A dried-up person and dried-up culture lose their ability to create. This is why drying up is so grave a sin for Hildegard [of Bingen] — it interferes with our exalted vocation to create. "Humankind alone is called to co-create," she declares. We should be "the banner of Divinity" in this way: "God created humankind so that humankind might cultivate the earthly and thereby create the heavenly." The tragedy of drying up and ignoring greening power is that nothing is created. . . . We are to become a flower in orchard. "The person who does good works is indeed this orchard bearing good fruit." Our work is meant to be a green work, a greening work, a creative work. But to be so, it is necessary that we be as wet and moist as God. Our baptism is not a baptism through water but into moistness. It is a commitment on our part to stay wet and green. Like God.
— Matthew Fox, Illuminations of Hildegard of Bingen