Hildegard of Bingen and the wildfires in Alberta

Here's an incomplete post. I hope to add to it later.

I don't know a lot about Hildegard of Bingen, an abbess who lived in the Rhineland in the twelfth century except that the word "polymath" could have been invented for her. If a subject was important, she had something valuable and original to say about it. (note to self: did she have anything to say about chivalry? Or perhaps militia?)

This morning on the CBC Radio show The Current (which I recommend highly), Matt Galloway was interviewing the author of a book on the Alberta wildfires and what they mean for our future. I didn't catch his name or the book's title, but I hope to fill them in later. Anyway, this guy approached our relationship with fire from a number of different angles, all of them interesting, many alarming, but not from a hopeless point of view.

He concluded by citing at length how Hildegard's idea of viriditas (here, green power?) is relevant to reconstruction from the damage done by these wildfires.

I told you she had something to say on just about everything!

Go Hildegard!