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THE DARK NIGHT OF THE SOUL

BY

LOREENA MCKENNITT

When it came time to pick our processional music, there was no discussion.  We mutually and instantly agreed on The Dark Night of the Soul, from Loreena McKennitt’s album The Mask and Mirror, despite the fact that the title seems an unlikely choice for wedding music.  Written in the late 1400’s by St. John of the Cross, the poem that this song was derived from is a strikingly moving devotional to God.  We find, however, that the poem – and therefore the song – works along all levels of love as defined by the Greeks: Agape, Philia, Storge and Eros.  Here are Ms. McKennitt’s commentary, and the song itself.

***

I looked back and forth through the window of 15th century Spain, through the hues of Judaism, Islam and Christianity, and was drawn into a fascinating world: history, religion, cross-cultural fertilization…For some medieval minds the mirror “was the door through which the soul frees itself by passing”…for others the pursuit of personal refinement was likened to “polishing the mirror of the soul.”  From the more familiar turf of the west coast of Ireland, through the troubadours of France, crossing over the Pyrenees and then to the west through Galicia, down through Andalusia and past Gibraltar to Morocco…The Crusades, the pilgrimage to Santiago, Cathars, the Knights Templar, the Sufis from Egypt, One Thousand and One Nights in Arabia, the Celtic sacred imagery of trees, the Gnostic gospels…who was God?  And what is religion, what spirituality?  What was revealed and what was concealed…and what was the mask and what the mirror?

May, 1993 – Stratford…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, rightly metaphoric love poem between himself and his god.  It could pass as a love poem between any two at any time…His approach seems more akin to early Islamic or Judaic works in its more direct route of communication to his god…I have gone over three different translations of the poem; and am struck by how much a translation can alter our interpretation.  Am reminded that most holy scriptures come to us in translation, resulting in a diversity of views. – Loreena McKennit


Upon a darkened night

The flame of love was burning in my heart

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

 

Oh night thou was my guide

Oh 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 ‘twas 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

 

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

 

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

There they dimmed amongst the lilies fair

There they dimmed amongst the lilies fair

 

Lyrics: St. John of the Cross, arranged and adapted by LM.
Music: LM;  Brian Hughes – guitar, electric sitar;  Hugh Marsh – fiddle
George Koller – cello, esraj  
Commentary and lyrics © 1994 Quinlan Road Limited & Loreena Mckennitt

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