The Order of Saint Hildegard

06/09/2026

We excitedly announce the next offering of our original training! Please express your interest at the link in our bio so we can invite you when we firm up the time!

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"Viriditas" is a word used extensively by Hildegard of Bingen, Abbess and Innovator ahead of her peer in the Middle ages. She used it to describe a Greening life force that we share with all of creation . Viriditas Practitioner Training Level 1 is a wordless, non-supremacist prayer energy which leans into sacred imagination and neuroscience and becomes connective tissue for community and individual healing on several levels. It is consent-based, trauma-informed, Interfaith/ Interspiritual and deeply creative. The Order of Hildegard is the home of this practice as it was developed by our founder and abbess and is currently only taught here.🍃

VIRIDITAS
Greening Energy Work Practitioner
Level 1 Certification

Offering upcoming in July/August TBA

🌿Study how the concept of “Greening” can inform human connection and healing

🌿Learn the elements of sustainable spirituality for supporting an interest in mysticism and healing, perhaps after a major shift in faith or deconstruction

🌿Be certified in a practice of energy work rooted in sacred imagination, blessings and strengths-based language

🌿Tested in grounded interspiritual community

🌿Scientific supports and multiple access points for a variety of perspectives

The Order of Hildegard is a unique community of practice in the world, and the first widely known order associated with Hildegard of Bingen. Here her work is creatively and innovatively interpreted in a modern context, emphasizing diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging and the centering of the wisdom of marginalized and harmed people.

Taught by Wilderness Abbess Rev.Dr. Frances Jeanne Smathers whose background includes Healing Arts, Reiki, Yoga, Martial Arts and Meditation Facilitation in addition to her role as founder and guiding chaplain of the order.

Please review our mission statement on our website

www.orderofhildegard.org

to ensure that you are aligned with our vision and to participate in community with care.

(Registration link in bio)

06/06/2026

Shared leadership is often self-reflection.

05/25/2026

Today has been one of those days as the guide of this community where I stand in awe of how far we've come.🍃

13 years ago I was unknowingly on the brink of an event that would lead to my literal exile from a church community- an experience no one should ever have - and I felt like I was the only one in the world.

Today, after finding other brave souls to co-create this community, I realize that exile is almost an archetypal journey.

And, for those of us willing to do the work, wounding is an incubator for the most compassionate, self-reflective and determined spiritual leaders.

At The Order of Hildegard we have been brave and determined. It hasn't led to a particularly edgy or hard space, but a liberating and loving community determined to learn, unlearn and hold responsibly the mantle of transforming spiritual leadership by starting with ourselves.

Right where we are is where spiritual leadership happens. Community Chaplains are needed everywhere.

This has been one of those days where I have learned from people I'm in awe of. People I'm grateful to lead and learn with.

Thank you to all of our cohort members who are showing up, holding yourselves responsible for the future landscape of our communities, and believing in yourself to say "yes- I can be a chaplain!"

With love, your Abbess Frances

(we are enrolling for our summer cohort starting at the end of June and our fall cohort starting at the end of September.)

05/20/2026

Trusting the process is challenging, but when we learn to be present to what is, worlds of resources open up to us.

Join us for a journey of presence.

Presence to peace.
Presence to injustice.
Presence to becoming.
Presence to others.
Presence to self.
Presence to what can be.

05/08/2026

My goodness! As the Abbess of a modern, widespread interfaith order - The Order of Hildegard - I am very close, spirituallly, to our namesake and a bit finicky/discriminating about who teaches about Hildegard!

Rev. Danae brought the goods. I am so very excited to commend her work to you. Gorgeously, creatively and accessibly distilled.

The Rev. Danáe Ashley is an Episcopal priest, Adlerian psychotherapist, international speaker, and voiceover actress in the Pacific Northwest. Danae uses art, music, drama, poetry, and movement in counseling, spiritual direction, and creation of ritual. She has written for various online publications, as well as being a contributor to podcasts, books, and producing a play about fertility struggle. Danae's book, My Sap is Rising: A Pilgrimage of Holistic Mental Health Healing with Hildegard of Bingen and Alfred Adler debuted in March 2026.

05/07/2026