This is compared to irrigating the garden by a waterwheel. The second stage of meditation is reached with the prayer of quiet. It is a laborious activity, involving the taming of the senses so that they are no longer distracting. Those who bring the water from a well are compared to beginners in prayer and meditation. Once the weeds have been uprooted, irrigation is needed. Her account of the stages of mysticism, in the Life, uses the analogy of watering a garden by various means. The first is a full account of her inner experiences, and the last gives a more systematic description of the contemplative life. Her main works were her Life (1562 –1565), The Way of Perfection (1565), and The Interior Castle (1577). She died in 1582, after a three-year illness. After five years, despite ill health and official opposition, she began energetically to spread the reform to other parts of Spain. In 1562 a reformed convent was established in Ávila under her direction. Her order was relatively lax in its rules, and she felt impelled to begin a reform. However, she had already felt the call to contemplation, and at about the age of forty, after a long struggle, she received a second 'conversion,' which turned her toward an intense practice of contemplation. In 1535 she entered a Carmelite convent there and four years later was prostrated by a long illness, probably of psychological origin.

Teresa of Ávila, the Spanish mystic, was born of an aristocratic family in Ávila.

Teresa of avila castle