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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).
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