Avis Clendenen

Experiencing Hildegard Avis Clendenen

In Experiencing Hildegard, Avis Clendenen synthesizes the spirituality of Hildegard of Bingen into a fresh combination with insights from Jungian depth psychology—particularly that of the unconscious and the soul’s reality. Hildegard lives in these pages, not only through the superb analysis of a woman living in a turbulent and changing time, but also in an affirmation of Hildegard's deep trust of the soul’s potential to change individuals and their culture. Hildegard emerges as a woman deeply immersed in a rich inner life creatively expressed in many forms. In particular, she is seen as a woman of the past, caught between a patriarchal institution and her recognition of the divinity of all creation and of the feminine. She thus anticipates by many centuries the anguish of our time. The domains of eco-feminism, spirituality (both ecclesial and secular), and the natural religiosity of the psyche are all enriched by the synthetic consciousness evident in this work. In seven penetrating and imaginative chapters, Clendenen explores the sheer volume of Hildegard's achievements and their implications in our lives today. Her exploration of personal and collective shadow material is particularly poignant—practical and redemptive. She examines the numinous, bringing theological depth and eucharistic awareness to the process of individuation. In the culminating chapter, she envisions Hildegard's viriditas as a soul force that can seed the new, interiorized monasticism that calls so many contemporary women and men. For Clendenen, viriditas provides a fundamental diagnostic and prescription for our environmental future—a current that can shape a healing, covenantal response to the environmental crisis. Each chapter closes with a reflective exercise that helps stimulate the reader's active engagement, in an unmistakably pastoral gesture. The work is rounded out by seven references to Hildegard of Bingen in Jung's Collected Works, a chronology of Hildegard's life, and a bibliography. The psychology–theology interface is a contemporary necessity, and this volume in particular will be warmly welcomed by clinicians, spiritual directors, artists and musicians, the Hildegard readership, and the general searching public