This is the monk who called himself the Servant of Eternal Wisdom, or Suso, after his mother's name. He is wearing the traditional Dominican monk's habit. He lived at the Constance Island Monastery for many years, right by the water. The only surviving part of the medieval buildings is the nave, which was renovated to serve as a banquet hall for the hotel now on the site of the former monastery. The monk may once have enjoyed the same view from his cell as hotel guests do today.

Worldly pleasures were not on the monk’s mind. His way of seeking God was typical of the late medieval Christian religiosity: Follow Christ in his suffering. The monk points to the symbol IHS, which he has carved into his chest (the abbreviated name of Jesus). He embraced every ascetic practice, the more extreme the better. For him, this was the only way to seek God. Until a dog taught him otherwise.

This is Elsbeth Stagel. Born in Zurich, she lived at the Dominican convent in Töss, near Winterthur. While the monk may have been her confessor, in his work she became his eager pupil on the path to God. She asked many questions, and he provided the answers.

Time and again, the monk found himself reaching the gates of Heaven, only for them to remain closed to him. He could not understand what he was doing wrong. He sought to follow in the footsteps of Jesus Christ by emulating his Passion through asceticism and self-mortification. Was he not inflicting enough pain upon himself? Was he not fasting for long enough? Should he stay awake all night instead of merely foregoing a few hours' sleep? Had the thorns on the whip with which he scourged himself become blunt?

The monk was undoubtedly radical, but his actions were in keeping with the spirit of the age. The church houses one of the most impressive cycles of paintings depicting scenes of martyrdom. These murals miraculously survived the bombing of Constance during the Second World War.

Today, the former nave is used as the hotel’s ballroom. We held the performance and book presentation there on 15 December 2007.

Angels are messengers of God. They delivered messages to the monk that were not always pleasant. He was on the wrong track. The torments he subjected himself to nearly drove him over the edge, but he ignored them and kept inventing new instruments of torture. Among these were spiked gloves to prevent him from scratching when his self-inflicted wounds stung so badly that he could scarcely bear it.

Elsbeth was not the only godseeker among the circles of the monk. Even outside the monasteries, people had heard about the possibility of becoming a ‘friend of God’. They lived in towns, formed groups, and read mystical writings from the monasteries together. They also had copies of the monk's book made for their own use, though that was risky at the time. The Church controlled everyone and everything. Only the clergy were permitted to claim knowledge of God. People who sought God independently were suspected of being so-called free spirits. They experienced God in their own personal way. The monk came under the scrutiny of the Inquisition, too. After all, they had read his writings.

Divinity

The core of this path is God or, in its simplest form, divinity. Time and again, the monk asks himself the same question: How can one speak of God? Can images be used to illustrate that which has no name? What should he say when his students ask how one finds God? This is precisely what Elsbeth does towards the end of the their conversation.

The monk offers what seems to be simple advice: she should open her soul's inner ears and listen. He then continues: 'A thread runs through the cosmos, connecting all creation, all experiences and all forces within and around humankind.' This thread passes through the Trinity to the centre of the great circle: the Divinity. This is illustraten in the manuscript.

One-Fold One

The journey through creation culminates in the concentric circles. Painted in gold, they symbolise the divine: a being that neither takes nor receives from anywhere. A being that knows neither before nor after.

This is the only way to grasp the incomprehensible: the hidden divine truth that marks the beginning and end of all existence. This light is perceived both within and outside of things.

Meister Eckhart was a Dominican monk who is believed to have lived from 1260 until at least the end of April 1328. The circumstances of his death are unclear, as he fell into the clutches of the Inquisition towards the end of his life. Those close to him betrayed him. In the radio play, he is still haunted by this experience of persecution and distortion of his thought. Individual statements had been taken out of context and treated as heretical. This eventually led to a trial, which resulted in the conviction. The wording of the judgement suggests that Meister Eckhart had already died by that point. One of the most prominent figures of his time, he left behind an extensive body of work comprising sermons and treatises in German and Latin. In the radio play, he is slightly surprised that Zhuangzi doesn't recognise him.

Zhuangzi, meaning 'Master Zhuang', is said to have been named Zhuang Zhou. He was born around 365 BC and died around 290 BC. The book he seemingly left behind is called 'Zhuangzi'. His life spanned the ‘Warring States’ period (Zhanguo), a highly turbulent time marked by feuds between numerous city-states. This period is characterised in the final chapter of the 'Zhuangzi' as follows:

Zhuangzi's most famous parable goes as follows: Zhuang Zhou dreams that he is a butterfly, fluttering carefree through the air. When he wakes up, he realises that he is Zhuang Zhou again, and rejoices in this. Yet he asks himself: "Am I Zhuang Zhou who dreamed he was a butterfly, or am I a butterfly who dreamed he was Zhuang Zhou?" The only certainty is that everything is in a state of flux. That is the gist of it. Master Eckhart has no real objection to this, but he finds the sort of stories that Zhuangzi tells rather curious. Master Eckhart wonders: how could people possibly understand what this master was saying? Yet Zhuangzi raises the very same question when he hears Master Eckhart preach.

The margins of medieval manuscripts are populated by strange creatures, and this red-headed figure from a manuscript of the Lilly Library at Indiana University in Bloomington is no exception. We don't know who it is. Perhaps his name is Master Speckled? Or Old Long-Ears, Half-Shadow, Gap-Biter, or Master Reed-Cloak? Zhuangzi was a genius when it came to inventing names.

The human desire for self-expression finds ways to give voice to all of creation. Zhuangzi engages the waters and their deities in conversation. The God of the North Sea speaks to the Lord of the Yellow River: "When the autumn floods came and made the Yellow River overflow, the Lord of the Yellow River rejoiced at all this abundance belonging to him. But when he reached the North Sea with the current of the Yellow River and saw nothing but water all around him, he sighed in disappointment to the God of the North Sea, saying, 'Only now do I recognise your boundlessness.' The God of the North Sea replied, 'A frog in a well cannot speak of the sea; it crouches within its walls. A summer mosquito cannot speak of ice; it knows only its own season.' He who knows something cannot speak of the Dao, for his knowledge holds him captive. Now that you have left your shore, seen the sea, and recognised your limits, you can speak of great things. There are no greater waters than the sea. It knows no change. Yet this was never important to me, as I see myself in relation to heaven and earth — there, I am as small as a pebble. How could I consider myself great? Everything is in a constant state of flux."

‘What is real?’ asks Zhuangzi. Meister Eckhart had experienced first-hand how the Church enforces its authority at all cost. Zhuangzi was wise enough to try to avoid power, and would challenge the Pope with a question that only a frog could ask. ‘What nonsense,’ replies Meister Eckhart. Then Zhuangzi tells him the following story.

A frog living in the walls of a well said to a turtle from the East Sea: "What a blessed creature I am! I hop onto the edge of the well, glide along the slippery stones to the bottom, fold my legs together, and tuck my chin in. Neither crabs nor tadpoles can compare to me. I am the sole ruler of my waterhole – what could be better? Come and see for yourself!" The turtle paused for a moment, then said a few words about the sea: "A thousand fathoms would not suffice to measure its breadth and depth. To remain still and unchanged over time, neither rising nor receding – that is the great joy of the East Sea." The frog in the well was horrified to hear this.

Hildegard von Bingen was born in 1098 and died on 17 September 1179. She is the most famous of the four women, and she lived longer than any of the others (and indeed longer than almost anyone else of her time). She left behind an extensive and varied body of Latin work. According to her own account, she was forced by God to start writing at the age of almost 42. She is my namesake. When I was a student, I wanted to write on her visions, but unfortunately, her work was entirely in Latin, so it could not be the subject of a German Studies thesis. The first time I was invited to speak on the radio, in 1995, it was about Hildegard of Bingen. She was also the focus of my most recent podcast appearance. In 'The Ocean in the Thimble', Hildegard of Bingen is portrayed as a woman who knew the rules of the game in her time, particularly those of the churchmen.

Not only do we know the dates of Hildegard’s life, we also have stylised portraits of her. Here is one of them, taken from the famous Lucca manuscript. It depicts her receiving visions, which she is taking notes. Tongues of fire stream down onto her face, making her look like an apostle at Pentecost. In other illuminations, her secretary can be seen translating her words into Latin and writing them down.

Etty Hillesum was born in Middelburg in the Netherlands in 1914, and was murdered in Auschwitz at the age of 29. Listeners felt sometimes that she was the radio play’s unspoken protagonist. She was certainly the youngest person featured in 'The Ocean and the Thimble', and her writings were the only ones that had not yet been translated into German when I wrote it.

Etty Hillesum took up writing for therapeutic reasons. Her beloved mentor and fatherly friend, Mr Spier, advised her to keep a diary. She did so right up until the end of her life. At the last possible moment, she was able to hand her notebooks over to a friend. Many years after her death, the diary was finally published. I portrayed Etty as a fully awake and aware seeker who, as an observer of herself and her times in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam, decides to witness what she saw and heard. She triumphs in her race against time. Her words survive.

Mechthild of Magdeburg lived from 1208 to 1282, possibly longer. She was the first known female German-language author. She said that she was 'greeted by the Holy Spirit' at the age of twelve. Mechthild began writing as a Beguine after her confessor encouraged her to do so, and she completed her book as a Cistercian nun. The few autobiographical details we have come from her book 'The Flowing Light of the Divinity'. There are no other biographical records. Mechthild wrote about her experiences of God in many different ways, including short scenes that read like mini dramas. In 'The Ocean in a Thimble', she is a seeker of God who holds her fellow travellers in particularly high regard. She knows how difficult it is to express oneself in the most challenging circumstances.

Hadewijch remains largely unknown to this day. She lived in Brabant, possibly in Antwerp, and was a Beguine who wrote between 1220 and 1240. Her work comprises visions, poems, songs and letters. This is almost all that we know about her. The time and place of her life can only be narrowed down to a period of one hundred years, a duchy, and one of the religious orders known at the time. Her 'List of the Perfect' is also shrouded in mystery. It contains the names of those who were, are and will be "perfect in love", including the dead, the living and the not yet born. In 'The Ocean and the Thimble, Hadewijch is an expert on mysteries and possesses a very special kind of deep, brave-hearted resilience.

Mechthild calls her book 'The Flowing Light of Divinity'. In 'The Ocean and the Thimble', Mechthild and her companions do more than just talk about this flow; they live immersed in it. Light, love and life are divine currents. Anyone who wishes to return to the Source must regain the very specific kind of freedom, which is relinquished in order to step into one’s own life as an individual with a name and an identity.

The four women in 'The Ocean in the Thimble' are great lovers. They stand in the tradition of the Song of Songs, whose mystical interpretation paved the way into God as a path of love. Hildegard, Mechthild and Hadewijch led religious lives and were familiar with cosmic eros. They saw Jesus Christ as their unconditional lover rather than as a suffering, tortured and murdered man. As her final diary entries and letters attest, Etty lived within this breadth and depth too. Chapter 5 of the book provides more information about the cosmic eros that connects the four women.