"The Holy Spirit flows through us with the marvelous creative power of everlasting joy.
— Mechthild of Magdeburg

"Intense, ecstatic joy is a participation in the inner life of the Holy Spirit, of God. So says this extraordinary woman mystic from thirteenth-century Germany, about whom we know little but her intense devotion to the mystical life. For Mechthild, this joy is the reality of the Divine Energies, what in the Indian tradition would be called the kundalini energy, the shakti. Joy opens us up to God and one another and places before us the reality that hope only suggests. It allows us to see, to feel with a deeper kind of knowing than reason, the senses, or the body can provide. It gives us the capacity to experience through intuition. We need Divine Joy; we have to be nourished by it and grounded in it. Open yourself to this precious gift of Divine Joy and know the presence of God.”