Week 27 · mystical

Hildegard of Bingen

Hildegard of Bingen was a 12th-century Benedictine nun who saw visions of light from the time she was five years old. She kept them secret for decades, afraid she'd be called insane. When she finally revealed them in her forties, the Pope authenticated them, and she became one of the most influential women of the medieval period. She composed symphonies, wrote medical texts, and corresponded with emperors all from inside a monastery.

“"The soul is kissed by God in its innermost regions." Hildegard wrote that while also writing detailed medical texts about bile, digestion, and the reproductive system. She saw no contradiction between the scientific and the sacred.”