Veriditas: Hildegard's herbal healing

(Saint Hildegard of Bingen)

When 12^th century Saint Hildegard of Bingen coined the word veriditas (or viriditas), she was expressing her intimate knowledge of God’s green helpmates.

The term veriditas is a combination of the Latin words for “green” and for “truth.”   Von Bingen’s perceptions of the relationship between healing herbs and God’s truth can be found throughout her bountiful writings.  One of her poems, titled O most noble Greenness and translated by Jerry Dybdal and Matthew Fox, goes like this:  “O most noble Greenness, rooted in the sun, shining forth in streaming splendor upon the wheel of the Earth.  No earthly sense or being can comprehend you.  You are encircled by the very arms of Divine mysteries.  You are radiant like the red of dawn!  You glow like the incandescence of the sun!”

The sacred poetry website, Poetry Chaikhana, interprets this “Greenness” to mean “the essence of life everywhere present.”  It can also be interpreted as the Tree of Life, or as the evergreen which is “always green and vibrant, even during winter, the season of death and withdrawal.”  Within the Christian tradition, the evergreen is therefore also a symbol of Christ.  And the “incandescence” that glows like the sun?  Perhaps Saint Hildegard is “drawing a parallel with the burning bush Moses witnessed in the desert,” or is suggesting that the “Greenness” is rooted in Heaven.

The Herb Companion reports that Von Bingen believed herbal healing to be “both medical and miraculous.”  She wrote that “these remedies come from God…”  Hildegard described a natural blessed cycle in which “God transmits life into plants, animals, and gems.  People eat plants and animals and acquire gems, thus obtaining viriditas.  They, in turn, give that life out by practicing virtue…”

One of Saint Hildegard’s favorite herbs was fennel, which she praised for reducing “mucus and all rottenness…”  She also recommended tansy for dry coughs and stomach distress, rue juice for sore “brown eyes,” and lavender wine for painful liver or lungs.

Resources

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hildegard_of_Bingen

http://www.veriditasbotanicals.com/about_ver.html

http://www.poetry-chaikhana.com/blog/2012/06/01/hildegard-von-bingen-o-most-noble-greenness/

http://www.herbcompanion.com/Health/Hildegard-of-Bingen.aspx?page=2

Copyright June 13, 2012 by Linda Van Slyke   All Rights Reserved