Illuminations Of Hildegard Of Bingen

An introduction to the life and work of Hildegard. • Reveals the life and teachings of one of the greatest female artists and intellectuals of the Western Mystical Tradition. • Contains 24 full-color illustrations by Hildegard of Bingen. • Includes commentary by Matthew Fox, author of Original Blessing (250,000 sold). Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179) was an extraordinary woman living in the Rhineland valley during most of the twelfth century. Besides being the abbess of a large and influential Benedictine abbey, she was a prominent preacher, healer, scientist, and artist. She also was a composer and theologian, writing nine books on theology, medicine, science, and physiology, as well as 70 poems and an opera. 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. She also wrote a text describing these visions entitled Scivias (Know the Ways), now published as Hildegard of Bingen's Mystical Visions. Author Matthew Fox has stated, "If Hildegard had been a man, she would be well known as one of the greatest artists and intellectuals the world has ever seen." It is a credit to the power of the women's movement and our times that this towering genius of Western thought is being rediscovered in her full grandeur and autonomy. Virtually unknown for more than 800 years in Western history, Hildegard was featured as one of the women in Judy Chicago's Dinner Party in the early 1980s and published for the first time in English by Bear & Company in 1982. In addition to her mystical teachings, Hildegard's music has been performed and recorded for a new and growing audience.

From the author of Ecstasty, a novel of a girl who triumphed against impossible odds to become the most extraordinary woman of the Middle Ages. Hildegard von Bingen—Benedictine abbess, healer, composer, saint—experienced mystic visions from a very young age. Offered by her noble family to the Church at the age of eight, she lived for years in forced silence. But through the study of books and herbs, through music and the kinship of her sisters, Hildegard found her way from a life of submission to a calling that celebrated the divine glories all around us. In this brilliantly researched and insightful novel, Mary Sharratt offers a deeply moving portrait of a woman willing to risk everything for what she believed, a triumphant exploration of the life she might well have lived. “Sharratt brings one of the most famous and enigmatic women of the Middle Ages to vibrant life in this tour de force, which will captivate the reader from the very first page.” —Sharon Kay Penman, New York Times–bestselling author of The Land Beyond the Sea “One could not anticipate this majesty and drama…Illuminations is riveting, following von Bingen through…to emerge as one of the significant voices of the 12th century…Unforgettable.” —January Magazine “Gripping…Like Ann Patchett’s Bel Canto, [Illuminations] is primarily about relationships forged under pressure.”—Publishers Weekly “Masterful.”—Saint Paul Pioneer Press

Hildegard of Bingen, a Rhineland mystic of the twelfth century, has been called an ideal model of the liberated woman. She was a poet and scientist, painter and musician, healer and abbess, playwright, prophet, preacher and social critic. The Book of Divine Works was written between 1170 and 1173, and this is its first appearance in English. The third volume of a trilogy which includes Scivias, published by Bear & Company in 1985, this visionary work is a signal resounding throughout the planet that a time of healing and balance is at hand. The Book of Divine Works is a cosmology which reunites religion, science, and art, and readers will discover an astonishing symbiosis with contemporary physics in these 800-year-old visions. The present volume also contains 51 letters written by Hildegard to significant political and religious figures of her day and translations of twelve of her songs.

Twelfth-century Rhineland mystic Hildegard von Bingen records her exquisite encounter with divinity, producing a magnificent fusion of divine inspiration and human intellect. Hildegard von Bingen’s Mystical Visions is perhaps the most complete and powerful documentation of mystical consciousness in recorded history. Now after 800 years, these visions are again available for those seeking to reawaken mystical consciousness.

From critically acclaimed historical fiction author Mary Sharratt, a novel based on the true story of Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179), who was offered by her parents as a tithe to the Church as a young child and who triumphed to become a powerful abbess, composer, prophet and polymath.

SCIVIAS (Know the Ways) is the story of the journey in which the humanity, or bright stars in Eve's womb, join with the stars in the sky; a possibility offered to each soul, to return back to the Light of the origins of the Earth. An experience belonging to Hildegard in her visions and narrated, in obedience to the voice of God, leaving behind her fears, in a precious manuscript where images make the story come alive. The complexity of the prophetic text is difficult for our present times to access, leaving the images enveloped in a kind of symbolism that is hard to decipher. A Journey into the Images of Hildegard von Bingen is born in the hopes of satisfying this desire for knowledge, revealing the Ways the title of the work promises, in a reading guided by images. The central pages present the 35 original-size miniature reproductions with alongside a key that easily illustrates the symbolic meaning and a concise description of the vision. These Plates that offer a grammar of symbols are followed by richly illustrated pages of rhetoric, a themed reading that crosses the entire work where the details of the figures are highlighted against the miniatures. Here each element of the images - colours, frames, forms, numbers - is not random and, after crossing the threshold, leads inside the work. All seems interrelated and connected in an admirable unitary design where the traveller may virtually enter thanks to an accurate 3D reconstruction. The numerous quotations in the text let us be accompanied on this journey by the living voice and figure of this Saint and Doctor of the Church, narrated in the initial Portrait, a real witness to the possibility of walking along the Ways.

Joseph L. Baird presents a selection of 75 of the most interesting and revealing letters from volumes I, II and III.

This volume explores the extraordinary life and works of Hildegard of Bingen, medieval writer, composer, visionary, and monastic founder.