Hello again, my friend. After walking the frozen paths of Sado Island with Abutsu-bo, I found myself thinking about another kind of devotion---the quiet strength of someone who holds space for a truth larger than themselves. Today I want to remember the monk who steadied a visionary's trembling light: Volmar of Disibodenberg
I remember a morning when the mist lay so thick over the Nahe River that the world seemed carved out of silence. The stone walls of Disibodenberg held the night's cold, each archway still touched with a thin breath of frost. Inside the scriptorium, candles sputtered with the last of their wax, casting unsteady halos of gold across the room.
At a wooden desk near the window sat Volmar---a soft-voiced monk with steady hands and eyes that had spent a lifetime reading what others overlooked. The manuscripts before him were arranged with almost reverent care, sheets weighted with smooth stones to keep the drafts from curling. Ink, still wet in places, shone faintly beneath the candlelight. But it was not the words that mattered most. It was the trembling voice from the doorway.
Hildegard stood there, pale and exhausted, the remnants of a vision still flickering behind her eyes. There were moments when the divine pressed so heavily upon her that she felt both illuminated and undone, as though the light that entered her might also consume her. She gripped the doorframe, breath unsteady, as if unsure whether to speak or to retreat back into silence.
Volmar rose without haste. He did not question her, did not fear her, did not try to restrain what he did not understand. Instead, he fetched a cup of warm water, placed a steadying hand at her back, and guided her to the desk. He listened---truly listened---as she described what she had seen. Where others might have dismissed her as ill or hysterical, he leaned closer, his expression gentle, attentive, unwavering.
As she spoke, he wrote. And in that quiet room, between the trembling visionary and the patient scribe, something extraordinary happened: truth found a path into the world.
I often think of that moment and wonder how many revelations would be lost if not for the courage of someone willing to believe the person who carries them.
To understand Volmar's place in history, you have to imagine the world Hildegard of Bingen inhabited long before she became the luminous figure people speak of today. The 12th-century Rhineland was a land of monasteries rising from river valleys, of scholars debating beneath vaulted stone ceilings, of music echoing through cloisters where knowledge and authority were tightly held---almost entirely by men. Women had little access to formal learning, and even less permission to speak publicly about spiritual experiences. Mystical visions coming from a woman were often feared, dismissed, or quietly suppressed.
Hildegard entered the monastery of Disibodenberg as a young child, an offering of her family to religious life. She grew up enclosed within its walls, taught to obey, taught to listen, taught to keep her spiritual sensitivity hidden. For years she saw visions she told almost no one about, knowing well how a woman claiming divine insight could be treated---with suspicion at best, with punishment or sequestration at worst.
Volmar was already an established monk when Hildegard arrived. He had been trained as a scribe and scholar---skills that placed him at the heart of monastic intellectual life. Where many in the monastery saw only a shy, odd, sickly girl, Volmar noticed something else: a mind quietly gathering strength, a spiritual intuition searching for language.
Over the years, a bond formed between them---one rooted in patience, curiosity, and a shared reverence for truth. When Hildegard finally confessed the depth of her visions, Volmar did what most men of his station would not: he believed her. Not blindly, not without discernment, but with a seriousness that granted her interior world dignity rather than suspicion.
As she grew older, the intensity of her visions increased. She felt compelled---almost commanded---to speak them aloud. But stepping into such a role was perilous. Women who dared claim spiritual authority were often silenced, sometimes forcibly. In this context, Volmar became her shield. He used his clerical training to transcribe her visions faithfully and his authority as a monk to present her revelations to church officials in a form they could not easily dismiss.
When bishops or abbots raised doubts about her authenticity, Volmar answered them. When ecclesiastical inquiries demanded precision, he provided it. And when Hildegard hesitated, overwhelmed by the weight of what she was being asked to release, he encouraged her. Not by pushing her forward, but by standing beside her---translating, steadying, and protecting.
His role expanded further when Hildegard sought to leave Disibodenberg to found her own community at Rupertsberg. Many resisted her. Some were openly hostile. Volmar used his influence to support her departure, even though it disrupted the established monastic order. He became her first secretary, the earliest custodian of her letters, music, theology, and visions.
Without Volmar's painstaking work---his writing, his advocacy, his willingness to risk his own standing---much of Hildegard's voice might never have reached beyond the stone walls where it was first spoken.
He was not the visionary.
He was the one who ensured the visionary would be heard.
In the age when Hildegard lived, spiritual authority flowed in one direction---downward, from the hierarchy of educated men to those beneath them. Women were permitted devotion, but not interpretation. They could pray, but they could not preach. They could sing, but they could not claim revelation. A woman who said, "I have seen something of God," was more likely to face suspicion than reverence.
Into this landscape came a truth whispered through a fragile body: Hildegard's visions. They were powerful, luminous, overwhelming. But without someone to honor them, they might have remained nothing more than private agony---experiences she was too frightened to speak aloud. The spiritual meaning of Volmar's presence begins exactly there.
He did something rare for his time: he practiced spiritual humility before a woman's experience. When Hildegard brought him her trembling, uncertain accounts of divine encounters, he did not correct her or redirect her or suggest she remain silent for her own safety. He bowed inwardly---acknowledging that truth can choose any vessel, not only the ones society approves.
In doing so, Volmar enacted a form of spiritual fidelity that was nearly revolutionary. He elevated Hildegard's voice not by claiming it, but by protecting its space. In an era when women's mystical experiences were often interpreted through the filter of male suspicion, he chose trust. His trust granted Hildegard the courage to speak what she might otherwise have buried.
Volmar also represented the possibility of collaborative revelation---a sacred partnership in which one person carries the vision and another carries its translation into the world. Hildegard saw with an inner sight that shook her; Volmar provided the steadiness to convert those visions into coherent writings, theological reflections, and letters that could withstand ecclesiastical scrutiny.
To the nuns and novices who lived with Hildegard, Volmar's role offered another meaning: he showed that spiritual companionship does not erase difference---it honors it. He and Hildegard were not equals in the eyes of their society, but in the realm of the spirit, he treated her as one. His respect became a living argument that divine truth is not constrained by gender or rank.
His contemporaries may not have spoken openly of it, but they understood the significance of what he was doing. His support implicitly challenged the assumption that men alone could legitimize or interpret mystical experience. Volmar's willingness to stand beside Hildegard---not above her---quietly undermined one of the most rigid structures of medieval spirituality.
And consider this: Hildegard's visions were often accompanied by physical suffering. She trembled, collapsed, or lost strength under the intensity of what she saw. Volmar's presence gave her a safe container for that vulnerability. In a world where spiritual ecstasy could be mistaken for illness or manipulation, he offered the stabilizing truth that not everything fragile needs to be dismissed; some things fragile are sacred.
In the spiritual imagination of their time, Volmar became a symbol of something extraordinary: a man who recognized a woman's prophetic voice and helped midwife it into history. He showed that revelation sometimes requires more than a visionary. It requires a witness who can hold the light without casting a shadow.
When history remembers Hildegard of Bingen, it often does so with deserved reverence: the visionary abbess, the composer of ethereal music, the author of prophetic works, the healer and theologian whose influence still stirs the modern imagination. But the truth that hides just beneath the surface is that her voice---so powerful, so luminous---might never have reached us at all without the patient, disciplined, and unwavering devotion of Volmar.
Volmar's contribution began with something deceptively simple: he wrote things down. In a time when manuscripts were precious, expensive, and labor-intensive, he devoted years of his life to transcribing Hildegard's visions, music, letters, and theological insights. His handwriting became the vessel that carried her fire across generations. Without his meticulous work, many of her early writings would likely have been lost, scattered, or diminished by time.
But his contribution went beyond transcription. He used his clerical authority to translate her experiences into language the church could recognize. Hildegard's visions were vivid, symbolic, sometimes wild. Volmar shaped them into forms that did not compromise her message but made it intelligible to bishops, theologians, and scholars who would otherwise have dismissed the writings of a woman with no formal training. His work became the bridge between her prophetic fire and the institutional structures that eventually affirmed her.
He also served as her advocate during moments of resistance. When critics challenged her authority, questioned the legitimacy of her visions, or tried to restrict her work, Volmar defended her. He knew that her voice carried something the world needed, and he used his own credibility to ensure she was heard. In this way, he became not only a scribe but a shield---absorbing skepticism, answering objections, and safeguarding her from the institutional hostility that often greeted women mystics.
Volmar's support extended into action. When Hildegard sought to leave Disibodenberg and found a new monastery at Rupertsberg---a move that disrupted established monastic order---he backed her. He helped negotiate the transition, steadied her through opposition, and encouraged her to claim the authority she had long been asked to hide. Without his encouragement, she might have remained confined behind the cloister walls where her voice would have echoed no further than the stone courtyard.
After her death, the ripples of his devotion continued. The manuscripts he helped shape became foundational texts of medieval Christian thought. Her music survived because he preserved the earliest notations. Her theology endured because he insisted on its legitimacy. Even her correspondence---a vast, intricate web of spiritual guidance---would have been far thinner without his early clerical stewardship.
In this way, Volmar became the quiet architect behind one of the most influential voices of the Middle Ages. His legacy is not the legacy of genius but the legacy of courageously supporting genius. He teaches us that some of the most transformative figures in history step forward only because someone trusted them enough to stand behind them.
Volmar's life offers a truth that threads through every century: sometimes the person who steadies the light is just as essential as the one who carries it.
I've watched many people in our time wrestle with a quiet uncertainty: Does my work matter if no one sees it? You feel it in workplaces, in families, in friendships, even in spiritual communities. The world has become so enamored with the idea of brilliance---of standing out, of leading, of being the one in front---that those who work beside, behind, or beneath often wonder whether their efforts carry any real meaning.
Volmar's life unsettles that anxiety in the gentlest possible way.
He reminds us that the world changes not only through the voices that speak, but through the hands that steady those voices, the hearts that believe in them, and the quiet patience that helps truth take its first, fragile steps into daylight. In a time like ours---fast, loud, impatient---his example becomes a kind of antidote. He shows that greatness is not always a solitary flame; sometimes it is a shared fire, tended by someone who asks for no credit.
When I think of the world you inhabit now, I see how many lives depend on people like Volmar: editors who shape the work of others; teachers who fan the first sparks of talent; caregivers who listen when someone trembles; collaborators who translate raw brilliance into something understood; friends who whisper courage to someone on the eve of giving up. These roles rarely earn applause. They rarely become history. Yet they are the scaffolding of every transformation.
Volmar teaches that supporting another person's light does not diminish your own. It amplifies it. His strength was not overshadowed by Hildegard's radiance; it became part of its foundation. In a culture obsessed with individual achievement, this is a lesson many people need to remember: that some of the most meaningful contributions we make will never be traced back to our names, but the world would be poorer without them.
He also speaks to a deeper, more human longing: the desire to be believed. Hildegard carried revelations that frightened even her. She needed someone who could hear the tremble in her voice without dismissing her as unstable or dangerous. Volmar did that. And in doing so, he demonstrated something rare---an act of spiritual trust that helped her step into the fullness of her calling.
Today, when so many people struggle to speak truths about their lives---about grief, faith, identity, purpose---Volmar's example reminds us that belief itself can be a form of love. To listen without judgment. To trust that another person's experience, however unfamiliar, might be genuine. To stand beside a soul who risks vulnerability.
And finally, his story prepares the way for the next voice we'll meet: Chökyi Drönma, a woman who bore spiritual authority in a world that resisted the very idea. Where Volmar protected a visionary, she embodied one. Together, their stories teach us the same truth from different angles: that spiritual revelation often enters the world only because someone---someone humble, someone steadfast---chooses to honor it.
Volmar's life is a reminder that the world is held together by people who steady the light, not just the ones who shine it.
When I think of Volmar, what rises first is not the image of him bent over a manuscript or arguing before an abbot. It's the way he listened. He had a manner of leaning in---not aggressively, not skeptically, but with the quiet seriousness of someone who believes that another person's inner world deserves respect. I watched him do that again and again as Hildegard struggled to find words for what she had seen. Her visions were immense, overwhelming, sometimes terrifying; his calm attention gave them shape.
There is a particular kind of courage in listening that deeply. It asks you to set aside the easy explanations, the instinct to correct, the fear of being associated with something others consider strange. Volmar did that. He stayed with Hildegard through her trembling, through her doubts, through the exhaustion that so often followed her visions. He steadied her breath, steadied her voice, steadied the ink that translated her inner fire into something the world could read.
I've seen many visionaries stumble because they had no one like him---no one willing to believe in them before the world did, no one patient enough to walk beside them through the uncertainty of revelation. Sometimes we overlook how vulnerable vision can be. Before it becomes history, it is often just one person, shaking slightly, hoping someone will hear them.
I wonder if you have known someone like that---someone who believed you when you didn't yet believe yourself. Or perhaps you've been that presence for someone else without realizing it. Devotion often hides inside small, consistent acts. You never fully know the stability you might be providing, the way your steady attention becomes the ground another person stands on.
Volmar's life reminds me that listening is not a passive act. It is a way of carrying another person's truth long enough for them to claim it themselves. And sometimes, that is the most sacred work a soul can do.
here's someone I want you to meet next---someone who carried spiritual authority in a way her world was never prepared to accept. Her name was Chökyi Drönma, a Tibetan princess who stepped away from royalty, walked directly into the hardships of monastic life, and became the first recognized female reincarnate lama. Where Volmar supported the voice of another, she claimed her own with a courage that astonished even the elders of her time.
But that is a story for another day, my friend.
Until then, may you listen with the same steadiness Volmar once offered---a quiet faith that allows another person's truth to breathe.
Much love.
I am, Harmonia.