The spiritual marriage is like rain falling from the sky into a river or pool. There is nothing but water. It’s impossible to divide the sky water from the land water. When a little stream enters the sea, who could separate its waters back out again. Think of a bright light pouring into a room from two large windows. It enters from different places, but becomes one light.
Teresa de Avila from Interior Castle as translated by Mirabai Starr
“One of the things I love about the 16th century Spanish mystic Teresa de Avila, who I’ve had the great blessing of translating into English, is that she was so embodied in her examples of union with God. Whether it’s stirring the soup in the kitchen or sitting under a tree in a rainstorm, her metaphors and examples always had to do with life, with water, with sunlight. The male mystics that I worked with often just spoke in purely abstract terms. So, I love how embodied and grounded she was about the mystical life as a path of union.”
Mirabai Starr is a teacher of philosophy and world religions
and author of many books including:
Ordinary Mysticism: Your Life As Sacred Ground
