Lent Reflections Week 2: Heal

My exploration of the work of St Hildegard of Bingen has led me to focus on her medicine recently. I would highly recommend the books pictured below. Hildegard's medicine, which was part of European pre-modern medicine, used the system of the fours- four humours, four temperament, four seasons, four elements. This system has parallels in Ayurvedic and Chinese medicine. Anatomical knowledge has led modern medicine away from humours as a valid way of describing the human body. Whilst the humoral system may not be physiologically accurate, the interconnection of the physical, psychological and spiritual has been neglected in modern medicine to our detriment, I believe.

A key concept in Hildegard's healing system is 'viriditas' or greening power, which she used to describe photosynthesis, the life-force and the visible power of the holy spirit in the world. The more I read the more I realise that all her work is healing work as it is all concerned with restoring wholeness.

"I am for all eternity the vigour of the God-head.
I do not have my source in time.
I am the divine power through which God decided and sanctioned the creation of all things.
I am the reflection of providence for all.
I am the resounding Word,
The It-Shall-Be that I intone with mighty power from which all the world proceeds."
Hildegard of Bingen, translated by Gabriele Uhlein