Loreena McKennitt Quotes

21 Sourced Quotes

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.

Loreena McKennitt
To be a catalyst is one of my life's objectives. I've been inspired by many people who in turn have been catalysts. It's very interesting to see the waves of interest come and go in Celtic territory. If I can be a catalyst for other people, that's wonderful.

Loreena McKennitt
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.

Loreena McKennitt
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

Loreena McKennitt
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.

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

Loreena McKennitt
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.

Loreena McKennitt
The thundering waves are calling me home to you
The pounding sea is calling me home to you

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

Loreena McKennitt
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.

Loreena McKennitt
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

Loreena McKennitt
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 his hair against his brow
And with its smoothest hand caressed my every sense it would allow.

Loreena McKennitt
I have come to use the pan-Celtic history, which spans from 500 BC to the present, as a creative springboard. The music I am creating is a result of traveling down that road and picking up all manner of themes and influences, which may or may not be overtly Celtic in nature.

Loreena McKennitt
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.

Loreena McKennitt
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.

Loreena McKennitt
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 t'was 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.

Loreena McKennitt
Upon a darkened night the flame of love was burning in my breast
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.

Loreena McKennitt
A clouded dream on an earthly night
Hangs upon the crescent moon
A voiceless song in an ageless light
Sings at the coming dawn
Birds in flight are calling there
Where the heart moves the stones
It's there that my heart is calling
All for the love of you

Loreena McKennitt
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.

Loreena McKennitt
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.

Loreena McKennitt
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, richly 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 to 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. I am reminded that most holy scriptures come to us in translation, resulting in a diversity of views.

Loreena McKennitt