Hildegard of Bingen is everyone's secret passion these days. Here is a tumultuous year in the life of the great twelfth-century Benedictine abbess, mystic, composer, healer, writer, and advocate of women's full participation in the life of the spirit. Considered a saint in Germany, Hildegard left us three books of her visions in which she often saw the creation as a living, pulsing being, 77 liturgical songs, the first morality play, a book on the healing arts, a catalog of the flora of her native Rhineland, and a wealth of correspondence with monarchs, several popes, and clergy at all levels of society. In conveying the full breadth of Hildegard's inner and outer experience, Barbara Lachman has created a document that rings with truth about this singular woman and her world. Rarely does a literary work succeed as well in letting readers see the world through such illuminated eyes.