Saturday May 23, 2015  Bingen & Rüdesheim Germany

Hildegard of Bingen, Part #2

Here is the trailer from the Margarethe von Trotta film Vision, which we will screen before our field trip.  

This a delightful video tour of the territory for our Hildegard field trip, recorded by Lori Erickson in her blog The Holy Rover. Her blog on Hildegard can be found HERE.

Hildegard of Bingen was a woman of extraordinary abilities, way ahead of her time, and a powerful influence in the medieval period. Mystic, Composer, Writer, Herbalist and Healer, she founded her own Abbey, which exists in slightly different form to this day on the hills above  Rüdesheim. Last year, on the first field trip about Hildegard, we explored the ruins of her first abbey, Disibodenberg, nestled on a hill below Bad Kreuznach, where she first came as a young girl, and grew into a woman powerful enough to challenge authority and forge her own path, the Green Way, given to her by the visions she experienced her whole life.  

Now this year we will take up her trail in Bingen where she founded her own monastery on the Ruppertsberg. We will visit a museum dedicated to her, explore a garden of healing herbs first identified by her, visit the underground vaults which are all that remain of the Ruppertsberg Abbey, and then after lunch cross the Rhein River and visit the 2nd Monastery founded by her, which exists to this day and is dedicated to her, along with the Parish Church where her remains are venerated by Catholics as a Saint and Doctor of the Church, one of only four women who hold that designation.

For more information about Hildegard, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hildegard_of_Bingen. To hear some of her music: try The Origin of Fire, performed by Anonymous 4.  

We will again be hosting a screening of the relatively recent film Vision, a movie about Hildegard by one of Germany's prominent film directors Margarethe von Trotta on Friday evening 22 May (the night before) at the apartment of Elizabeth and John  at 6 pm, followed by dinner at a local restaurant. Please RSVP to WiesbadenUU@gmail for more details.

Itinerary
We will meet at the Museum am Strom in Bingen near the river at 10:00 on Saturday 23 May. The website at http://landderhildegard.de/sites/bingen/museum-am-strom/ can provide information about location and possible parking in the area. It is also very near the trains station. There is a small charge for the museum.

After the Museum, we will visit a medicinal herb garden maintained by the Hildegard Forum according to principles identified by Hildegard. Information can be found at http://www.landderhildegard.de/sites/bingen/hildegard-forum-herb-garden/. The Forum also serves lunch with Hildegard spices, and we will make a reservation for our group.

After lunch we will take a quick look at the underground vaults of what little remains of the Ruppertsberg abbey, before taking the car ferry over to Rüdesheim. We will re-group at the Abbey St.Hildegard, nestled in the vineyards above the town. Finally we will descend to the Parish Church on the site of the old Second Abbey, and where Hildelards's remains have been housed off and on for the last several hundred years.

To summarize:
Friday 22 May 7pm Screening of Vision: From the Life of Hildegard of Bingen at John & Elizabeth's apt., followed by restaurant.
Saturday 23 May 10:00 AM meet at Museum an Strom in Bingen.

                                                                                         Two of the Mandala-like images created by Hildegard of Bingen

Please RSVP For Hildegard of Bingen Field Trip to WiesbadenUU@gmail.com