Marie de l’Incarnation : le glaive et le feu

The dialectics of “far-near” are a privileged key to the investigation of the imagery of Marie de l’Incarnation, the Theresa of the New World. In her experience the figure of separation appears primeval; however the symbols of the cyclical regime (to use Gilbert Durand’s categories), in particular fire, and the story of amorous reciprocity, prepare the way to understanding the ultimate truth of her experience as a woman, which aims at a state of communion prefigured in the lightness of a “breath”, in the sweetness of the “air”. A spiritual path here is repeated through the regimes of imagery.