Loreena McKennitt Quotes

I can see lights in the distance trembling in the dark cloak of night
Candles and lanterns are dancing, dancing a waltz on All Souls Night.

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.

Suddenly I knew that you'd have to go
Your world was not mine, your eyes told me so
Yet it was there I felt the crossroads of time
And I wondered why.

There is a wonderful old Chinese proverb that I love, "A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving". I think about my personal approach to musical projects much like a travel writer might approach the preparation for a book. You latch on to a certain theme or historical event and follow that into the unknown, while, at the same time, expanding on those themes.

Stars were falling deep in the darkness
as prayers rose softly, petals at dawn
And as I listened, your voice seemed so clear
so calmly you were calling your god

Somewhere the sun rose, o'er dunes in the desert
such was the stillness, I ne'er felt before
Was this the question, pulling, pulling, pulling you
in your heart, in your soul, did you find rest there?

Elsewhere a snowfall, the first in the winter
covered the ground as the bells filled the air
You in your robes sang, calling, calling, calling him
in your heart, in your soul, did you find peace there?

As you turned to go I heard you call my name,
You were like a bird in a cage spreading its wings to fly
"The old ways are lost," you sang as you flew
And I wondered why.

Until the early nineties, I was under the impression that the Celts were this mad collection of anarchists from Ireland, Scotland and Wales. When I saw an exhibition in Venice, I discovered they were a vast collection of tribes originating from Middle and Eastern Europe as far back as 500 BC, and that over the centuries they migrated and integrated with people all over the world. So I've used this cultural history as a creative muse. With The Book Of Secrets in particular, I was interested in beginning with their earlier and more Eastern history

I have long considered the creative impulse to be a visit-a thing of grace, perhaps. Not commanded, owned, so much as awaited, prepared for. A thing, also, of mystery.

One of the most wonderful and engaging things I've learned is that we are the culmination and extension of each other's histories and there is more that binds us together than separates us, and in discovering this, perhaps our needs are timeless and universal. I have a very deep interest in religion and spirituality. I like the Sufi perspective, which suggests that it is better to participate in the world than to become detached from the world.

As we cast our gaze on the tumbling sea
A vision came o'er me
Of thundering hooves and beating wings
In clouds above.

A painting hangs on an ivy wall Nestled in the emerald moss The eyes declare a truce of trust And then it draws me far away Where deep in the desert twilight Sand melts in pools of the sky When darkness lays her crimson cloak Your lamps will call me home

Standing on the bridge that crosses The river that goes out to the sea The wind is full of a thousand voices They pass by the bridge and me.

Bonfires dot the rolling hillsides
Figures dance around and around
To drums that pulse out echoes of darkness
And moving to the pagan sound.

And so it's there my homage's due Clutched by the still of the night And now I feel you move Every breath is full So it's there my homage's due Clutched by the still of the night Even the distance feels so near All for the love of you.

From all journeys, be they imaginative or geographic, the most important souvenirs to be collected are the reminders that people's lives are fortified by family and friends; by our ability to create our lives like a piece of art; and our efforts to reconcile our material needs with the importance of our connections to each other.