During this fascinating 7-part course, you’ll discover:

• Hildegard of Bingen’s radical wisdom that holds timely perspectives on how we can heal ourselves, our fractured societies, and our ravaged Earth in the 21st century
• How acknowledging the Divine Feminine impacted Hildegard’s culture, and impacts our culture as we move beyond patriarchy as a philosophy
• Mystic scholar Mirabai Starr’s guided group prayer to Hildegard, and how you can compose your own prayers to wisdom teachers who inspire you — accessing them as living allies on your path
• How becoming a Spiritual Warrior involves fostering harmony within yourself and the greater world
• The Green Man, an essential archetype for recovering the Sacred Masculine and for defending Mother Earth
• Creation Spirituality and how it can connect you to nature’s sacred elements
• How Hildegard’s eagerness to evolve and grow intellectually and spiritually — and her take on individuation — can help you overcome obstacles as you embrace your work in the world;
• How to create your own “I am” poem as an echo of Hildegard’s, exploring the divinity within;
• How to follow Hildegard’s example and teachings to integrate the Divine Feminine and the Sacred Masculine into your life and community;
• Matthew’s (and co-author Rupert Sheldrake’s) discussion of Hildegard’s perspectives on angels, as laid out in their book The Physics of Angels
• How to call in spirits and angels who are eager to assist you
• The ways Hildegard’s shamanic work can inspire you to access your own inner shaman
• Meditations on Hildegard’s art and music

— Mirabai Starr: Matthew Fox Will Go Down in History as One of the True Spiritual Geniuses of Our Age”

— Andrew Harvey: “Matthew Will Illumine Your Life as He Has Illumined Mine”

Hildegard’s life (1098-1183) spanned most of the 12th century, a period that historian M.D. Chenu called “the only renaissance that worked in the West.”

She was an integral part of that renaissance, which was characterized by the return of the Divine Feminine — and was herself a “renaissance woman” in every sense of the term.

In this opening session, Matthew will share her basic life story and the most foundational influences on her work as she taught a creation-centered view of the world.

These influences include the Celtic tradition (she was raised in a Celtic monastery in Germany), and the wisdom literature of the Hebrew Bible, including cosmology in Genesis 1.

Hildegard came from the Benedictine tradition — and, as you’ll discover, stories of Native American traditions seem to have influenced her too.

In every session, Matthew will guide you to meditate on Hildegard’s paintings, mandalas, or music (both instrumental and vocal compositions) — depending on what best fits the theme of the class.

In this module, you’ll:

• Learn how acknowledging the Divine Feminine impacted Hildegard’s culture, and impacts our culture as we move beyond patriarchy as a philosophy
• Learn about the Green Man, an essential archetype for recovering the Sacred Masculine and for defending Mother Earth
• Place our modern-day relations with Indigenous people in the context of Hildegard’s paintings of “the red man” and “the red-headed divinity” — and the paintings’ messages of replacing anthropocentrism with cosmology
• Discover Creation Spirituality and how it can connect you to nature’s sacred elements
• Move through a guided meditation on Hildegard’s self-portrait and her paintings of Indigenous peoples — together, they tell the story of her awakening experience at the age of 42

Inspired by many different Indigenous philosophies, Hildegard’s worldview does not begin and end with the human. Even her psychology is set within the context of cosmology — microcosm (human) and macrocosm (universe).

Matthew will guide you to explore Hildegard’s worldview and how she believed humanity fit into the universe. The concept of humanity’s role in the universe is common to both Indigenous and premodern consciousness and it grounds a society’s ethics. Hildegard’s paintings expressed her views on these issues, and Matthew will guide you to meditate on them.

Hildegard declares that “all science comes from God.” Matthew will share about Hildegard’s many books featuring scientific topics.

Hildegard also talks about the “original wisdom” all humans are born with — and how life’s journey is to set up the “tent of wisdom” that comes folded into us as babies.

In this module, you’ll explore:

• How Hildegard’s teachings on holistic health and healing are relevant for us today
• What Hildegard and Einstein have in common, how Hildegard’s science is, in certain ways, a harbinger of our postmodern science — and how it urges us to integrate today’s science into our religious consciousness
• How Hildegard’s eagerness to evolve and grow intellectually and spiritually — and her take on individuation — can help you overcome obstacles as you embrace your work in the world
• How Hildegard was inspired by the archetype of the Cosmic Christ (also known as “Buddha Nature” or “Image of God”), and how this can help you understand yourself
• How Mary Oliver and Hildegard see eye-to-eye on the sacredness of the world all around us
• An experiential exercise where you’ll consider some of Hildegard’s praise poems to the Earth and the universe, and her paintings that depicted the universe as an egg, and later the universe as a circle
• How to create your own “I am” poem as an echo of Hildegard’s, exploring the divinity within yourself

Hildegard was both a mystic and a prophet. Philosopher William Hocking called the prophet “the mystic in action.” Jewish theologian Rabbi Heschel said the primary work of the prophet is “to interfere.”

In this session, Matthew will share how Hildegard interfered with patriarchy and other elements of her culture. She wrote letters to popes, emperors, bishops, abbots, and others — all telling them what to do.

When she was 81 years old, Hildegard and her sisters were all interdicted (in effect, excommunicated as a group) for disobeying the bishop. They didn’t back down and were reinstated one year later.

Art expands the heart and teaches trust, which lies at the heart of courage and spiritual warriorhood. Matthew will encourage you to consider the artistic dimensions of Hildegard’s teachings — her music, painting, gardening, and poetry.

Matthew will also share about Hildegard’s work in the healing arts and her experiences with what we call shamanism today.

In this module, you’ll explore:

• Joy and ecstasy, and how to expand your courage
• Strength and the Sacred Masculine, and how you can stay grounded in your own prophetic and mystical vocations
• The virtues’ powerful positive impact on education and society
• Art as meditation (“the way of the prophets”) and how you can shake up and reform education by bringing wisdom into our knowledge factories — including intuitive ways of knowing alongside analytical ways of knowing
• Shaking up education — and, by extension — transforming every profession
• The 3 rings of humans’ relationship with nature and divinity — experienced through a guided meditation on Hildegard’s painting of the 3 rings

In this module, Matthew will be joined by Mirabai Starr, a 21st-century woman, mother, grandmother, translator, and lover and student of the mystics. She’ll share what Hildegard means to her and how Hildegard has impacted her life.

Mirabai will also share short passages from Hildegard of Bingen: Devotions, Prayers & Living Wisdom, a book she compiled featuring Hildegard’s writings and her own poetic reflections.

Matthew will dive into a deep discussion with Mirabai about Hildegard’s relationship to the spiritual sisters that came after her — including Julian of Norwich and Mechtild of Magdeburg.

In this module, you’ll discover:

• The women’s movement of the Middle Ages that came about in the century after Hildegard’s death
• How Hildegard’s amazing development of the feminine side of God serves as a model for women (and men) in the 21st century by inspiring gender balance
• The importance of the creative arts in Hildegard’s life, and concrete examples for enhancing your own spiritual journey through the creative arts
• A dialogue between Matthew and Mirabai to illuminate Hildegard’s important role in developing a 21st-century spirituality
• Mirabai’s guided group prayer to Hildegard, and how you can compose your own prayers to wisdom beings who inspire you — accessing them as living allies on your path

An essential part of recovering the Goddess and the Divine Feminine, as Hildegard did, is cultivating a healthy, nontoxic masculinity.

Matthew will explain how this is important for both men and women. After all, women have many men in their lives!

As Matthew will share, the feminine soul has a masculine and feminine side, just as men have a goddess within them.

Hildegard led the way by acknowledging the Sacred Masculine within herself — as well as by critiquing unhealthy patriarchal versions of masculinity.

In our current cultural climate — where gender identity and gender relationships are in flux and we need to move from a patriarchal consciousness to an inclusive one if our species is to survive — Hildegard’s teachings hold powerful wisdom for both men and women.

In this module, you’ll discover:

• How to find inner strength from Hildegard’s paintings
• The Blue Man, an archetype of compassion and creativity that we all carry within ourselves
• How to develop the imagination and strength to defend Mother Earth as the Green Man does — and birth a new version of humanity
• How Hildegard’s call that “the Earth should not be injured, the Earth must not be destroyed” can wake us up to our vocation — combatting our current eco and climate crises
• A guided meditation on Hildegard’s images of the healthy masculine — found in women and men

When Matthew first shared some of Hildegard’s paintings with a Jungian therapist on his faculty 43 years ago, the therapist called Hildegard “the most mature person he’d ever seen” — because she deals so explicitly with the shadow in many of her paintings.

Matthew will guide you to meditate on several of Hildegard’s paintings of the shadow, observing what they have to say about evil.

You’ll explore Hildegard’s teachings about facing evil and not running from it, and preparing the warrior energy to combat evil. Matthew will share Hildegard’s prophetic teachings and the prophetic letters she wrote to emperors, popes, abbots, bishops, and more.

For Hildegard, strong feminine energy comes from the lower chakras and from the Earth. Matthew will guide you to meditate on Hildegard’s paintings that share these powerful truths. You’ll also consider lessons from her poetry, which celebrates the ecstasy we find in nature.

In this module, you’ll explore:

• Hildegard’s teaching that failures in eros and in justice-making are the primary faults of humans — and how you can advance both in yourself and your culture
• What Hildegard teaches about the shadow, helping us address our shadows by facing the violence in our culture instead of repressing it
• Hildegard’s paintings of the Christ who comes from below to combat evil forces, and how redemption comes from the Earth and from below
• A guided meditation on Hildegard’s paintings of the shadow and demons — including violence and war images

In this final session, you’ll explore Hildegard’s deep understanding of angels.

For example, angels delight in ritual, good human work, and helping humans in art, creativity, music, and more.

Matthew will explain the angels’ presence and how they help humans transition to the next phase after death. As you’ll discover, angels move at the pace at which human thoughts travel.

Matthew will also share how a shaman is (among many things) one who’s undergone deep initiation and emerges to serve and heal the community — as Matthew will explain, this description fits Hildegard perfectly.

In this module, you’ll discover:

• How to follow Hildegard’s example and teachings to integrate the Divine Feminine and the Sacred Masculine into your life and community
• Matthew’s (and co-author Rupert Sheldrake’s) discussion of Hildegard’s perspectives on angels, as laid out in their book The Physics of Angels
• How to call in spirits and angels who are eager to assist you
• How Hildegard’s shamanic work can inspire you to access your own inner shaman
• A final guided meditation on Hildegard’s paintings that depict community and the Divine Feminine

“(Matthew is) a major teacher and guide.”

I think of Matthew Fox as “God’s Talent Scout” for all the pivotal figures and ideas he has reclaimed for the reform of Christianity. He knows the sources and translates them into modern idioms for the rest of us! What he has done with Hildegard, Eckhart, and Aquinas himself makes him a major teacher and guide.
— Richard Rohr, OFM, Center for Action and Contemplation, Albuquerque, New Mexico