Hildegard of Bingen

Hildegard of Bingen was in her forties when God commanded her to "cry out and write." This moment, suggests Newman (1998), marked the first major crisis in the nun's life. An exceptional woman for her time, Hildegard of Bingen:

was the only woman of her age to be accepted as an authoritative voice on Christian doctrine; the first woman who received express permission from a pope to write theological books; the only medieval woman who preached openly ...; the author of the first known morality play ...; the only composer of her era ... known both by name and by a large corpus of surviving music; the first scientific writer to discuss sexuality and gynecology from a female perspective; and the first saint whose official biography includes a first-person memoir. (Newman, 1998, p. 1)

The daughter of a Rhenish nobleman and youngest of 10 children. Hildegard was bound to the religious life at age eight. At age 14, her parents bound her over to the young noblewoman Jutta as a recluse subject for spiritual formation. Maddocks (2001) notes that it was not until her appointment as abbess that Hildegard had a degree of independence in her life - until that point her life had been prescribed by monks and elders, rules and restrictions. Daunted by the prospect of writing, Hildegard became severely ill. As Newman (1998) notes, this was a recurrent pattern in her life.

Her most famous visionary work Scivias, also known as "Know the Way," was written over a period often years. It consists of three books, based on a series of twenty-six visions, on the subjects of creation, redemption, and sanctification. Hildegard was a visionary in the strictest sense - she saw things wide awake, retaining the full use of her senses. Among twelfth-century authors who wrote about visionary experience, she is unique in insisting that she remained awake and lucid (Newman, 1998). In a letter she explained how she received her revelations:

"I have always seen this vision in my soul," she wrote, "and in it my soul, as God would have it, rises up high into the vault of heaven and into the changing sky and spreads itself out among different peoples, although they are far away."

46 Creativity, Spirituality, and Mental Health

The light that illumined her, she added, was "not spatial, but far, far brighter than a cloud that carries the sun ... And as the sun, the moon, and the stars appear in water, so writings, sermons, virtues, and certain actions take form for me and gleam within it." (cited in Newman, 1998, p. 9)

Numerous scholars have attributed Hildegard's visions to migraines. Charles Singer, for example, points out that the classical migraine aura can produce disturbances of the visual field similar to what Hildegard experienced in her visions of shimmering lights, falling stars, and "fortification figures" (cited in Newman, 1998, p. 10). Moreover, in describing her chronic illnesses, she mentions such symptoms as temporary blindness and "an oppressive paralyzing sense of heaviness" (Newman, 1998, p. 10), consistent with severe migraine attacks. Flanagan (1989) argues that Hildegard's visions were provoked by a fusion of physical and psychological factors: migraine attacks, characterized by flashes of light in her visual field, which after a period of frustration and illness she interpreted as having profound spiritual significance. Caviness (1998) suggests that the designs that appear in finished form in the Rupertsberg Scivias manuscript show features that have long been recognized as reflections of the visual disturbances typically associated with migraine attacks, including "irregular, jagged-edged forms that spread aggressively over the framed surface" (p. 113). Hildegard explains in her autobiographical reflections that she had experienced visions as a child but as an adolescent refrained from speaking about them for fear of ridicule (Mews, 1998, p. 53).

Hildegard begins Scivias with a vision of a brilliant figure, seated on a mountain, from which many living sparks stream out. Whether or not these sparks were provoked by a migraine, Hildegard interprets them as a manifestation of the Living Light. In the beginning of the second of the three books, Hildegard returns to the theme of God as dazzling fire, totally alive (II. 1). She focuses on fruitfulness, vitality, and above all viriditas as attributes of the divine nature (II. 1.2-3). She understands the word of God as a flame within the divine fire which became incarnate through the viridity of the Holy Spirit. Her central message is that humanity needs to give up behavior that leads away from awareness of God, the fire that animates creation (1.25) (Mews, 1998).

Maddocks (2001) notes that Hildegard's visions - in image as well as in words - were firmly rooted in the iconographic convention of the time, explaining why they have attracted little interest from art historians. Yet she remarks on their defiant, almost controversial power and their capacity to exude a powerful unity and self-confidence. Her visions seem to speak to Hildegard's overpowering need for self-expression, a need that may have made her physically ill. Even if the migraines contributed to the visions, certainly they cannot be held responsible for the entirety of her theology as expressed in her art. Newman (1998), for example, warns against reductionism, arguing that migraines no more explain Hildegard's prophetic vocation than Dostoevsky's epilepsy explains his literary genius. The visions may have provided a way for her to express herself spiritually, which

Spirituality and Creativity: Theory and Practice 47

then she recorded through painting. The example of Hildegard underscores the mind-body connection, especially the notion that physical illness may be a form of expression for emotional angst.

Clearly Hildegard's visions fall within the category of explicitly religious and theological experience, expression, and discourse described by Viladesau. Unlike the American artists interviewed by Wuthnow, to large degree she stayed within the realm of social convention. Her visions were explicitly theological and reflected the theology of her time. What was different about her situation, however, was her gender. Because Hildegard was female, she was not expected to write theology. Becoming sick when feeling called to write reflected identity concerns, concerns which notably began when she first struck out on her own. The headaches were given a spiritual meaning in terms of discerning a historical revelation from God in personal and symbolic form, a form which Hildegard was uncomfortable receiving due to her status in twelfth-century German society.