May, 1993 — Stratford... I have been reading through the poetry of 15th century Spain, and I find myself drawn to one by the mystic writer and visionary St. John of the Cross; the untitled work is an exquisite, richly metaphoric love poem between himself and his god. It could pass as a love poem between any two at any time … I have gone over three different translations of the poem.
- Loreena McKennitt, notes from her journals in the CD booklet for The Mask and Mirror (1994)
One of the more peculiar aspects of the phenomenon of mysticism (and certainly when viewed within the context of the world religions) is the consistent reliance by mystics upon the use of subversive images derived from human sexuality, when attempting to convey the sublimity and ineffability of their experiences.
The trend is particularly strong amongst theistic mystics; as reflected in the Bhakti devotionalism of Hindus, the Sufi literature of Muslims and the courtly or troubadour love poetry celebrated by medieval Catholics.
Predominant themes in each stream are quite interchangeable, such that the Sufi ghazals might easily be mistaken for the lyrics of the Catholic minstrels or the 'banis' of Kabir in India, when stripped of their doctrinally specific terminology. But why do these - generally celibate, ascetic - holy men and women, feel compelled to make recourse to the conventions of romantic lyricism as a conduit for teaching others about the joy of enlightenment?
The mystical literature on this account is hardly the stuff of tame and staid 'fairy-tale' romance either. While these kinds of sacred verses never stray (thankfully and appropriately) into bawdy or ribald turns of phrase, the words employed are deliberately subversive and erotic, while also remaining tender and deeply moving. The fictional narratives underpinning these mystical stanzas written by Catholic mystics are normally about illicit and extra-marital love affairs, as in the secular chivalric romances of the day (known in Occitan as the alba), the ardent yearning of lovers who, having passed a night together, must part from one another for fear of being discovered.
In the Sufi poetry of the Islamic world, the sexual imagery often took place in the context of taverns (highly provocative given that Muslim countries proscribe alcohol), and in Persia even played with explicitly homoerotic motifs whereby the Divine Beloved was conceptualized as a beautiful young man (very daring!), with the justification being that worldly love (ishq-i- majazi) was a bridge to attaining divine love (ishq-i-haqiqi).
If you will indulge me, as I recount a little story about this theme....
The Spanish poet San Juan de la Cruez, or St. John of the Cross (1542-1591), is one the most distinguished of all Catholic mystics, revered by my church as its "Mystical Doctor", our most trustworthy authority on mystical theology.
And yet, his spiritual awakening came from the most mundane and indeed profane sources of inspiration, when considering that he was himself a celibate monastic....
It occurred when he was taken prisoner in 1577 by sectarian opponents - who were opposed to his attempt, in cooperation with that titanic female personality St. Theresa of Avila, to reform their religious order - and carried off to exile in Toledo, where he suffered hellish imprisonment for more than nine months. Here, he was subjected to acts of public humiliation by evil 'friars' who coerced him into kneeling like a dog and continual floggings, amidst other cruel deprivations and abuse.
The intention was to grind him down and make him 'break'. And this endeavor might just have succeeded, had not a new jailer come in after six months, and taken pity on San Juan. Moved by his dire living conditions - impaired eyesight from the darkness of his cell, lice infestation, dysentery from eating stale scraps and vomit-inducing stench from a waste bucket that his torturers only changed every several days - the kindly guard bequeathed him with a clean tunic and quill pen, along with ink and a small notebook for ''composing a few things profitable to devotion.''
It was then, as he lay curled up in his dank and rotting prison cell with a notebook on his lap - in this Dark Night of the Soul (San Juan first coined the phrase), divested of all material possessions and human companionship - that St. Juan suddenly heard the stirring voice of a young lovebird walking outside the bars of his window, singing a popular and flirtatious Toledo street song to his girlfriend, in an attempt to woo her:
Muerome de amores / Carillo, que hare? / - Que to mueras, alahe!
(Boy: I am dying of love / Beloved, what shall I do? Girl: Alas, you must die!)
As one scholar of Spanish epic poetry, Martin Edmond, explains:
"...In Canciones del Alma (Dark Night of the Soul) a young woman steals one dark night from her house to meet her lover in a "night more lovely than the dawn" (o noche amable mas que el aluorada). She goes disguised, via a secret staircase, and takes nothing with her but the light that burns in her heart. This light is transfigurative, it does not banish darkness but makes it more intense than noon could ever be.
The lovers are united in this dark yet luminous night, and so transformed. After consummation, while a wind blows through cedar trees, he falls asleep on her breast; as her hands move in his hair, he wakes, touching her neck, and she loses knowledge of her five senses [at his sensual touch].
From that sensual oblivion the soul is released and goes free, leaving all care behind; in the words of the lovely last line of the poem: Entre las acucenas oluidado / Among the lilies forgotten.
It is a beautiful and mysterious poem and one that aficionados of Spanish verse will tell you approaches perfection in its language, its rhythm and in the unity of what it says with how it says it...It retains a trace of its origin and occasion...about a woman going to meet her lover, about the ecstasy of their union, and I don't care if one is the soul and the other is Christ because it seems to me they could be any pair of lovers, anywhere, at any time..."
The lovers are united in this dark yet luminous night, and so transformed. After consummation, while a wind blows through cedar trees, he falls asleep on her breast; as her hands move in his hair, he wakes, touching her neck, and she loses knowledge of her five senses [at his sensual touch].
From that sensual oblivion the soul is released and goes free, leaving all care behind; in the words of the lovely last line of the poem: Entre las acucenas oluidado / Among the lilies forgotten.
It is a beautiful and mysterious poem and one that aficionados of Spanish verse will tell you approaches perfection in its language, its rhythm and in the unity of what it says with how it says it...It retains a trace of its origin and occasion...about a woman going to meet her lover, about the ecstasy of their union, and I don't care if one is the soul and the other is Christ because it seems to me they could be any pair of lovers, anywhere, at any time..."
After writing the stanzas in an inspired, ecstatic utterance, St. Juan managed to launch a daring escape from his cell by cutting his sheets into strips and making a rope. The only thing he carried with him were the words of the poem in his little notebook.
Based around these forty lines and eight stanzas of five, about the two young lovers flirting beneath his prison window, St. Juan would go on to write thousands of pages of exegetical commentary - theologically interpreting the poem as a road-map for the mystical life: from (1) Awakening (2) Purgation (3) Illumination (4) Dark Night of the Soul and ending with (5) Divine Union.
Here is the poem as sung, set to music and translated by the Canadian musician Loreena McKennitt (who has sold 14 million albums):
Upon a darkened night
the flame of love was burning in my breast
And by a lantern bright
I fled my house while all in quiet rest
Shrouded by the night
And by the secret stair I quickly fled
The veil concealed my eyes
while all within lay quiet as the dead
CHORUS
Oh night thou was my guide
A night more loving than the rising sun
Oh night that joined the lover
to the beloved one
transforming each of them into the other
Upon that misty night
in secrecy, beyond such mortal sight
Without a guide or light
than that which burned so deeply in my heart
That fire t'was led me on
and shone more bright than of the midday sun
To where he waited still
it was a place where no one else could come
CHORUS
Within my pounding heart
which kept itself entirely for him
He fell into his sleep
beneath the cedars all my love I gave
From o'er the fortress walls
the wind would brush his hair against his brow
And with its smoothest hand
caressed my every sense it would allow
CHORUS
I lost myself to him
and laid my face upon my lover's breast
And care and grief grew dim
as in the morning's mist became the light
There they dimmed amongst the lilies fair
the flame of love was burning in my breast
And by a lantern bright
I fled my house while all in quiet rest
Shrouded by the night
And by the secret stair I quickly fled
The veil concealed my eyes
while all within lay quiet as the dead
CHORUS
Oh night thou was my guide
A night more loving than the rising sun
Oh night that joined the lover
to the beloved one
transforming each of them into the other
Upon that misty night
in secrecy, beyond such mortal sight
Without a guide or light
than that which burned so deeply in my heart
That fire t'was led me on
and shone more bright than of the midday sun
To where he waited still
it was a place where no one else could come
CHORUS
Within my pounding heart
which kept itself entirely for him
He fell into his sleep
beneath the cedars all my love I gave
From o'er the fortress walls
the wind would brush his hair against his brow
And with its smoothest hand
caressed my every sense it would allow
CHORUS
I lost myself to him
and laid my face upon my lover's breast
And care and grief grew dim
as in the morning's mist became the light
There they dimmed amongst the lilies fair
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