If ever a woman in history has captured my imagination it is Hildegarde. She defies all ‘boxes’ and perhaps that is significant in her attraction. This extraordinarily gifted woman born in 1100, in Bermersheim, Germany was given to the church at the age of eight. The tenth child of Hildebert of Bermersheim and Mechthild of Merxheim, she was promised as a tithe to the church from her birth. She was later to become an abbess. The book Hildegard of Bingen, The woman of her age, by Fiona Maddocks  speaks of the multiplicity of her gifts.

‘Today she is best known for her music. Yet her compositions form only a small part of her story. She was a polymath: a visionary, a theologian, a preacher; and early scientist and physician; a prodigious letter writer who numbered kings, emperors and popes among her correspondents. She an artist, not only in the musical and literary sense but in painting and, it would seem, architecture. She even invented her own coded language.’

She inspires and intrigues me. The name of the blog is taken from phrase she used to describe herself. See About & Ruach Yahweh

” Listen ; there was once a king sitting on his throne. Around him stood great and wonderfully beautiful columns ornamented with ivory, bearing the banners of the king with great honour. Then it pleased the king to raise a small feather from the ground and he commanded it to fly. The feather flew, not because of anything in itself, but because the air bore it along. Thus am I ‘a feather on the breath of God'”

She designed one of her monasteries- with plumbing- recommending her nuns to take hot baths… she purportedly invented dark beer; she wrote extensively on plants, animals, illnesses  and cures describing cancer and its development in great detail, even devoting a whole chapter to breast cancer. ‘According to Hildegarde, the key to successful cancer treatment therapy was early detection and treatment beginning in the pre-cancerous state.’ Hildegarde of Bingen’s Medicine Dr Wighard Strehlow & Gottfried Herzka M.D. 

She wrote about sex, female orgasm and in common with the Greek physician, Galen, believed that both men and women produced ‘seed’ necessary for conception. Her compassionate views on menstruation were that ‘the woman should be cherished in this time with a great and healing tenderness’. All astonishing insights from a chaste nun in the 12th century.

She had a wide ranging knowledge of the created world, and her entire theology is founded on the harmony of the created world and its relationship with God. She was a very early Green in her passion in this regard. Her cherished concept of viriditas, translated variously as greeness, vigour, youthful freshness runs through all of her writings, poetry and music.

Malcolm Guite, a poet priest has written the following poem about Hildegard of Bingen which appears in his book of poetry, The Singing Bowl which is due to be published on Oct 25th.

Hildegard of Bingen

A feather on the breath of God at play,

You saw the play of God in all creation.

You drew eternal light into each day,

And every living breath was inspiration.

You made a play with every virtue playing,

Made music for each sister-soul to sing,

Listened for what each herb and stone was saying,

And heard the Word of God in everything.

Mother from mother earth and Magistra,

Your song revealed God’s hidden gift to us;

The verdant fire, his holy harbinger

The greening glory of viriditas.

‘Cherish this earth that keeps us all alive’

Either we hear you, or we don’t survive.

I am still learning to be a feather on God’s breath. To float where and when He wills and only at His bidding. This feather tries too often to have energy of her own, and direct her own path/trajectory.. instead of resting on the loving breath of God and letting it all depend on Him. To let go and fly on Ruach Yahweh is my deepest joy, and my constant prayer.