Hildegard of Bingen’s Vision of the Divine Feminine

[FROM THE ARCHIVE: MAY 15, 2019]

What strikes most about the Republican convention in Milwaukee is the utter silence about the number one moral and political issue of our day: Our treatment of Mother Earth.  Climate Change.  Matricide.  Ecocide.  All this gets ignored in a party whose favorite slogans are “drill, baby, drill” and “we have the right to tell women what they can and cannot do with their bodies.”  (The euphemism being “abortion”—which a very compromised Supreme Court judge condemned in Dodds by, among other things, invoking affirmatively two witch-burning lawyers from 17^th century England.)

So it seems that some serious reflections on the Divine Feminine are in order to counterbalance the sins of omission being committed against our souls and Holy Mother Earth in current day politics.  Thus the following DM from a few years back.

Hildegard of Bingen, medieval abbess, physician, philosopher, naturalist, composer, poet, author and linguist, describes a vision she had about the Divine Feminine.

I heard a voice speaking to me: ‘The young woman whom you see is Love.  She has her tent in eternity… It was love which was the source of this creation in the beginning when God said: ‘Let it be!’  And it was.  As though in the blinking of an eye, the whole creation was formed through love.  The young woman is radiant in such a clear, lightning-like brilliance of countenance that you can’t fully look at her… She holds the sun and moon in her right hand and embraces them tenderly… The whole of creation calls this maiden ‘Lady.’  For it was from her that all of creation proceeded, since Love was the first.  She made everything… Love was in eternity and brought forth, in the beginning of all holiness, all creatures without any admixture of evil.  Adam and Eve, as well were produced by love from the pure nature of the Earth.

Hildegard is only the fourth woman in history to be declared a Doctor of the Church, joining St. Catherine of Sienna, St. Teresa of Avila, and St. Therese of Lisieux.

In our time the Divine Feminine is returning in the awakening of women the world over to their rights and their proper role in leadership as well as in telling their stories of common suffering and abuse.  Many believers and non-believers alike are undergoing experiences and even visitations from the Black Madonna, for example.  Sophia, Wisdom, the Brown Madonna–Our Lady of Guadalupe–and other archetypes of the Divine Feminine are coming alive in appeals to defend Gaia, our Earth Mother, after centuries of rape and plunder.

Hildegard recognized that when women come into their own, there will be an end to the power-over dynamics that have blighted the planet.  Instead of the reigning powers of Patriarchy, only the integration of a healthy Sacred Masculine and a resurrected Divine Feminine can save us from our destructive ways.

Adapted from Matthew Fox, Hildegard of Bingen: A Saint For Our Times: Unleashing Her Power in the 21st Century, pp. xiii, xiv, xvi

Also see: Matthew Fox, Illuminations of Hildegard of Bingen.

Banner Image: “Ildegarda di Bingen – stampa antica (antique print).” Wikimedia Commons

Queries for Contemplation

In prayerful meditation, sit with Hildegard’s art work or music or vision described above: what are the insights that they open within you?

Recommended Reading

Hildegard of Bingen, A Saint for Our Times: Unleashing Her Power in the 21st Century

Matthew Fox writes in Hildegard of Bingen about this amazing woman and what we can learn from her.
In an era when women were marginalized, Hildegard was an outspoken, controversial figure. Yet so visionary was her insight that she was sought out by kings, popes, abbots, and bishops for advice.
“This book gives strong, sterling, and unvarnished evidence that everything – everything – we ourselves become will affect what women after us may also become….This is a truly marvelous, useful, profound, and creative book.” ~~ Andrew Harvey, author of The Hope: A Guide to Sacred Activism.

Illuminations of Hildegard of Bingen

An introduction to the life and work of Hildegard of Bingen, Illuminations reveals the life and teachings of one of the greatest female artists and intellectuals of the Western Mystical Tradition.  At the age of 42, she began to have visions; these were captured as 36 illuminations–24 of which are recorded in this book along with her commentaries on them.
“If one person deserves credit for the great Hildegard renaissance in our time, it is Matthew Fox.”  – Dr Mary Ford-Grabowsky, author of Sacred Voices.