigiI after vigit.
Incarnation and Ecstasy in the Life and llusic of Hildegard of Bingen
Born in 1098n0 as the youngest of ten chitdren, Hitdegard of Bingen was a sickty chil.d. By
the time of her death, 81 years later, this frail girl became a renowned visionary, po€t,
composer, speaker, theotogian, dramatist and advisor to both popes and princes. In her
lifetime, Hildegard came to shape a potent theotogy of the macrocosm contained within the
microcosm: the divine made manifest in the human, the ordinary: incarnation.z3 The Divine
was made manifest in Hildegard hersetf through visions which often contained not only
images, but text and music. These visions were personal incarnational events for Hitdegard:
a wisdom was born that she was commanded to share. When at first she refused to do so

(out of fear, rather than spite), she became physicatty il.l.. 0nLy when she accepted the
radical responsibilitt’a of service that came with this gift of sight, did her heatth improve.
25
Heatth, as was mentioned earlier, is a form of movement, freedom. Such freedom
comes not only when music is birthed in us, but when it is borne through us for the sake of
others. Thus the rycticaI nature of incarnation and ecstasy can be observed in Hitdegard’s
life: Incarnation comes from the Divine through her body in the form of visions. Ecstasy
occurs in the earthty actuatization of these visions: creating and /or viewing the
illuminations, sounding and/or hearing the heaventy music. Such an experience of inner
movement in the human souI resounds back to the divine as thanksgiving and praise. The
cetestiaI choir, detighted by this earthl.y echo, generates the cycte again.
In Hitdegard of Bingen’s theological culture, the teaching of Incamation was an
extremety important issue for several reasons. In the 12th century, the western, Latin
Church – including Hitdegard’s home archdiocese of Mainz – was being rocked with heresy
and po[itical strife both within and without the Church.26 Both affected the orthodox view of
Incarnation. First, a group of Christians calted the Cathars betieved that the human body
was a detriment (rather than vitat) to the sanctity of the spirit, and chose to live an ascetic
[ife, which included abstaining from procreation and engaging in setf starvation.t’ The denial
of the sanctity of the human body was considered a heresy. Secondty, a papal schism
occurred when the Cardinats of the Church, controlled by potitical ruters, etected two popes.
Lasting 18 years, and finatly ending in ‘J.’1.77, two years before Hitdegard’s death, this

schism was literalty breaking apart the “body” of the Church (a.k.a. Ecclesia).28 According
to HiLdegard, Ecctesia -the Church -is the “embodiment
[the incarnation] of the Hoty
Spirit in the wortd.”
2e
Hitdegard spoke out against both the papal. schism attacking the body of her betoved
Ecclesia from within, and the Cathar heresy, which was threatening the united body of
Ecclesia from without – through tetters, speeches, visions and even in her music.3o The
sacred unity of body and spirit was HiLdegard’s centrat theology: “[Incarnation] is not
timited to the Word becoming ftesh, but has echoes in [HiLdegard’s] other theoLogicat
themes. It is there when she speaks of the essential unity of body and spirit in human
persons.” ” It was not simpty because of the Divine nature of her visions that HiLdegard was
intimate with personal incarnation. Through her experience with iLl.ness, she understood that
suffering was atso part of the incarnation process:
trtlness, on the other hand, kept her constantty aware of her human frail.ty
and furnished one of the abiding themes of her spirituatity, that of divine
power made perfect in weakness.
t2
Even with this knowtedge, Hitdegard did not seek to make her body suffer. In seeming
contrast to the Cathars, she treated her body we[[. “[Hitdegard] practiced and counseled
onty moderate fasting, and avoided mortifications; nor is it reported that she spent long
hours in private prayer.”tt Hildegard emphasized St. Benedict’s mission of a balanced life3a
by not only treating the body weLt as vessel of soul (part of the Divine), but atso by
cuttivating a retationship with the Divine:

For the soul gives tife to the body as fire gives light to darkness, with two
principal powers like two arms, intettect and witk the soul has arms not so as
to move itsetl but so as to show itsetf in these powers as the sun shows
itsetf by its briLLiance. Therefore, 0 human, who are not just a bundte of
marrow, pay attention to scriptura[ knowtedgel
tu
(see Example 1).
As the “sun needs to show its britliance by shining,” so too should humankind
rectaim, re-establish, remind itsetf of its sacred nature through the cultivation and
development of beauty in the physical things of this world. In this way, Hildegard was
inftuenced by one of the many Ctuniac legacies:
Central to Cluniac spirituality was the understanding of the human need for
beauty. An early Cluniac abbot who understood the inner life wrote that the
maintenance, cultivation, and refinement of beauty was one way to encounter
the face of the Divine… This devotion to musical beauty was experienced in
sotemn, elaborate cetebrations of Divine 0ffice, with the Mass, cetebrated in
architectural settings designed to amptify and reflect the harmonic splendor
and radiance of God.tu
Like the C[uniacs, Hildegard cultivated beauty: in visions, poetry, music – specifically in
the various liturgies – and even costume:
They say that on feast days your virgins stand in the church with unbound
hair when singing the psatms and that as part of their dress they wear white,
silk veils, so long they touch the floor. Moreover, it is said that they wear
crowns of gotd fitigree, into which are inserted crosses on both sides and the
back, with a figure of the Lamb on the front, and that they adorn their
fingers with gotden rings.”
ALl. of these adornments and processes were necessary means of reminding the soul on earth
of the mystery and gtory contained in its “tabernacle.” one of Hitdegard’s terms for the
human body.tu Once an embodied soul accepts and remembers this connection, then “the

grace of God shines like the sun, and sends its gifts in various ways: in wisdom, in viridity,
in moisture.”te
Viriditss: An Image of the Greening of the Soul for the Sake of the World
Viiditos is a word that HiLdegard uses judiciously throughout a[ her writings to describe the
“greenness” that entivens atl things:
Even the twig on the most insignificant tree is fitted wtth viiditos, the sun
brings the life of viriditas into the wortd; and (in the spiritual reatm) the
prelate who is fitted with taedium (weariness) is tacking in viriditos…a0
Presumably, viiditos as a concept was inspired by the way that Hitdegard saw God manifest
in the [ush, green surroundings of Disibodenberg.ot It represents a healthy state of a
physical body, of a sout, of a community that is aligned with God.at In the letter 85r/b,
Hil.degard tetl.s Abbot Adam that it is the duty of ones who cultivate viriditas to share it. To
explain her case, she first begins with a story, using the imagery of music:
…the contorted figure said: “Listen to me: A destructive wind and hail and
fire and pestitence wi[[ come upon that garden, and will dry it out.” But the
young man answered: “Not so, it wil[ not be so, because I do not wish it, and
I wil.l. bring forth a pure fountain and witl irrigate the garden…” And the
contorted figure answered: “Ha! That is as possible as if locusts woutd eat
through hard rock.” And so that crafty figure brought winter into that garden
and sought to dry up the herbs and ftowers. And that aforementioned young
man, caught up in ptaying his harp, did not see what was happening. But
when he did notice, he catled the sun back with a [oud sound, and the sun
came into Taurus and brought the viridity of summer back into that garden.a3
8

By cuttivating viriditas in one’s own [ife, and then by sharing viriditas with others (i.e.
engaging in service) the soul is freed from the sin of despair,* or, as Hitdegard calls it, the
drying nature of Fearful Worl.dty Sorrow:
WorLdty sorrow does not have the joy of heaventy things. It is like a wind
that does not have the usefulness of greenness or dryness, but simply
scatters everything it touches… It is similar to death, because it does seek
heaventy things, but it does not trust the wortd.as
Those affl.icted with Fearfut Worl.dty Sorrow feel useless. Beauty aligned with virtuea,
and revealed in music has the potential to remind us of the Divine within our sout. Such a
reminder greens our sout, adding the seeds of confidence, purpose and meaning to our
lives. However, even with the nourishment of beauty, this knowtedge wi[[ become dry
unless it becomes generative in the wortd. One who has experienced a greening of their own
soul is calted to be a gardener for other souls. When one engages in such service with the
larger community, the soul becomes nourished in a new way: through the development of
the virtues. Robert Sardelto describes virtue in this way:
Virtue as the medium of spiritual retationships with others: The present
context in which every person can devetop in the quatities of the virtues is
our daily [ife, in the midst of our connections, trai[s, difficulties, and joys with
others. Another way of seeing the virtues woutd be that they are the medium
of our spiritual retationships with others. The virtues constitute the way of
sacred service in the wortd, for they are the means through which we serye
the soul and spirit of other human beings. 0nty by serving in this manner can
a whote community flourish.oT

He continues:
The virtues are inherentl.y practicat because they are concerned with the good
and it is never sufficient to simpty think about the good or to feel it; it must
be practiced… We orient our thinking to the True, our feeling toward the
BeautifuL and our actions, our witting, toward the Good. In such striving, we
seek to unite our merety human ways with the ways of the spiritual worlds.€
Hif’degard believed that “when virtue is attied to viriditas then a powerful. tool for good
exists in the wortd; and virtue is cultivated through a tife turned toward God.,,or once the
“tabernacte” has accepted its Divine nature in atl. its humanitv – in al.L its suffering as wett
as atl its ecstasy – and activety seek to nurture this viriditas, this green garden of the
sout, then one can be of service to others. RituaL – as titurgy was to Hitdegard5o – is one
way to keep this inner garden green. Anthropotogist Al.ice Reich says that music-making is
such a ritual:
Whenever music is heard, there is
connect every day tive with other
everyday [ife.51
a sharpening. A bridge is being buitt to
universes. Music transcends time, space,
John Btacking, in his book How lflusical is lhan says that: “…forces in culture and
society woutd be expressed in humanty organized sound, because the chief function of music
in society and cutture is to promote soundty organized humanity by enhancing human
consciousness.”
t2
Atice Reich asserts that in our societlr, it is the disorder of relationship,
the inabitity to truty embody the virtue of coitas, or [ove, that needs to be soundty
organized.u’ John Bl.acking agrees. ‘The hard task is to [ove, and music is a skitt that
prepares us for this most difficul.t task.,’50
r0

If the desire to be of service – the desire to engage in coitas – brought one to
the study of music-thanatology; it is awareness of, devotion to, and practice of viriditas that
wi[l not only nurture music-making in the vigil. setting, it wil.t ignite the beacon of ecstasy,
opening a doorway for the macrocosm to be reveated within the microcosm of the patientt
human biography. As a student of music-thanatotogy, one embark on a never-ending
process of commitment to setf-knowledge,tt engaging in a personal incarnational process
deepty manifest in our music-making. In order to do this, one cultivates a greening process
of oneself, which can inctude the joy, the movement and the ecstasy that comes through
consistent acts of music-making. Such action allows viiditos and any number of virtues
(such as humil.ity) to meet, but in order for viriditas and virtue to marry, one must use
viiditos and virtue to engage with the wortd (coitos). The resutt of such engagement can
produce movement, expansion – ecstasy – for atl. participants, uniting the Divine with the
earthty ptane.
The cyclical Relationship of Incarnation and Ecstasy in Music
I’d [ike to suggest that Hitdegardt work, especiatty her ecstatic, praise-fitted music, were
incarnated into this world, in part, through retationship not onty to her God and to her inner
self, but as medicine for the wortd; offered as a medium which coutd constantly renew,
reptenish, revitatize the viriditas, the “green gotd”
56
in the sout of the wortd. In fact, when
Hildegard left the lush surroundings of Disibodenberg monastery and started her own
tl

community a few mites away at the comparativety dry, untitted Rupertsberg, she was
putting the advice of her aforementioned letter to Abbot Adam into practice:
However, when my abbot and the brothers as wetl as the people of the
vicinity learned about the change of ptace and its significance – that we
wanted to move from the fertite fietds and vineyards away from a beautiful
area to a dry area- they were in amazement…57
Hitdegard schotar Anne King-Lenzmeier comments:
…Instead of drawing on the moist, tiving greenness of Disibodenberg for
sustenance, the task would become the moistening and ‘greening’, of the
Rupertsberg. This viriditos was a gift of God and became inseparabte from her
expression of her visions, theology and songs…st
Hitdegard betieved that music is a form of the Divine incarnating in this world. Music-
thanatotogy patients have commented likewise,5e but the musician ctinicians realize that
there is a miraculous, musical. bridge occurring:60 “Divine music” is incarnoting in order to
assist excornotion; to support the dying as they exclrnote, returning to the Divine.
ut
Each
musical detivery is unique, from a particular music-thanatotogist to a particutar patient, at a
particutar moment in time. Musicologist Marianne Richert Pfau exptains such particutar
music-making under the rubric of “process phitosophy,j’u’ developed as a concept by Atfred
North Whitehead:
‘process philosophy’ or the phiLosophy of change…replaces more traditionaL
notions of static being, unchanging substance…[and] posits a pluratistic
reatity that consists both of discreet events and of constitutive internal
relations among those events. As a result, it envisions a larger organic, or
hotistic, system of interretated etements.63
t2