“I saw a very great and peaceful brightness which was similar to a flame. This brightness had a lot of eyes in it. . . . Inside this brightness, there was another brightness which . . . had the clearness of purple lightning inside itself. I also saw the earth with people on it. The people were carrying milk in their vessels, and they were making cheese from this milk. Some of the milk was thick, from which strong cheese was being made; some of the milk was thin, from which mild cheese was being curdled; and some of the milk was spoiling, from which bitter cheese was being produced.”

—Hildegard of Bingen, a vision from Divine Works; quoted in The Color of Angels: Cosmology, Gender and the Aesthetic Imagination, by Constance Classen. 1998.