Footnotes: Meister Eckhart

1meinen:  to direct one’s thoughts at God
2tätige Vernunft: creative reason
3Licht der Glorie:  state of grace
4Meister: the Church Fathers, Church authorities
5This "fliessendes liecht" clearly parallells the «fließendes Licht der Gottheit», Mechthild von Magdeburg’s attempt to describe divine grace.
6Schwung:  leap
7Dionysios Areopagites (after the Areopagus, ancient Athens’s highest court, of which the legendary first bishop of Athens was a member);  here the name refers to an anonymous apocryphal Christian writer of the 6th century who advocated a form of theology which assumes one can only say and understand that which is not God.  His treatises deeply influenced medieval mystical thinkers.  A manifestation of this negative theology can even be detected in the writings of the Baroque poet Angelus Silesius.
8Urbild:  the soul as the primordial image of God
9that is, the soul is now subject to its own desires which in turn alienate it from God.
10die nicht nach Gut noch Ehre noch Gemach noch Lust noch Nutzen noch Innigkeit noch Heiligkeit noch Lohn noch Himmelreich trachten:  those who seek neither worldly possessions nor external honor, neither amenities nor gratification of their desires, neither utility nor intimate relationships, neither holiness nor rewards or the kingdom of heaven
11anschlagen:  to value
12es steckt ein Makel darin:  ‘this kind of thinking is flawed’
13Ungemach:  adversity
14that is, not care anything at all about God
15gleichmütig:  imperturbable, that is, accepting
16Wesenheit:  existence
17that is, the cognitive process