This episode was hard to write. Hildegarde’s work seems to go on and on and I want to go deeper and deeper into the visions she shared, and swim with her in all directions – into the cosmos and into the earth. But I also keep pulling back and asking why a witch history spends time on a Christian saint. The church has not been kind to witches. It’s been cruel to many. I ended up drawing in contemporary thinkers Donna Haraway, Suzanne Simard and Lyla June to help me think about what it is I want to keep from Hildegarde, and working through pieces of my own history with pain, and the church.
If I didn’t touch on a piece of Hildegarde you love, forgive me and send me your thoughts and links? I’ll be stretching out into more time with her for our upcoming book and I want to learn from you and quote you. oxR missingwitches@gmail.com
This episode of MIssing Witches is dedicated to prophet, mystic, visionary, healer, organizer, artist, composer, brewer, baker, writer, maker Hildegarde of Bingen.
To our chorus of questions about the unknown or not yet understood electric, the dimension of mystery that is part of life in countless cultures and traditions, we add Hildegarde, a 12th Century nun who saw the visions in her mind’s eye all her life and then, in middle age when the average woman of the time would have been nearing a death by childbirth, illness, poverty or violence, she spoke her truth out loud about the things Spirit told her, voiced the things that only she could hear, and stood tall and fierce though wracked with pain. Shone even in the dark with what she called the LIVING LIGHT or in other contexts THE GREENESS.
Bibliography:
Fiona Maddocks Hildegard of Bingen: The Woman of Her Age, Faber and Faber 2001
Donna Haraway Staying With The Trouble Duke University Press, 2016
Hudson – https://www.sfsu.edu/~medieval/Volume%201/Hudson.html
“Hildegard of Bingen’s Vital Contribution to the Concept of Woman” Abigail Favale https://churchlifejournal.nd.edu/articles/hildegard-of-bingens-vital-contribution-to-the-concept-of-woman/
https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2020/11/19/saint-hildegard-coronavirus-catholic-joy
https://www.facebook.com/lylajune/posts/315044913323524
https://www.medievalists.net/2016/07/the-herbal-cures-of-hildegard-von-bingen-was-she-right/
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/suzanne-simard-interview.html
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/medieval-cookie-recipe
Hildegard von Bingen’s Mystical Visions: Translated from Scivias by Bruce Hozeski. From the introduction by Matthew Fox O.P. Holy Names College Oakland.
Hildegard of Bingen: Visions and Validation
Barbara Newman
Church History
Vol. 54, No. 2 (Jun., 1985), pp. 163-175 (13 pages)
Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the American Society of Church History
https://www.jstor.org/stable/3167233
https://ignota.org/blogs/news/hildegards-healing-recipes
https://www.medievalists.net/2016/07/the-herbal-cures-of-hildegard-von-bingen-was-she-right/
appears in Forschende Komplementärmedizin, Vol.19 (2012) pp.187-190.
https://www.healthyhildegard.com/hildegard-of-bingen-medicine/
https://bc.thegrowler.ca/features/beerstory-101-st-hildegard-of-bingen/
https://www.healthyhildegard.com/health-benefits-of-beer/
http://theunrulymystic.com/patron-saint-creativity/
https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2020/11/19/saint-hildegard-coronavirus-catholic-joy
https://www.learnreligions.com/health-and-nutrition-from-the-middle-ages-1446964
https://www.jstor.org/stable/44445287
https://issuu.com/pedrocalamandja/docs/epdf.tips_hildegards-healing-plants
https://chapel.princeton.edu/news/hand-god
/content/files/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/selected-writings-hildegard-of-bingen-mark-atherton.pdf
https://visualmelt.com/Hildegard-von-Bingen
