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Kulturlandschaft
Trithemius

Hildegardisweg: Contemplative Path

The official title of the recently (2018) opened Hildegardis Trail is «Hildegard von Bingen Pilgerwanderweg» (Pilgrims' Way of Hildegard von Bingen). With a total length of 137 km (85 miles), it leads from the town of Idar-Oberstein to the town of Bingen at the mouth of the Nahe river into the Rhine, in close vicinity of the two monasteries Rupertsberg and Eibingen. The trail is laid out around its natural center of Bad Sobernheim and the Disibodenberg hill, where Hildegard von Bingen lived during the first 50 years of her life. The Hildegardis Trail offers a wide variety of different experiences. Dr. Annette Esser, one of the initiators of the trail, summarized this as follows: people using the trail with a spiritual goal in mind may enjoy the athletic aspects as well, while others coming with sporting ambitions may also experience the trail's spiritual aspects. However, common to all the different ways of enjoying the Hildegardis Trail are unforgettable memories of the unique cultural heritage found almost everywhere in the Nahe Valley.

Dialogue with the tree. On the Disibodenberg, at the very end of the «Path of Silence», there is a mighty, age-old tree. It asked me about the «where from» and the «where to», like probably many others before me. I answered him with the standard Confucian word used by people on pilgrimages: «the way is the goal». In fact and truth, however, I was on the way to myself, to that manageable labyrinth. Manageable labyrinth? This is a small, simple labyrinth, similar to the one at the monastery church of Sponheim, where you immediately recognize the route and the goal, but where it is difficult to follow the way (Scivias).

vSpacer hSpacer Disibodenberg: Path of Silence (Scivias) rFrame
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