HISTORY OF MANDALAS part V
The desire to share her experiences, to teach and guide others to the same realizations, inspired Hildegard of Bingen to create mandalas. A Christian nun living in Germany during the eleventh century, Hildegard sought to communicate an understanding of God she received through mystical visions. Hildegard described one of her visions of God as:
"a royal throne with a circle around it on which there was sitting a certain living person full of light of wondrous glory….And from this person so full of light sitting on the throne there extended out a great circle of gold color as from the rising sun. I could see no end to it." (Cited in Fox, 1985:40)
In another vision she reported seeing a wheel centered like a womb in the chest of a towering figure. She writes: "Just as the wheel encloses within itself what lies hidden within it, so also does the Holy Godhead enclose everything within itself without limitation, and it exceeds everything" (Cited in Fox, 1985:40).
The mystical experiences of Hildegard compelled her to begin creative work in writing and illustration. It seems that this activity was for her a celebration of what she had seen, a way to provide a container for the numinous experiences, and an attempt to bring information to others in a form they could understand and find useful. The creation of mandalas was healing for Hildegard. She began her work much burdened by illness. When she expressed her creativity in writing and illustration, her symptoms disappeared.
Another European mystic, Jakob Boehme, created mandalas symbolizing Christian cosmology. He envisioned two great realities of spirit and matter (nature) turning together as wheels within the larger circle of the Godhead. He wrote:
"The wheel of nature turns in upon itself from without; for God dwells within himself and has such a figure, not that it can be painted, it being only a natural likeness, the same as when God paints himself in the figure of this world; for God is everywhere, and so dwells in himself. Mark: the outer wheel is the zodiac with the stars, and after it come the seven planets" (cited in Jung, 1974:239).
Boehme would make of his cosmic vision a mandala for meditation. He writes that "we could make a fine drawing of it on a great circle for the meditation of those of less understanding" (cited in Jung, 1974:239).