Aug. 1-14

A Dormition Fast with St. Hildegard
Bitters for the body. The Magnificat for the soul. A passage from bitterness into generous love.

Taste and see that the Lord is good.” - Psalm 34:8

The Church has a fast for this. Every year, August 1 through 14, the Eastern and Byzantine traditions observe the Dormition Fast, a preparation before the great feast of Theotokos’ (Mary's) falling asleep. Fourteen days of turning toward death, and through it, toward glory.

Hildegard of Bingen would have understood exactly why this is also the season for bitter herbs. She knew that bitterness of soul and bitterness of body are not separate conditions. The soul that has curdled around a wound, that has held grief until it became grievance, disappointment until it calcified into withholding, this soul shows in the body. Sluggish bile, congested liver, a gut that is stagnant, a body that has learned to hold rather than to grieve and release. She also knew the natural medicine. And the medicine is encoded in the name of the disease.

The bitters are botanicals that heal the organ the vice has congested. To receive the bitter willingly is to begin the passage from bitterness to generosity. The fast is the passage.

TASTE and SEE

Fourteen days with bitter herbs taken with intention. A body slowly releasing what it has been holding. A soul slowly learning that it can open its fist of fear, sense of injustice or moral injury without losing everything. This is not a detox from food only. It is a fast from unwelcome resentment that gradually settled and interferes with physiology, mentality and spirituality.

Every vice has a corresponding virtue. In the Liber Vitae Meritorum, the Book of the Merits of Life, Hildegard sets out thirty-five pairs: a vice and the virtue that heals it. The ninth pair is the one this fast is built on: BITTERNESS - GENEROSITY. What does it mean and look like to become generous toward your own heart in order to heal?

During TASTE AND SEE, you will learn how to work prudently with bitter foods and optional botanicals—without turning herbs into magic, exaggerating their effects, or forcing your body through an extreme protocol. We receive plants as creatures. We thank God for their properties. We use them with knowledge, moderation, and discretio - Hildegard’s principle of wise discernment.

Who this is for?

This fast is for you if you are tired of carrying the weight of hurt you were never supposed to hold alone. It is for you if any of this is true:

• You have genuinely forgiven something and yet the bitterness keeps arising in the body, mind, emotions. You are not sure what to do with it.

• You love the Church and you have been hurt by it. Both things are true at once.

• You are in ministry or leadership and you have given more than you received for a very long time - your body, soul and spirit needs a break.

• You are fascinated by Hildegard of Bingen but have not found a program that takes both her theology and her medicine seriously.

• You want to learn about bitter herbs, the liver, digestive physiology, and bitter receptor science.

• You need the Dormition Fast to be more than an another abstinance. You need it to be practical and personal formation.

• You are a homeschooling mother, a parish leader, a missionary, a woman in Catholic healthcare or education - exhausted, and looking for something that addresses the whole person.

By the end of the fast, you will have:

• A clearer understanding of the difference between grief, anger, unforgiveness, resentment and bitterness

• A practical introduction to Hildegard’s teaching on amaritudo and largitas

• A safer, more informed understanding of bitter foods and botanicals

• A flexible fasting rhythm adapted to your health and state of life

• Daily practices for prayer, reflection, food, and embodied awareness

• A deeper encounter with the Magnificat

• Language for forgiveness that does not deny justice or erase boundaries

• A plan for carrying the fruit of the fast into ordinary life

You may also begin noticing where you have been holding your breath, guarding against goodness, replaying an old trial, or giving a past injury more authority over your present than it deserves. Not everything will be resolved but something can begin to move.

Everything included:

✦ TASTE and SEE - 14 daily video teachings (10 min each), the complete bitter botanicals protocol, daily lectio and practice prompts:

• science of the bitters

• Hildegard's bitter herbs

• the liver as seat of vitality and the gut-liver axis

• the vagus nerve and mood

• modern bitter herbs from various cultures

• temperament and bitters tolerance

• emotional bitterness resolutions leading to physical healing

• roots of bitterness, healing of lingering unforgiveness

• vice-virtue dynamic from amaritudo to largitas

• blessing of the medicinal herbs on the Feast of the Assumption

• worship, blessing and adoration as a weapon and a method for the heart desiring freedom from the consequences of abuse, neglect, betrayaL and hurt

✦ Hildegard's Fasting Theology - videos, fasting journal, Lectio Divina movements, recipes for food, herbal teas, spices, daily rhythm, practical principles of fasting with bitters:

• 5 short Sugar Detox videos to begin whole person healing (30 min) plus printable booklet - It’s best to start fasting with syugar detox to avoid hard sugar withdrawals

• Discover Hildegard 4 video series 2h 30 min

• Fasting in the Church Tradition video 1h 30 min

• Healing of the Heart video 35 min

• Emotional Healing According to St. Hildegard 50 min

✦ Lectio Divina: The Magnificat

In the Dormition Fast, we are preparing for a feast. A feast of a woman who carried the sword Simeon foretold, who stood at the foot of the Cross, who held what no mother should have to hold, and who did not become bitter. Not because she did not suffer but because she had learned to receive. The Magnificat is the record of a soul that has been so formed by receptivity that even the most overwhelming grace or challange does not break it but expands it.

This course also takes you through the Magnificat (Luke 1:46–55) verse by verse using the four classic movements of lectio divina: Lectio (receive the word slowly), Meditatio (let it ruminate in the body), Oratio (allow it to become prayer), and Contemplatio (rest and receive). Each strophe is paired with the themes of the fast.

✦ 1 × 60-minute live session on Sat. Aug 1 at 8am PST/10 am CT/11 am EST

✦ Private community access for the fourteen days of the fast on WhatsApp

✦ Lifetime replay access to all video content after August 14

TASTE AND SEE is an educational and spiritual-formation program. It does not provide medical diagnosis or treatment and does not create a practitioner–client relationship. Consult your healthcare practitioner before fasting or using herbs if you have a health condition, take medication, or are pregnant or nursing.

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