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The Ritual of the Virtues the oldest surviving European music-drama, and the greatest musical work by the visionary mystic, Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179). Hildegard left a treasury of writings and music expressing the passionate intensity of her mystical experiences. Her profound knowledge seemed to come directly from a source of wisdom deeper than learning and tradition, finding its expression through the symbolism of medieval Christendom. She tells us that the spirit and the world are not separate but intertwined, and that spirituality and worldliness do not have to be separate either. Although she lived almost her entire life as a cloistered nun, she was deeply involved with the world on many levels - observing, writing, preaching and organizing a community. Through her many writings, she tells us that help is always at hand, both from the world we know with our senses, and from the world we discover through our hearts and intuition.
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