The White Garden (20 page)

THE BOOK OF COLOURS

Chronology

1511 A son, Rodrigo, born to Dona Beatriz, wife of Don Alonso Sánchez de Cepeda

1515 A daughter, Teresa

1519 A son, Lorenzo

1520 A son, Antonio

1521 A son, Pedro

1522 Teresa and Rodrigo run away to fight the Moors 1528 A daughter, Juana

Death of Dona Beatriz

1531 Teresa goes to board at convent of Our Lady of Grace 1536 Teresa enters Carmelite convent of the Incarnation as a novice

1543 Death of Don Alonso

1562 Foundation by Teresa of first reformed Carmelite convent, Saint Joseph’s

1565 Teresa completes writing of her
Life
and begins writing
The Way of Perfection

1567–1582 Foundation of fifteen other houses (convents and monasteries)

1573 Begins writing
Foundations

1577 Writes
Interior Castle

1582 Teresa dies at convent at Alba de Tormes 1622 Teresa canonised

Black Veil

A black veil hides my face and my feet are bare in my hempen sandals. My habit is of thick brown wool, and very rough to the touch. I love the texture of this cloth. How it reminds me, by its very contrast, of the sweet soft surfaces I used to know. I retreat behind the eyelid of my veil and look into the wardrobe of my memory where silken shirts sing and whisper to me, where
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velvet cloaks caress my shoulders, and where slippery satin petticoats slither round my legs.

Orange Skirt

The skirt I wore was orange — when I ran off with Rodrigo, when we went to fight the Moors. Our uncle chased us on horseback and brought us safe back home. But I remember the feeling of joy and freedom as we marched out along the road to defend our people and our faith. My skirt was orange and it was trimmed with strips of black velvet, thick galloons of velvet threaded with fine silver. I skipped and danced along — and sometimes I marched. We carried swords and little bags of food.

Rodrigo carried water and a skin of stolen wine. But we came home in disgrace, and were confined for a time to the house and the garden.

The Lion-Coloured Walls

We played, Rodrigo and I, in the garden where the orange trees and nut trees were sheltered by walls the colour of lions. We read the stories of the lives of the saints, the bloody deaths of the martyrs, the visits of the great black devil. And we composed a book of romance and chivalry, inspired by the books my mother used to read. I read my mother’s books in secret, since my father would not permit such frivolous ideas to enter my head. The Moors, the Lutherans and the American Indians leapt in their thousands through my imagination. Nothing was going to stop me and my brother from becoming heroes and martyrs.

Haze of Gold

Once at the beginnning of spring I saw the buds bursting on the poplars, and I saw round each tree a bright haze of pure gold that resembled the nimbus of a saint. I longed to burst forth like the trees, to glow with great deeds and dazzling thoughts. I was no scholar, but I could read and write and listen to my heart.

Threads of Violet Silk

I was a girl with a needle. I had my embroidery. I would sit on the seat under the twisted elm creating silky irises on ribbons

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of dark velvet. The threads ran singing through my fingers as I wrote the messages of my heart on the cloth. As I wrote I listened to the sounds of the garden, the distant sounds of the street, and the music in the centre of my being. My father said my sewing was well done; my mother said in some surprise that she had never seen such irises. I had a desire to break forth from the flower forms and from the edges of the velvet, and to roam across bright meadows and clear streams and through sweet scented pines, threading my coloured silks in unknown patterns, writing through all of Spain the feelings in my heart.

Every prick of the needle, every stitch, every dot was a drop that would become a trickle that would become a great flowing river of words and ideas and feelings. As the water went coursing over the pebbles of its stony bed, it was strewn with crystals by the sun.

The Saffron Sound of the Pipes

The devil can implant deep melancholy in the spirit, and the despondent soul should look at the sky and take a walk and create a little music of its own. My drum and pipes are never far away from me, and all my life I have danced for joy against the darkness of the devil. Gloomy clerics have shaken their heads at the saffron sound of the pipes, and at the sight of the nuns as they danced to the music. But I have seen the devil dissolve in black fury at the rattle of a tambourine.

Faded Mulberry-Red Tiles

I have taken a great but sad comfort throughout my life in the sight of sunlight as it filters through the bars of the windows onto the the faded tiles, mulberry-red, on the floor. The kitchen in my childhood home had such a floor, and I sat on the tiles for many hours in shock and despair on the day my mother died. I traced the edges of the tiles with my fingers, sometimes scraping out the grit that had lodged there. My baby sister Juana was crying loudly in her basket, but I was silent with my grief. My pretty mother had at last succumbed to her disease. I searched for her volumes of romance to hold for childish comfort, but they had vanished with the light in her eyes.

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The Sky Was Indigo

I had a great fear of marriage, having seen my mother as she grew more feeble with each birth and retreated into a world of make-believe. The religious life held no more attraction for me than marriage did. The sky was heavy with a strange indigo the day I was delivered to the convent of our Lady of Grace to be a boarder. I was sixteen and very fond of the ways of the world.

It was evening, and the shrill cries of swifts filled the air as their black wings scythed the dark blue heavens. I watched the nuns at prayer and I would see them weep with emotion at the Passion of Christ. It was in the convent of Our Lady of Grace that I learned the habit of weeping too easily. This habit has never left me, and has been a trouble to me. I became ill and returned home to my father’s house where I finally received the knowledge that God was calling me to the religious life.

Luminous White Snow

I stole from my father’s house, against my father’s wishes, one morning in November when the snow lay white and luminous on the ground. I made my way on foot to the Carmelite convent of the Incarnation which lies half a mile to the north beyond the city walls of Avila. I went in an agony of emptiness, my bones ached, and I felt that the pain of death itself could be no greater than this. I felt at this time no love of God, and yet I knew that something was drawing me to the convent.

The Cinnamon Walls of the Incarnation
I crossed the humped bridge over the little stream and soon I saw the elms, their bare branches black against the snow, etched against the cinnamon walls of the Incarnation.

I drew in my breath and the crisp air entered my throat and lungs and I felt an intense pain. Summoning all my resolve I entered the vestibule where the floor was cobbled and the walls were white as snow. A great tangle of bell ropes hung from the beams of the roof. I pulled on the ropes, the bell rang and I was admitted through the huge studded door after much clinking of keys and scraping of bolts.

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The Turquoise Virgin

I felt a rush of friendship and love as I passed one of the Virgins in the choir. She was richly robed in turquoise brocade, her crown a glittering silver halo. Her dainty feet stood on the crescent moon, and her cloak was edged with finely wrought silver roses. She was Our Lady of Good Health, and I felt my spirit lift as I moved past her. She was so like the glorious ladies I had left behind in the world, and yet she was so
unlike
, so other-worldly. The tiles beneath my feet were the old faded mulberry tiles of my home, and in that cold November morning I felt a spiritual warmth within them.

A Long Spear of Gold

Always I am questioned about the angel, and indeed this was the sweetest heavenly visitation I have ever known. He was close to me, on my left side, in bodily form. He was not large, but small of stature and most beautiful — his face burning, as if he were one of the highest angels, who seem to be all of fire.

I saw in his hand a long spear of gold, and at the iron’s point there was a little flame. The angel thrust the spear several times into my heart, piercing my very entrails. When the angel drew out the spear, he seemed to draw out also all that was inside my body, and to leave me on fire with a great love of God. This caused me pain of such intensity that I know I moaned aloud.

Yet it was pain of immeasurable sweetness, ecstasy and bliss, and I could not wish to be rid of it. My soul is satisfied now with nothing less than God.

Silk-White Wings of Storks

The storks soar on their silk-white wings above the roofs of Avila, and they settle in their nests on the tops of the churches.

I follow them with the eyes of my body, but heavenly visions I see with the eyes of my soul. They present themselves to my soul in the form of an inward picture, more powerful than any sight I see with my physical sense. And sometimes the vision is apprehended by my intellect alone, without the enhancement of pictorial signs.

Naturally, I have the greatest difficulty in explaining this
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in words. These intellectual visions are clothed in a secret language; they are abstractions that make their impact in the deepest places in my soul. They are the most pure and direct communication it is possible to have. Visions I see with the eyes of the soul; voices I hear with the ears of the soul. I am like a traveller who returns from a land so unlike my own, so strange, so wonderful, that I have no words with which to tell what I have seen. Human language has not the power to convey what I have understood, and it falters and is well nigh useless.

I can say that God is a bright cloud or a glittering diamond, that the Virgin is clothed in light, that the Holy Ghost is a dove that flutters above my head for the space of one
Ave
on wings made from tiny shells of unimagined brilliance, but these descriptions do not begin to convey what I have seen. There are no words.

The Glittering Tawny Eagle

Sometimes my hair would stand on end and I would go into a rapture. With no warning I would be carried up as though on the wings of a glittering tawny eagle, a giant against whom I had not the power to fight. And in the state of rapture that came upon me I would experience a strange, delectable loneliness. I would become wildly restless and my soul would wander from place to place in a plaintive search for God. On one occasion I found peace in the words I heard in the depth of my soul as a voice said to me: ‘It is I. Be not afraid.’

The Lady in Lilac Brocade

It was the day of a great festival and the church was filled with grand ladies in velvets and brocades. I was conscious as I prayed that a woman in a lilac gown was staring at me and I realised that my feet had left the ground. I quickly instructed three of the nuns to hold me down to earth, but it was all that they could do to stop me from sailing up into the rafters. I sometimes grow weary with the worry of it all.

The Colourless Slime of Hell

I have been raised towards the blue of heaven, clutching at chairs and draperies as I rose, but I have also been plunged

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spiritually into the mud, reptiles, stench and darkness of hell.

It is a prison whence all colour has fled, where I have been enclosed in a hollow scooped out of a wall like a small and suffocating cupboard. And the devil himself has appeared to me in the most abominable forms. A terrible flame, casting no shadow, shot from his hideous body which sometimes resembled a toad, sometimes a leaping great black animal gnashing his teeth. He has pummelled me and strangled me, and because he is visible only to me, his antics cause the greatest bewilderment to the nuns. We must keep some holy water by us and sprinkle it all around, for evil spirits flee at the touch of one drop of blessed water.

Clear Honey Water

Grace is a shining river that flows, pale honey through meadows and glades where birds sing and bright flowers are scattered through the grasses like stars in the heavens. I have always delighted in water, in its purity; it is so practical, useful, mysterious and beautiful. I can stand for hours at a fountain just listening to the water and watching the drops as they fall.

Sunlight on water is the light of God upon the soul. And a well is one of God’s most wonderful gifts. The well at St Joseph’s was a poor little trickle when we first came there, and the workmen laughed when I said I wanted if to be full of water for the convent. I took no heed of their scorn, and soon we had pure fresh water in abundance. How I love the story and the picture of the Samaritan woman at the well. We water our orchards from the well, drawing it forth by a windlass; or else we can water the orchards from a stream, if we are fortunate enough to find one nearby. But when the Lord sends rain from heaven to water roots and heart of the trees, that is truly wonderful. We are all invited to drink of God’s Living Water which comes to us in many different ways — streams, great rivers, little pools. When I can see the world reflected in water my heart is light, and I know I have received one more instruction in God’s love. I have been half drowned in icy water when crossing a river with my nuns, but we have always survived and reached the other side. Where
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would the fish go if there were no water to swim in? What would become of the world if there were no water for washing?