Because the month of November rolls on, a few of us dwelling within the Northern hemisphere expertise psychological struggling greater than ordinary. Modern drugs has coined the time period Seasonal Affective Dysfunction. The acronym, very appropriately, is SAD.
I’m in love with the month of November, with its shiny foliage, the wooden range chirping away once more, chestnuts and sizzling chocolate reappearing on my menu, the fog rising within the night among the many hills. So when SAD strikes I’m all the time shocked and offended at it, that’s, on the temper itself, though I ought to know higher.
Hildegard of Bingen (1098 – 1179) knew about November as a month which brings with itself some dangers of imbalance. She describes the rising of disappointment on this means: When the soul of the particular person feels one thing dangerous to herself or her physique, her coronary heart, liver and blood vessels contract. Consequently, the hurt rises like a cloud that overshadows the center, and the particular person turns into unhappy.
Hildegard liked the picture of the cloud, and she or he used it copiously. Her description of the rising of disappointment as a cloud resonates very nicely with my very own expertise and understanding. It’s medically sound that the chilly climate creates a contraction in muscular tissues and blood vessels, and I can guarantee you that if you find yourself experiencing SAD you actually really feel {that a} darkish cloud has come to take cost of you.
For the onset of the chilly season, Hildegard suggests a food plan with heat meals, even overcooked, equivalent to soups with spelt or einkorn. She additionally suggests consuming chestnuts and ingesting fennel tea, accompanied with the correct of spices—these which dry the organs of the physique, slightly than inducing an extreme manufacturing of fluids inside it. Cheeses usually are not a good suggestion right now of the yr.
Whereas I can’t decide alone the medical worth of Hildegard’s solutions, I want to level out their theological implications. For Hildegard, the thoughts and the physique are profoundly interconnected, and it’s utterly apparent that the occasions pertaining to the physique affect the thoughts. Thus, there isn’t a level in making an attempt to treatment the thoughts with out curing the physique additionally, and there may be equally no level in attributing the temper of disappointment to some errors (“sins”) that one might need made, earlier than analyzing the bodily circumstances.
Furthermore, Hildegard discovered viriditas (greening energy) and subtilitas (refined energy) in all creatures, every doubtlessly instrumental for human well being. Her notion of viriditas is extremely near the notion of the Holy Spirit because the immanent presence of the divine on the planet. I’m wondering if she was ever accused of heresy on this level. It appears, the truth is, that the varied subtilitas are merely subdivisions of the one viriditas pervading the universe.
I can hardly keep away from the impression that, in her understanding, God the common healer is all the time at work, not as a grasp dictating exceptions to pure legal guidelines, however in and thru the pure powers of creatures.
Researchers have proven that, in lots of instances, Hildegard was proper on track in regards to the healing properties of sure crops. The foundation of galangal, for instance, which is a plant originating within the Malaysian peninsula, was recognized to Hildegard as a really pricey spice which she used to distinction inside contractions and spasms — very useful due to this fact in November — and this notion bears out with fashionable scientific analysis.
Allow us to handle ourselves, associates, by letting God handle us by means of so many creatures. It’s too harmful to reside in a state of fixed upset which harms the physique – for instance, due to political information. Stability ought to slightly be all the time current to our thoughts as our guiding mantra. My fennel tea and boiled chestnuts watch for me now.
Banner picture: A misty November day. Photograph by BĀBI on Unsplash
Queries for Contemplation
How do you handle your self, bodily and mentally, right now of the yr?
Associated Readings by Matthew Fox
Meditations with Hildegard of Bingen
Illuminations of Hildegard of Bingen
Hildegard of Bingen’s Ebook of Divine Works: With Letters & Songs
Authentic Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality
Creation Spirituality: Liberating Items for the Peoples of the Earth
