‘Be braver, now, than you have ever been
And keep turning away
From all names, images, forms
Stripping yourself continually
Of yourself
Flinging every last scrap of you
Into the furnace of Nothing.
I tell you: when the soul itself is burnt away
It is melted into
The modeless bliss-nature of God.’
Hadewijch
Hadewijch is a newly treasured female Christian mystic of the 13th century. She lived as a Beguine for some of her life. Beguines were Christian women sharing communal housing who formed communities and worked in menial positions serving the poor from their own means. They did not belong to a religious order nor were they under the control of male clerics. An inspired mystical writer, Hadewijch’s works have only recently been rediscovered after having been seemingly silenced for five centuries. For a detailed description of Hadewijch’s life and the story of how her writings were rediscovered, see Andrew Harvey’s Preface to his translation of Hadewijch’s poetry and prose, Love is Everything.
Quotations used in Mags and Tom are selected from Hadewijch’s poetry and used with kind permission of Andrew Harvey. For a fuller appreciation of Hadewijch’s mystical teaching, see Andrew’s book, Love is Everything A Year with Hadewijch of Antwerp translation by Andrew Harvey, (Medio Media: Singapore, 2022). Copies of Love is Everything are available from Pauline Books and Media stores. See www.paulinebooks.com.au for store locations.