It is no secret that we are living in a time of apocalypse and antichrist. Hildegard of Bingen painted such times as an unraveling of order. But also how Christ arrives to challenge Evil and bring peace.
Thus, breakthroughs and revelations occur amidst the darkness. “Apocalypse” also means “Revelation.”
I reproduce her painting and commentaries on it in my book, Illuminations of Hildegard of Bingen and in my recent book on Trump and MAGA as Anti-Christ.
How turn Apocalypse into Revelation? How stay grounded during such fierce times? I offer here some practices for surviving spiritually during times like these.
1. Do not deny the darkness in you or the darkness of the times. Denial is not a healthy response. “God is the denial of denial.” (Eckhart)
2. Ground yourself in the Via Positiva, i.e. the goodness and beauty of life, nature and cosmos that birthed us and the Earth that feeds us and cares for us like the Mother she is.
3. Call on Father Sky for the vastness of soul and imagination and heart and courage (“big heart”) and the truly healthy masculine virility (i.e. virtue) that the times require.
4. Listen to your conscience, connect to it and act from it.
5. Demand that your political representatives search and find their conscience, connect to it and make decisions based on it.
6. Call on the spiritual warrior in you–we all have one in us. The biblical word for spiritual warrior is “prophet”—one who speaks out and interferes.
7. Find other spiritual warriors both living and dead to link up with as allies.
8. Reach out to Jesus as spiritual warrior and discover why the church chose Scriptures to read at the Christmas liturgy on the holiest night of the year that call him “the most powerful Word” and “stern warrior” who “leapt” to earth (Wis 18. 15).
9. Find or birth community, whether online or in person or both.
10. Read and study with an open heart the mystic-warriors of the past and present.
11. As I wrote in the conclusion to my antichrist book: Become a camel and return often to the oasis and watering hole of the Via Positiva. Fill up there on your love of life–the fountain of biophilia–as you cross the desert of the Via Negativa. Drink in the simple miracle of existence, the wonder of the 13.8 billion years that have brought you and the Earth and all her wondrous creatures into existence.
12. Be grateful—full of thanks. Carl Jung writes: “If our religion is based on wonder, our chief emotion will be gratitude.”
13. Practice silence, contemplation, emptying, letting go. (The Via Negativa)
14. Find a grief practice. Beating a drum daily for 15 minutes allowing sounds from the third chakra to emerge unedited is one such practice.
15. Practice art as meditation: Draw, paint, garden, dance, sing, do clay, chant, journal—let the depths of your soul out.
16. Practice protest or boycotting or contact politicians and attend town halls with them, call their offices, let your search for the common good be felt.
17. Take care of yourself. Laugh, listen to music, be with friends, get rest, read and pray the news but not overly much. Get into nature, let nature into you, make friends with the more-than-human. “Look to the skies, look to the mountains,” the psalmist says.
18. Create and do rituals with self or others that connect your soul to the cosmos.
19. Resist and protest wisely and passionately but non-violently (see yesterday’s DM).
See Matthew Fox, Illuminations of Hildegard of Bingen.
And Fox, Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ.
And Fox, Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul and Society.
And Fox, A Spirituality Named Compassion: Uniting Mystical Awareness with Social Justice.
And Fox, Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the Earth.
And Fox, Original Blessing: A Primer of Creation Spirituality
See Matthew Fox, Skylar Wilson, Jen Lustig, Order of the Sacred Earth: An Intergenerational Vision of Love and Action.
Banner Image: Visionary artist with his work. Photo by One zone Studio on Unsplash
Queries for Contemplation
Which of these practices work best for you? What others would you add?
Recommended Reading
Illuminations of Hildegard of Bingen
An introduction to the life and work of Hildegard of Bingen, Illuminations reveals the life and teachings of one of the greatest female artists and intellectuals of the Western Mystical Tradition. At the age of 42, she began to have visions; these were captured as 36 illuminations–24 of which are recorded in this book along with her commentaries on them.
“If one person deserves credit for the great Hildegard renaissance in our time, it is Matthew Fox.” – Dr Mary Ford-Grabowsky, author of Sacred Voices.
Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election
Matthew Fox tells us that he had always shied away from using the term “Anti-Christ” because it was so often used to spread control and fear. However, given today’s rise of authoritarianism and forces of democracide, ecocide, and christofascism, he turns the tables in this book employing the archetype for the cause of justice, democracy, and a renewed Earth and humanity.
From the Foreword: If there was ever a time, a moment, for examining the archetype of the Antichrist, it is now…Read this book with an open mind. Good and evil are real forces in our world. ~~ Caroline Myss, author of Anatomy of the Spirit and Conversations with the Divine.
For immediate access to Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election, order the e-book with 10 full-color prints from Amazon HERE.
To get a print-on-demand paperback copy with black & white images, order from Amazon HERE or IUniverse HERE.
To receive a limited-edition, full-color paperback copy, order from MatthewFox.org HERE.
Order the audiobook HERE for immediate download.
Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul and Society
Visionary theologian and best-selling author Matthew Fox offers a new theology of evil that fundamentally changes the traditional perception of good and evil and points the way to a more enlightened treatment of ourselves, one another, and all of nature. In comparing the Eastern tradition of the 7 chakras to the Western tradition of the 7 capital sins, Fox allows us to think creatively about our capacity for personal and institutional evil and what we can do about them.
“A scholarly masterpiece embodying a better vision and depth of perception far beyond the grasp of any one single science. A breath-taking analysis.” — Diarmuid O’Murchu, author of Quantum Theology: Spiritual Implications of the New Physics
A Spirituality Named Compassion: Uniting Mystical Awareness with Social Justice
In A Spirituality Named Compassion, Matthew Fox delivers a profound exploration of the meaning and practice of compassion. Establishing a spirituality for the future that promises personal, social, and global healing, Fox marries mysticism with social justice, leading the way toward a gentler and more ecological spirituality and an acceptance of our interdependence which is the substratum of all compassionate activity.
“Well worth our deepest consideration…Puts compassion into its proper focus after centuries of neglect.” –The Catholic Register
Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the Earth
Fox’s spirituality weds the healing and liberation found in North American Creation Spirituality and in South American Liberation Theology. Creation Spirituality challenges readers of every religious and political persuasion to unite in a new vision through which we learn to honor the earth and the people who inhabit it as the gift of a good and just Creator.
“A watershed theological work that offers a common ground for religious seekers and activists of all stripes.” — Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat, Spirituality and Practice.
“I am reading Liberating Gifts for the People of the Earth by Matt Fox. He is one that fills my heart and mind for new life in spite of so much that is violent in our world.” ~ Sister Dorothy Stang.
Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality
Matthew Fox lays out a whole new direction for Christianity—a direction that is in fact very ancient and very grounded in Jewish thinking (the fact that Jesus was a Jew is often neglected by Christian theology): the Four Paths of Creation Spirituality, the Vias Positiva, Negativa, Creativa and Transformativa in an extended and deeply developed way.
“Original Blessing makes available to the Christian world and to the human community a radical cure for all dark and derogatory views of the natural world wherever these may have originated.” –Thomas Berry, author, The Dream of the Earth; The Great Work; co-author, The Universe Story
Order of the Sacred Earth: An Intergenerational Vision of Love and Action
By Matthew Fox, Skylar Wilson, and Jen Listug
In the midst of global fire, earthquake and flood – as species are going extinct every day and national and global economies totter – the planet doesn’t need another church or religion. What it needs is a new Order, grounded in the Wisdom traditions of both East and West, including science and indigenous. An Order of the Sacred Earth united in one sacred vow: “I promise to be the best lover and defender of the Earth that I can be.”
Co-authored by Matthew Fox, Skylar Wilson, and Jennifer Berit Listug, with a forward by David Korten, this collection of essays by 21 spiritual visionaries including Brian Swimme, Mirabai Starr, Theodore Richards, and Kristal Parks marks the founding of the diverse and inclusive Order of the Sacred Earth, a community now evolving around the world.
“The Order of the Sacred Earth not only calls us home to our true nature as Earth, but also offers us invaluable guidance and company on the way.” ~~ Joanna Macy, environmental activist and author of Active Hope.
