Welcome, traveler! Enter and take your rest...

A chaikhana is a teahouse along the legendary Silk Road pilgrimage and trading route linking China to the Middle East and Europe. It is a place of rest along the journey, a place to shake off the dust of the road, to sip tea, and to gather together to sing songs of the Divine...



On Those Words "I am for My Beloved"

by Teresa of Avila

English version by Megan Don

Already I gave myself completely,
and have changed in such a way
That my Beloved is for me
and I am for my Beloved.

When the gentle hunter shot me
and left me in all my weakness,
in the arms of love
my soul fell
and being charged with new life
I have changed in such a way
That My Beloved is for me
and I am for my Beloved.

He pierced me with an arrow
laced with the herbs of love
and my soul became one
with her Creator;
I no longer want another love,
since I have given myself to my God,
That My Beloved is for me
and I am for my Beloved.

-- from The Longing in Between: Sacred Poetry from Around the World (A Poetry Chaikhana Anthology), Edited by Ivan M. Granger


/ Image by stevekc /

View All Poems by Teresa of Avila


Happy Valentine's Day! I thought this meditation on love and the soul's yielding to the Beloved was just right.

I was sent this poem directly by the translator, Megan Don. She is the author of Meditations with Teresa of Avila -- a truly beautiful collection of contemplations inspired by the writings of Teresa of Avila.

According to Megan Don, this poem by Teresa of Avila was written about her well-known mystical experience of feeling her heart being pierced with a rapturous love by an angel. This sacred moment inspired Bernini to craft his spiritually erotic sculpture, The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa.

A few of my own thoughts:

Saints and mystics the world over speak of the heart being touched, pierced, opened. They speak of being surprised by love. The problem is, we hear the world "love" and "heart" and we think of the simple sweetness of Valentine's Day cards. We aren't encouraged to develop a real concept of what these great souls are attempting to communicate.

When the mind settles and the soul waits in vulnerable readiness, the most amazing thing happens: the heart blooms. The heart opens and expands. Effortlessly, the heart reaches out, with a wider span than we imagined possible, embracing all of creation. We become flooded with something beyond feeling or emotion; there is a sense of finally recognizing our full nature within the heart. We immediately know that we have returned home, that we have rediscovered the seat of our being.

Within this awareness, when we focus inward, we are enraptured, filled with bliss, a sense of wholeness and joy that is beyond words. When focused outward, we have become an embodiment of love. Love pours through us and fills everything we perceive.

Amidst this love, the barriers to our empathy collapse and we also begin to feel all the world's struggling hopes and suffering and surging life -- yet it is all somehow part of a larger tapestry of beauty.

Think about these things. Consider what it means to have one's heart "pierced" by the Divine. How can we, in full honesty, say, "I gave myself completely," and "I am for my Beloved"? What is the weakness or vulnerability that the "gentle hunter" leaves us in? What does it mean to be "changed with new life"? The big question: What is the real experience that allows us to say, "my soul became one / with her Creator"?


Have a beautiful Valentine's Day, at home within the heart.



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/ Photo by Maria Hossmar /

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