Could the divine be a woman?

Could the Divine be a woman? Hildegard von Bingen certainly believed so!

Could the Divine be a woman? Hildegard von Bingen certainly believed so!

In her visions, she saw the divine as blissfully female: "She is so bright and glorious that you cannot look at her face or her garments for the splendor with which she shines." (She often described this luminous creature as radiant sapphire-blue). The ballsy nun wasn't afraid to share this vision through her teachings, books and music: "The highest blessing in all of creation lies in the form of a woman."

Another great example of Hildegard's proto-feminist ideas: in defiance of church belief at the time, the medieval nun boldly proclaimed that menstruation does not make a woman unclean, but the shedding of blood in war certainly does render a soldier unclean. In 1150, she also wrote the Western World's first known description of a female orgasm, mentioning 'sensual delights', and 'contracting organs'.

Luckily for Hildegard (and us!), she was neither understood nor taken seriously by the patriarchy, thereby avoiding getting burned at the stake for blasphemy. Perhaps the visionary nun was simply too far ahead of her time.