Seeds of Light

In the south of France, hidden deep within an overgrown forest, a heretical sect met in secret.

“Beloved souls, you walk in chains and call it life,” the leader began. “These bodies are not your true selves, but prisons, fashioned by a false creator who delights in decay and illusion. In this form, you are nothing but beasts, giving in to the sin of the flesh. So, I say to you, starve your prison. Turn instead to the spirit within.”

The followers nodded in agreement. A dozen women and children sat on blankets strewn on the ground while their men perched on stumps before the emaciated preacher.

“Each desire you deny, each indulgence you resist, loosens the grip of this corrupt shell. And in that surrender, the soul begins to awaken and turns toward the realm of the Good God, where no shadow of this evil world can reach.”

More nods. If only the Good God could see their efforts were pure, surely, He would save them from the Evil God.

“Go now. Reclaim your angelic state, for only when we conquer the beast within us will we find salvation.”

The man raised his arms as Christ would and everyone rose from their seats to recite the Pater Noster.

That is the precise moment young Hadewijch flew out of her bed, crying out from a dream. I saw her pale face, covered in sweat, appealing to me with large eyes, fear contorting her mouth. She was 14 years old when she came to live with us this spring.

“Haddie,” I said, “What startles you?” I was three years older, and Hadewijch confided in me over the older women when these visions occurred.

She was trembling. “Bridget,” she panted. “I saw a distortion.” She sat back down, and I moved closer in the bed, slipping my arm around her.

“There are people who believe we… our bodies are evil. They say we are beasts and an evil god keeps us here, trapped,” she recalled as her eyes stared into the darkness, seeing something I could not see.

“Are the people dangerous?” I asked. I did not doubt Hadewijch’s visions anymore.

Hadewijch paused as if she were hearing the answer enter her mind directly. “No,” she said. “The people are not dangerous, but they are in danger. They are forging the wrong path, and it threatens their lives.”

She turned the sheets over in her small hands. Her eyes suddenly widened as realization struck. “We will help free them. And I know how.”

…

The benefit of becoming an uncloistered woman of faith is that I could serve both the people and the Lord while still living freely in the world. This evil world, my recollection of Hadewijch’s vision from a fortnight ago continued to disturb my thoughts.

The women I served with were neither confined to convents like nuns, nor destined for marriage like laywomen. The townspeople of Antwerp called us the “grey ladies” because we wore grey garments and wimples, an attire choice intended to distinguish us from prostitutes. We were midwives, nurses, wool spinners, and lacemakers. We bathed the sick and fed the hungry. We did not take formal vows, but we lived by charity, chastity, poverty, and piety just the same.

“Bridget,” the Magistra called, “Someone is here to see you.”

Marguerite was the new Magistra after our beloved Marie died last year from the fever. It was Marie’s passion for serving the community that led me to choose this life, which was coincidentally around the same time my parents were discussing a marriage to old man Phillippe. Perhaps Phillippe wasn’t that old, but he did have grey hair around his temples and plenty of wear on his face from working the fields.

Hadewijch heard Marguerite’s words and came running to the door where a tall young man adorned with the Templar cross stood. It was uncommon for a man, let alone a knight, to come knocking on our door. Marguerite waited for an explanation, hesitant to leave us alone with the sandy-haired, blue-eyed stranger.

“Bertrand, brother!” I jumped into his arms and squeezed my brother tightly. It had been three years since I’d seen him, and he had grown a foot or more to be sure! Marguerite nodded and slipped back into the house while Hadewijch and I stepped outside.

The streets were a bustle with the life of a small town. It was a market day and people from the country had come to buy supplies and sell crops. The sunny day lent itself to a beautiful blue sky but also rejuvenated the stench of dung and animal entrails from the market’s travelers and local butchers.

We walked behind the house where it was quieter and smelled better.

“I received your letter,” Bertrand began, “I’m not agreeing to anything yet but tell me what happened.”

Bertrand was once a monk in training, but his size became too impressive to overlook, and the Knights Templar, the poor soldiers of Christ, recruited him instead. To be here now, he had to obtain special approval from the Grand Master, given the “life and death situation” I described in my letter.

My eyes shifted to Hadewijch, and I nodded for her to begin. She took a deep breath, the kind she drew before saying something utterly unbelievable to a normal person.

“There is a friar, Dominic. We must meet him on his journey to Paris and give him what will become a powerful weapon against evil. He will take it to the south of France and convince a growing sect of people to abandon their heretic ways before they are slaughtered by the Pope’s crusade.”

Bertrand’s intense focus pierced Hadewijch’s green eyes. He blinked one time. Then, he turned his eyes to mine for translation. My brother favored me over all our siblings and often defended me to our parents, especially when I decided to live among the Beguines. I knew if I could explain this clearly, he would understand.

“She sees things,” I blurted. “That is, she has… visions. Some of her visions are through dreams and other prophesies, well, she hears in her mind when she is awake.”

Bertrand shifted his feet, crossed his arms, and leaned on a tree. He blinked again.

I continued, “We want you to escort us to Paris where Friar Dominic will be in seven days’ time. We will meet with him and give him this.”

I handed Bertrand a parchment bearing a drawing that resembled a beaded necklace. Bertrand took the parchment and studied it while absorbing my words further.

“You want to give him a drawing of prayer beads?” he said unimpressed.

Hadewijch rocked her body to keep from exploding with explanatory passion. I placed my hand on her shoulder and said, “Not the drawing. We will make the beads along the way. They are a new kind of prayer bead that Haddie saw in a vision. This is the weapon that Friar Dominic will use to diffuse the Cathars.”

Bertrand’s head rose to the sky in sudden recollection. “The Cathars,” he said. “You want me to escort you from the Low Countries to Paris to save people from… themselves.”

As a Templar, Bertrand had taken an oath to protect and serve the holy Church. The Cathars were denounced by the Pope as heretics and a crusade against them began five years ago. This was his duty.

“And if I say no?” he asked. I lowered my voice, “Then we go without you.”

Bertrand knew me well enough to recognize I was not bluffing. Two young women traveling across the French countryside were certain to face danger. Outlaws were everywhere, and protecting pilgrims was a founding charge of the Knights Templar.

Bertrand sighed. That was a yes.

…

Dominic de Guzman traveled lightly. With only a novice friar as his companion on this unexpected trip to Paris, Dominic’s mind was troubled by the Cathars, the Albigensian heretics whose numbers were growing at an alarming rate. The young priest spent years preaching, living by example, and converting Cathars through peaceful persuasion, an approach that stood in contrast to the deadly crusade against them.

As dualists, their belief of two Gods was distracting from the Gospel teaching, something the Church did not take lightly. By 1214, over 20,000 Cathars had been killed by order of Innocent III, and Dominic longed for the killing to stop. He saw families torn apart, children hanged, and worse. He was making progress, yes, but progress needed to come faster to save lives.

The journey to Paris was long from Prouille. Louis IX had been born in April, and Dominic was beckoned to Poissy, a town northwest of Paris, to witness the future King’s Baptism. Dominic could not shake the feeling that something else was drawing him there, as though the answer to his prayers lingered in the northern wind.

As the last few families shuffled in, Dominic cleared his throat. Whenever he traveled, he made a point to preach in the villages along the way. Not even the rain that day could deter him.

“My friends,” he said, “arm yourselves with prayer instead of a sword, be clothed with humility instead of fine raiment. You must sow the seed, not hoard it. That is, by living with devotion, humility, and charity, you become instruments of God, bringing His kingdom to earth, just as Jesus has taught.”

The crowd listened to the young priest intently, and Dominic carried on with preemptive advice.

“Do not be led astray when the teachings of others trouble your heart. Hold fast to the Truth handed down to you in the Gospel. When your mind grows restless, pray. We were created good in God’s image, and we are not beasts. Rather, the true beast is the temptation of false teaching pulling your gaze from the Truth. Stand firm in prayer, and with God’s grace, you will not be overcome.”

Lightning flashed and then the abrupt rumble of thunder followed as if the sky were saying, Yes, Dominic.

…

Bertrand estimated the journey from Antwerp to Paris would take six days.

I packed bundles of dried meats and bread, grain for Bertrand’s horse and the mule on which Hadewijch and I would ride, and we set off at sunrise. Bertrand mapped our path on the prayer bead parchment. We would have to find an inn or make camp six times along the way. I strongly preferred finding inns.

Throughout the journey, passersby recognized Bertrand’s white tunic and red cross, with chainmail clanking beneath, and looked straight ahead, careful not to cause trouble. Traffic on the roads increased as we approached Paris, and still, no one bothered us as if we were protected by an unseen force.

On the fifth day, we came upon the edge of a forest. The road curved east, but Hadewijch felt a strong inclination toward the west.

“This is it,” Hadewijch called to Bertrand. She sat astride the mule behind me, with her arms wrapped around my waist. Our grey habits poured over the sides of the mule like a blanket, and we stopped at the threshold of the forest.

Bertrand looked down on us from his warhorse and said, “This is what?”

Hadewijch drew in her breath again. “The seeds for our prayer beads are in there. And on the other side of this forest lies the town where Friar Dominic is staying.”

I looked up at Bertrand with a shrug. We’ve come this far.

…

Our night in the forest was unlike any night we had spent together before. The woods were wrapped in a deep silence, not an eerie kind that stirs unease, but a reverent stillness you feel when entering a cathedral. There was an unmistakable sense of wholeness and unity with nature, and the woods felt blessed.

By flickering firelight, my fingers guided the foraged pea-sized seeds through grey thread pulled from my garment to form the prayer beads Hadewijch saw in her dream. They were arranged in five sections of ten beads each, with each section separated by a larger bead. Those would be the Pater Noster beads. Dangling from a long loop would be a wooden cross, fastened together with thread in the shape of an x.

The lady in Hadewijch’s dream did not speak, but conveyed with her eyes, “They need a mother to help them see.”

She emanated light from her heart center, while radiant beams poured from her hands as she held out the new beads that would change the world.

…

“I’m sorry, Friar Dominic is not taking visitors today,” the novice said. “He has retreated to a day of solitude and prayer and will be leaving promptly tomorrow at dawn.”

The door closed as Bertrand, Hadewijch, and I stood speechless. How the novice friar could turn away a Templar and two Beguines is beyond our comprehension.

“We have to find another way,” I turned to the road, thinking. Then it hit me. Hadewijch and I locked eyes. Yes! It all made sense now. We must help him see.

We waited until midnight when Dominic’s fire had long burnt out. Bertrand quietly began dethatching a section of the roof over Dominic’s bedroom under the moonlight.

“Sometimes, the only way forward is through,” he said as he gently layered the thatch back over the hole he created. I hoisted Hadewijch up the side of the house on my shoulders while my brother grabbed her wrists with two hands. She looked at him excitedly as he lifted her the rest of the way onto the roof.

Moving swiftly, he positioned each of her feet into a loop of rope, removed the thatch, and slowly and silently lowered her to the foot of Dominic’s bed.

Moonlight poured in through the hole above, illuminating Hadewijch on her descent.

“So violent, the world led by men,” she said, waking Dominic. He shot up from his pillow and recoiled in sudden alarm, clutching the blankets to his chest.

“Compassion, empathy,” she quoted the lady from the dream. “Hail your mother, she is full of grace. The Lord is with her. She will engulf these beads with her love and lead whoever prays them to Truth. This will bring peace to the world.”

Dominic rubbed his eyes. “Is it really you, Holy Mother?” he whispered.

With Hadewijch’s outline framed by moonlight, she appeared as Our Lady, mother of Jesus in the night. Hadewijch laid the prayer beads at the foot of the bed, raised her hands, and said, “Peace be with you, Dominic.”

That was Bertrand’s cue to pull up the rope. Hadewijch ascended like an angel through the roof, and Bertrand quickly replaced the thatch. We helped her down, leaving Dominic alone in the room to comprehend the vision he had just experienced.

When we retreated into the safety of the forest, Bertrand and I pulled Hadewijch, God's midnight caller, into a tight embrace. She had sown the seeds, and now it was up to Dominic to free the people.