Hildegard of Bingen is increasingly recognized as one of the most remarkable women of the Middle Ages. She possessed a prodigious talent and has attracted the attention of musicians, historians, literary critics, scientists, and theologians. Her music has undergone a recent revival, as has interest in her writings and pictures. Born in 1098, Hildegard became a Benedictine nun at the age of 15, an abbess at 38, and in 1150 founded a new community near Bingen, in Germany's wooded Rhine valley. During her life, her reputation as visionary and healer grew, and she corresponded with kings and queens, monks and nuns, and laypeople. She died in 1179. This issue's Reflections page is devoted to some of her work to mark the 900th anniversary of her birth.

Praise to the Trinity
Praise to the Trinity
Who is sound and life.
Creator and sustainer
Of all beings.
The angels praise You,
Who in the splendour
Of your hidden mysteries
Pour out life abundant.

—Symphonia Armonie
Celestium Revelationum

God's Word in Creation
No creature has meaning
without the Word of God.
God's Word is in all creation, visible and invisible.
The Word is living, being,
spirit, all verdant greening,
all creativity.
This Word flashes out in
every creature.
This is how the spirit is in
the flesh—the Word is indivisible from God.

—Taken from Teachings of the Christian Mystics

Overcoming Evil
Man … does not rule over evil except when he refuses to do it. When he has truly done evil, he is its servant.

—Taken from The Book of the Rewards of Life,
tr. Bruce W. Hozeski

The Soul As a Tree The soul is in the body as the sap is in the tree; and the powers of the soul are like the figure of the tree. How is this so? Understanding ...