The Greening – Viriditas
The medieval herbalist and mystic Hildegard of Bingen talks of Viriditas, the greening power. This greening power is the vital energy that is Life, the Spirit of the Earth, Earth Gaia in action that heals and transforms humanity. The natural healing that comes to us so freely and abundantly from the plant realm is indeed a greening of the human condition.
The wisdom of plants is reborn every day with each new green shoot coming up from the deep within the Earth. Behind their beauty and living greenery is a deep, underlying consciousness, a sense of universal spirituality of which their vitality is but the means of expression. Plants appeal to the senses, that is how we discover and know them, but this appeal goes deeper than the senses. The cosmic sense of plants goes into our minds and hearts, ineffably linking our nature with their own in one chain of life and consciousness. This long-hidden wisdom has always been available for the asking and some curiosity. The ancient peoples of old understood and lived with this wisdom.
We study herbs and see in them a special awareness that complements our human nature and desire. Healing green plants are passive, subjectively contemplative, and devoutly acquiescent. They just simply spread their leaves and absorb directly the essential elixir of life, which we as human beings receive secondhand in the harvest of our herbs or plant foods. Our plants and trees maintain immediate physical contact with the source of all cosmic beings – a physical state, but also a spiritual one.
Living plants bridge the netherworld between life and death. Herbs, plants and trees make beautiful, colourful, life-sustaining forms from the earth, water, air, and the solar energy of the sun, creation of life from inorganic matter. We, human creatures, sustain our lives through the consumption of living, organic matter in the form of plants. Where we only transform living matter, the green vegetation brings life to the world. Without the green world, we would not be here today.
Herbalism abounds with opportunities to experience the reality of the healing gifts of nature, whether drinking a cup of mint tea, tending and weeding your garden, or strolling through an enchanted meadow. Viriditas, the greening power, is a driving force behind changes touching humanity. This greening force is reminding us of who we are, where we live, and what embraces us. The limits of what might be called ‘the path of the herbalist’ are as diverse as is the diversity of a living forest.
To awaken to the Greening Power, the vital force, the Spirit of the Earth that lives in every cell of our body, forever transforming and healing you.
“May the Earth continue to Live,
May the Heavens above continue to Live,
May the rains continue to dampen the Land,
May the Forests continue to Grow.
“Then the Flowers shall bloom and we people shall live again.”
– Old Hawaiian Prayer
