From childhood, Hildegard experienced visions she called the “Living Light.” At 42 she began to write them down — trilogies of theological vision (Scivias, Liber Vitae Meritorum, Liber Divinorum Operum), sacred music, medical and botanical works, and letters to popes and emperors who treated her as a peer.
Her theology is deeply ecological — viriditas, “greening power,” is her word for the divine life running through creation. She is arguably the most complete voice ever given to medieval Christianity that wasn’t a man, and her music is still sung.