Hildegard von Bingen: 12th Century Visionary (c) By Polly Guerin

Dear Hildegard von Bingen: You have been called by your admirers “one of the most important figures in the history of the Middle Ages,” and “the greatest woman of her time.” Known as Saint Hildegard and Sibyl of the Rhine you were a Christian mystic, German Benedictine abbess, visionary and elected magistra by your fellow nuns in 1136. You were truly a woman ahead of your time determined to succeed in a medieval universe where few women would have dared to tread. You were a composer of Gregorian chants, a playwright, poet, and scientific pioneer in the fields of healing, herbal medicine and botany. Hildegard, who had the will of a modern feminist, has emerged from the shadows of history as a forward-thinking pioneer of the holistic approach to medicine and a prophetic warning that elements could turn against us. Similarly today we speak of nature turning against us if we do not protect it.
BORN IN THE RHINELAND
Instilling the world of a cloistered existence began in early childhood. Hildegard was the daughter, the tenth child of a noble German family and as was the custom of the time, her parents gave her to the church when she was eight years old. She was sent to live with Jutta, a holy hermit/nun, the sister of a count whom Hildegard’s father served as a knight, at the Benedictine monastery at Mount S. Disibode to be educated. When Hildegard was eighteen, she became a nun. However, during her youth she experienced visions but kept them secret. When Jutta died, Hildegard replaced her as the mother superior.
ARCHITECT AND ADMINISTRATOR
After becoming mother superior, Hildegard had a vision that she should spread the knowledge of her visions instead of keeping them secret. She devoted the years from 1140 to 1150 to writing them down, describing them and commenting on their interpretation and significance. After recording her visions with the aid of a monk, her writing and letters became popular and the abbey overflowed with the arrival of novice nuns. People of all classes wrote her for advice, and one biographer called her “the Dear Abby of the 12th Century. After a power struggle in 1150 with the abbot who wanted Hildegard to remain at Disibode, she moved her nuns to a location near Bingen, and founded a monastery for them completely independent of the monastery. She oversaw its construction, which included, innovative at the time; water pumped through pipes and advocated regular exercise, singing and musical instruments. She refused to allow the church to treat women as subservient to men, and she rejected negative stereotypes of evil seductresses, and taught that woman was indeed created in the image and likeness of God.
THE MIRACLE WOMAN
As her abilities as a doctor and natural healer spread the crowds gathered at the doors of the visionary for a miracle healing. While Hildegard was working on books on medicine, Scivias and Causae et Curae (Cause and Cure and Physica, as well as numerous other writings about herbalism, she was also writing hymns and some of her songs were apparently known in Paris by 1148. This was the period in which Hildegard collected her songs as symphony of harmony and heavenly revelation. One of her works as composer, the Ordo Virtutum is an early example of liturgical drama. Musicologists credit her with the invention of opera and recognize her as a Gregorian composer.
TRAVEL AND RECOGNITION
Hildegard wrote and spoke extensively about social justice, about freeing the downtrodden, about the duty of seeing to it that every human being, made in the image of God, has the opportunity to develop and use the talents that God has given him, and to realize his God-given potential. Around 1158 Hildegard began to write Liber vitae meritorum (Book of Life’s Merits), a book of moral instruction. Unheard of for a woman to do so, over the next thirteen years Hildegard, the visionary preacher, also began a series of travels to men’s and women’s monasteries and to urban cathedrals to preach religious and secular clergy. She died in 1179 and her oeuvre leaves 90 songs, numerous books and surviving works of more than 100 letters to nobles, popes, bishops, nuns and emperors.
VISION, THE FILM
The recent release of the film “VISION,” written and directed by Margarethe von Trotta, a Zeitgeist Films attests to the fact that the Cult of Hildegard is finding new admirers along with the nuns who revered her teachings and continue to live in the Rhineland. The film’s release exalts the diverse accomplishments of Hildegard von Bingen, the Benedictine nun, portrayed by Barbara Sukova, who presents her character with complete conviction and unfaltering devotion. For more information about the film: www.zeitgeistfilms.com/vision.

NANCY CUNARD: REBELLIOUS HEIRESS

NANCY CUNARD: BORN TO BRITISH UPPER CLASS, THE BEAUTIFUL HEIRESS OF THE CUNARD SHIPPING FORTUNE, NANCY CLARA CUNARD (1896-1965) WAS A WOMAN WHOSE REMARKABLE JOURNEY TOOK HER FROM A PAMPERED LIFESTYLE TO DEVOTING MUCH OF HER TIME TO FIGHTING RACISM AND FASCISM.

ONCE A FASHION ICON, MUSE OR LOVER TO SCORES OF DISTINGUISHED WRITERS AND ARTISTS SHE REJECTED A LIFE OF PRIVILEGE AND FORTUNE CHAMPIONING INSTEAD THE OPPRESSED.

IN HER EARLY INCARNATION SHE WAS A FASHION TREND SETTER, A POET AND WRITER OF ACCLAIMED MERIT. AN ATTRACTIVE SHIPPING HEIRESS, SHE SET STYLE AND HAD A FASHION SENSIBILITY THAT CAPTURED THE ATTENTION OF THE WORLD'S PRESS. PHOTOGRAPHED BY MAN RAY SHE WAS KNOWN FOR WEARING DOZENS OF AFRICAN BRACELETS ON BOTH ARMS AND THIS STYLE IN PART REFLECTED HER INTEREST IN AFRICA AND BLACK CULTURE. SHE WAS AN ASTONISHING BEAUTY BUT HER BRAIN AND COMPASSION RULED HER HEART.

Her name was linked with Aldous Huxley, Ezra Pound, James Joyce, Ernest Hemingway, Langston Hughes, Man Ray and Constantine Brancusi to name a few. Perhaps the most profound relationship she shared was with Henry Crowder, an African-American jazz musician who was working in Paris and became her black lover. At this time she became an activist concerning racial politics and dedicated her life to civil rights but it cost her both her family and her fortune. Negro; An Anthology, edited by Nancy, came about because of her affair with Crowder and they both shared in its creation. The 850 page collection of articles, gathered by Cunard and Crowder was inspired by the excitement of the Harlem Renaissance, the negrophilia craze that swept Europe in the 1920s, and Cunard's desire to create a book that would help Blacks understand their African ancestry.

However, her mother, the aristocratic Lady Cunard, born Maud Alice Burke, an American Heiress in her own right, did not approve of such an Inter-racial relationship and Nancy became alienated from her family, and at one point she was cut off financially. Her pursuit of the Black cause created a great deal of negative publicity but she bulldozed her way ahead reflecting in her work her rage against her family and the London and American societies that rejected her. In that era of widespread prejudice it enraged the general public that a woman of such impeccable breeding could choose to 'get down' with Blacks. In May 1932, two years before the book was published, Cunard received anonymous threats and hate mail which included phrases like "you are a disgrace to the white race," and " either give up sleeping with your nigger lover or face the consequence." Any other woman with less fortitude of purpose would have fainted. Not Cunard, she put some of the hate mail in the book and rallied on as a champion of the Black race.

Such is the legend of Nancy Cunard but who would have ever guessed that the beautiful heiress of the Cunard shipping fortune would spurn a life of privilege and fortune to become a pivotal player in many historical events of her era. Fight for the oppressed was her mantra. In the mid-1930s her attention focused on the anti-fascist fight and the Spanish Civil War. Lois Gordon in her book, "Nancy Cunard: Rebellious Heiress, Inspired Life," recounts that as the only eye witness reporter for the Manchester Guardian she trudged to battlefronts in the midst of artillery fire. Her stories about the suffering of Spanish refugees became the basis for a fundraising appeal in the newspaper. Cunard herself helped deliver supplies and organize relief effort. Plagued by poor heal and the dreadful conditions she was forced to return to Paris, where she stood in the streets collection funds for refugees. She predicted accurately , that the "events in Spain were a prelude of another world war."

It is sad to know that in later years Nancy Cunard had on one to rally to her side and help her in her to fight to battle of mental illness. Her health deteriorated and she weighed only sixty pounds when she was found on the street in Paris and brought to the Hopital Cochin, where she died at 69. Her ashes rest in an urn number 0916 in the Cimetiere du Pere-Lachaise in Paris. Adieu, Nancy Cunard, an amazing Art Deco woman. Let's pay homage to the memory of this rebel crusader who spurned a life of celebrity to champion just causes.

CELEBRATING DOROTHY PARKER

Dorothy Parker: An Extraordinary Wit!!!
Dear Ms. Parker: We miss your witty repartee, the famous Algonquin Round Table compatriots Woollcott, Benchley, Kaufman and other notables. Yours was a decidedly magical circle of like minded authors, poets, theater critics and motion picture writers---all characters in their own right who live on in the collective memory of those who aspire to be writers. Your admirer, Polly Guerin

DOROTHY PARKER: What can we say about Dottie that you don't already know? Although her accomplishments spanned many venues she was most famous as a sharp tongued wit. Upon finding herself pregnant by a lover she merely remarked, "Serves me Right for keeping all my eggs in one bastard," or "Brevity is the soul of lingerie," and my favorite,"The two most beautiful words in the English language are 'cheque enclosed,'"One of the most successful things she did was to fall in with the likes of Robert Benchly and Alexander Woollcott. These three were the original founders of the Algonquin Round Table and other notable characters of the day joined in. As the cognoscenti listened and the newspapers quoted their every remark of witticism the fame of the round table participants escalated into heroic proportions.Dorothy Parker's celebrity was a self-made phenomenon, though her last name was Rothschild, there was no connection to the banking royals. She had a modest background residing in the summer in Long Branch, New Jersey and also on the Upper West Side in New York City. Life dealt some sad blows at an early age. Parker was orphaned at five years old when her mother, Annie (nee Marston) of Scottish descent died. She never liked her stepmother, Eleanor, and insisted on referring to her as "the housekeeper," and I wonder if she ever said that to Eleanor's face. Her father, Jacob Henry Rothschild of German-Jewish descent, did not fare any better as she quite frankly detested him as well. That did not last long because her stepmother died when Parker was nine and her father died when she was thirteen. One wonders how she managed, but legend has it that she played piano at a dancing school to earn her keep whilst she was continually working on her poetry. Poetry opened the door to other opportunities. She sold her first poem to Vanity Fair magazine in 1914 which caused the attention of Conde Nast magazine, Vogue, where she worked as an editorial assistant. As would have it in a fledgling but talented career Parker moved on to Vanity Fair and later to Vogue, where she no doubt wrote that editorial caption, "Brevity is the soul of lingerie." Parker's caustic wit caught on with national acclaim as did he feature articles, short stories and most notable among her vast output is "Enough Rope," and "Big Blonde." A stint in Hollywood as a screen writer with her then husband, Alan Campbell collaborated on the script for the 1937 film, A Star is Born, for which they were nominated for an Academy Award for Best Writing-Screenplay. Parker is noted for her celebrated love affairs, but notable are her three marriages, the first in 1917 to Wall Street stock broker,Edwin Pond Parker II was short lived, and although she divorced Campbell she did remarry him, making three marriages in a busy career. In Parker's later years she became politically active and when called before the House Un-American Activities Committee, she remarked to a startled audience, "Listen, I can't even get my dog to say down. Do I look like someone who could overthrow the government." Parker lived a long a productive life, accompanied in the end by her dog and her alcoholic dementia. After her death on a sunny day in 1967 at the age of 73 her will revealed that she had bequeathed her estate to D. Martin Luther King, Jr. foundation, and after King's death, her estate was passed on to the NAACP. Sadly, Parker's ashes due to some unexplainable flaw remained in her attorney's filing cabinet for l7 years. For a celebrated American writer and amazing wit this was an incredible ending. Righting this wrong the NAACP claimed Parker's remains and created a memorial garden outside their Baltimore headquarters. The Plaque reads:"Here lie the ashes of Dorothy Parker (1893-1967) humorist, writer, critic. Defender of human and civil rights. For her epitaph she suggested, 'Excuse my dust'. This memorial garden is dedicate to her noble spirit which celebrated the oneness of humankind and to the bonds of everlasting friendship between black and Jewish people. October 28, 1988."So adieu Dottie, dear Dorothy Parker, remarkable and original wit, poet, author, screenwriter and wordsmith par excellance. We sure do miss you.
Labels: Algonquin Round Table Wit, Poet, Author