Hildegard of Bingen: Gratitude for Creation’s Abundance
In the cool hills of the Rhineland, where rivers wind like silver ribbons through emerald valleys, a child was born who would one day be called The Sybil of the Rhine. Hildegard of Bingen, visionary, healer, composer, herbalist, and philosopher, lived in a world where women were rarely heard — yet her voice still echoes through the centuries, clear and alive with divine wisdom.
From the time she was a young girl, Hildegard experienced visions of blinding light and celestial harmony. She called this sacred radiance “the Living Light.” It filled her with insight and understanding that could not be contained by the boundaries of her age. To her, the universe was not silent — it sang. Everything that existed, from the smallest leaf to the furthest star, was infused with divine sound and color, a cosmic symphony of creation.
She coined the term viriditas — the “greening power” of life — to describe the force that flows through all living things. To Hildegard, viriditas was God’s creative pulse, the same energy that makes plants sprout, hearts love, and souls awaken. It was both the vitality of nature and the renewal of spirit — proof that divinity lived within all forms of creation.
Hildegard’s healing work reflected this harmony between earth and heaven. She cultivated gardens filled with herbs like fennel, sage, and hyssop, each chosen for its physical and spiritual medicine. She taught that illness often arose when a person was cut off from nature’s rhythm — from gratitude, moderation, and joy. Healing, she believed, required not just the right remedy, but the right relationship with the world around us.
Her music carried the same understanding. The songs she wrote — luminous plainsong chants filled with rising intervals and celestial imagery — were unlike anything of her time. They were prayers woven into melody, meant to lift the soul out of despair and into the presence of the divine. To listen to her music was to feel the boundaries between heaven and earth dissolve.
Hildegard also wrote fearlessly, creating books on theology, medicine, and cosmology. Her Book of Divine Works reads like a conversation between God and the cosmos, where light, stars, and angels each speak their part in the divine order. Her Physica detailed herbal remedies and holistic approaches to wellness — long before the word “holistic” ever existed.
Her courage was extraordinary. When bishops and emperors ignored her warnings or tried to silence her, she wrote directly to them — not as a nun, but as a prophetess. She reminded them that divine order demanded humility and stewardship, not greed or pride. Her wisdom was fierce, rooted in love for both Creator and creation.
As the final days of November unfold, the timing of Hildegard’s lesson feels divinely chosen. Thanksgiving season calls us to the same awareness she carried every day — that gratitude is not a single act, but a sacred way of seeing. The abundance around us, from the simplest meal to the majesty of sunrise, is a reminder of the divine generosity woven into existence.
Hildegard invites us to live with open eyes and open hearts — to see the world not as a place to conquer, but to cherish. Every tree becomes a cathedral, every bird a messenger, every moment an opportunity to praise the living light that breathes through all.
And in her words, “The earth is mother of all, for contained within her are the seeds of all things.” To honor that truth is to live in gratitude — not just for what we have, but for what we are: living expressions of the sacred abundance of creation itself.