Teresa of Avila: Mystic, Rebel, and Spiritual Guide.
I’d like to introduce you to Teresa of Avila. Teresa and I were introduced in 2011 ago and I fell in love. She was many things, but above all, she was her whole self. She teaches me to celebrate and live fully into all the sacred and diverse parts of myself.
She has become a spiritual mentor despite us loving centuries apart! Her ability to integrate mysticism with daily life speaks directly to modern seekers balancing spirituality and action.
She was born in 1515 in Avila, Spain, land of Flamenco and bull fights. Her world was changing, like our world is changing now. A new world had been discovered and Spain was full of new ideas, just as our world has expanded with satellites and the internet.
I sought Teresa out because she was an excellent administrator AND an insightful mystic; Proving that you can survive, even thrive, with one foot in the sublime and one in the here and now. This balance, this harmony between the mystical and the practical, is the work of a minister, of a person of faith. We must integrate our love of the world within our day-to-day tasks.
I can relate… Sometimes I am most comfortable completing tasks and accomplishing goals. Sometimes I am most comfortable being soulfully responsive and connecting. Always I am aware of the one when I am experiencing the other.
Duende-Passion/Wildness
What thrilled me about Teresa was her Duende. Duende can be translated as Authenticity or as Soul, as in “you have Soul.” Teresa had Duende.
Like all young women of her day and class, she was raised, like I was, to be a Lady, and a wife. Teresa could have married anyone she desired. She was renowned for her wit, her humor, and for her shapely legs. However, she decided to enter a convent. She heard the call, and she acted. Against her father’s wishes, she seized the day. I could have stayed comfortable in my well paid, stable job as a corporate middle-manager, but I was called by duende.
I imagine she sometimes felt like I do… About to burst with the amazingness of life. Listening to the compelling music that calls me to action. Like her, I have struggled to be true to myself instead of doing what was laid out for me.
Over the years I’ve chosen heroes, and goddesses to learn from. I chose Teresa because she developed qualities I am cultivating in myself… Teresa was human. She doubted herself sometimes, she struggled, she failed, and she kept on learning and growing and forging her path.
On my wall at home I have this quote from Joseph Campbell: “If you can see your path laid out in front of you step by step, you know it's not your path. Your own path you make with every step you take.” And a friend added a corollary: “Even though you will stumble and fall, it is still your path.”
Theresa founded over 17 cloisters and almost as many monasteries. Some time shortly after she founded her first Carmelite cloister, a group of young nuns found Teresa at midnight, in the kitchen, voraciously devouring a roasted partridge. “What are you doing?” They cried, scandalized. “I’m eating a partridge,” She answered, “When I fast, I FAST, and when I eat partridge, I EAT partridge.” Then she resumed eating, seizing that moment.
Living life fully and authentically, doing what you are led to do, without apology? That’s who I am when I am in flow with divine love. That is who I am when I am at the bedside of a dying person, and his wife and I are singing amazing grace. That is who I am when I am standing on a street corner with area clergy, holding a sign that says “We Celebrate Diversity.” That is who I am when I am fully present and who I aspire to be. That is the advice I hear when I am about to do something scary. Duende: “just be yourself.”
Duende is also wildness.
Earthy/Discalced
Theresa’s prayers were graphic, (the sun), physical (the bird cradled in God’s hands), and earthy (The bride who finally receives the bridegroom’s kiss). Of course she was earthy, she loved perfume, played the tambourine, and wore bright orange. (I favor purple.)
Teresa knew prayer was earthy because her God, too, was earthy. “Lord, you are on the earth and clothed with it.” Teresian prayer involves all of our five senses: Touch, sight, smell, sound, and taste. Prayer, she described as ‘a sweet fragrance’. and sin? It’s “a foul-smelling stench”.
Teresa’s wild, embodied spirituality teaches us that spiritual direction is not just about lofty ideas—it is lived, danced, feasted, and felt in the body. She reminds us that divine presence is found in both fasting and feasting, in silence and song, in suffering and joy.
The reformed movement that St. Teresa co-founded is called the discalced Carmelites. Discalced or “shoeless” is meant to represent austerity, and humility. The choice to go without shoes was also a connection with the earth. Barefoot, or sandal-foot, you feel everything in the ground you stand upon. As God instructed Moses at the burning bush, ‘take off your sandals in this Holy Place’. Going shoeless is an affirmation that every place is holy, every place is sacred.
Ah, now I know why I feel compelled to remove my shoes during ritual, or when at home, or when connecting deeply with someone during spiritual direction.
Now I know why the “mountain posture” in Yoga helps me stop doing and just BE. Now I know why the term “being grounded” is so meaningful, so holy.
Humor, music, and Fun
Many years of living in college towns and attending or working in universities has given me a tendency to want to footnote myself, to be perfectly serious and to be taken perfectly seriously. Teresa had little patience for too much piousness.
She knew that holiness was not about severity but about authenticity. “God deliver us from sour-faced saints,” she wrote. This is a lesson for spiritual companions—joy is a sign of the Spirit, and laughter is a form of prayer.
When I remember that I am enough, without the footnotes, and don’t have to take myself SO seriously: I can be fully my genuine self and I connect with the divine and those around me. Ministry with Duende is a lot more fun. AND contagious.
Teresa loved to sing and dance and play. Her poems were accompanied by instruments, like castanets. Singing is my spiritual practice and laughter is deeply healing – in fact I’m often playful and goofy and I’m so glad that someone I admire so much modeled goofiness.
The Fool card in the Tarot card deck is full of meaning for me. One interpretation of the fool card is “Trusting one’s elf/Trusting oneself” The picture on that card is of a child turning handsprings, next to a crocodile infested river and other perils - Playing with life, seeing the glory, in the midst of disaster and pain. You can laugh while forging your path and bring your inner elf to your work.
And Teresa worked hard! She criss-crossed Spain and Portugal founding convents.
Pain
Life was not all work and play for Teresa. She had moments of communion with the divine that were exquisitely painful. So intense they hurt. She describes one of those moments as being Pierced by a flaming arrow, through the heart. Modern medical experts theorize that she suffered from rheumatoid arthritis, an immune disorder that I also suffer from. (and yes, it sometimes feels like there are flaming arrows shot through my joints.) Like Teresa I need to find harmony between caring for my body and soul, and caring for the world and my work. But her suffering helped her to feel her one-ness and compassion with and for other beings. We all have moments, even days or weeks, when our compassion, our awareness, our connection to others, causes us deep pain, grief, and even despair. This pain is the source of social justice work.
My awareness of others’ suffering, breaks my heart. And creates energy. Energy to speak truth and take action; Energy to show up, to listen, to care, to give, and to receive. Just as the Buddha taught: With true compassion, you become aware that all life is suffering, so you must respond by taking real world action.
Song and Prayer
Teresa of Avila wrote music as well. Nada Te Turbe translates as “let nothing disturb you”. Wow! That wild woman wrote that sweet and soothing song. She had duende, AND stillness. She was witty and reverent. She was goofy and she worked hard. She fasted and feasted. She suffered and she celebrated. She was authentically all those parts of herself.
Her definition of what she called “mental prayer” was used in the Catechism of the Catholic Church and is what we refer to as contemplative prayer: "Contemplative prayer [oración mental] in my opinion is nothing else than a close sharing between friends; it means taking time frequently to be alone with him who we know loves us."
Teresa’s understanding of prayer as an intimate conversation mirrors how we approach spiritual direction today—not as experts dispensing wisdom, but as companions who hold space for seekers to encounter the Divine within themselves.
Spiritual Direction
Late in life Teresa wrote the book “Interior Castle.”Interior Castle is considered a cornerstone of Christian mysticism and one of the earliest guides to spiritual direction. She describes the soul’s journey inward, moving through seven “mansions” toward divine union.
This resonates with modern frameworks of spiritual growth, as we move through stages, or way stations, of spiritual exploration, such as shadow work, psychological integration (e.g., Jungian individuation), and contemplative depth work in spiritual companioning. This model remains influential in spiritual companionship today, offering a vision of progressive deepening in relationship with the sacred.
In spiritual direction, we accompany seekers as they explore these ‘mansions’ within, deepening their connection with the sacred.
For Teresa, discernment was not about making quick decisions but about cultivating deep listening. Her practice of recollection—drawing the mind inward to be present with the Divine—reminds us that spiritual direction is not about offering answers, but about guiding seekers into their own sacred wisdom.
Teresa as Mentor
These gifts of example and insight were given to us by mystics like Teresa, and now, they are ours. May we each be able to celebrate and live fully into all the sacred and diverse parts of our whole selves as we find our own spiritual directions.
Blessed be.
Beloved, you are whole, holy, and worthy,
Rev. Amy
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Information from SDI on Teresa of Avila:
- Video from Mirabai Starr https://youtu.be/1aPyx5daW50 Mirabai has also written a book on St. Teresa.
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Nada te turbe
(Letrilla que llevaba por registro en su breviario)
(Translation, below)
Nada te turbe;
nada te espante;
todo se pasa;
Dios no se muda, la paciencia todo lo alcanza
Quien a Dios tiene, nada le falta.
Solo Dios basta.
May nothing disturb you;
May nothing astonish you;
Everything passes;
God does not go away, patience
can attain anything.
Who who has God within, does not lack anything.
God is everything!
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