Loreena McKennitt Quotes

1. So you set out to travel to Rome…and end up in Istanbul. You set off for Japan…and you end up on a train across Siberia. The journey, not the destination, becomes a source of wonder.

2. 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.

3. 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.

4. 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.

5. A journey is a never ending road - a discovery that there is so much more to hold us together than to tear us apart. These are the dreams we hold in the palm of our hand.

6. 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.

7. 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.

8. 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.

9. 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.

10. 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.


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