Van Morrison sings a beautiful song entitled “Into the Mystic.”
Morrison’s verses can be heard as a simple love song, but, I also hear them beautifully describing what I think of as elemental mysticism- that strange “place” between who we are as human observers and what we are as elemental matter.
In the song, Morrison sings:
“We were born before the wind
Also, younger than the sun
‘Ere the bonnie boat was won
As we sailed into the mystic.”
Hinduism has a saying, “Thou Art That” which serves as a touchstone when we become lost in the storms of life. The saying reminds us that in our brief lives we are like flying fish in which the ocean becomes embodied for one brief moment of flight, but, we are never actually separate from our source.
In some forms of Hinduism the separateness we see around us is considered to be an illusion. To conquer our individual griefs and fears we need to remember that we are expressions of a deeper creative principle and so we do not really lose anyone or anything in life because we are never really separate from the cosmic process.
Between who we are and what we are is very mysterious and wondrous “place.” In every fleeting love we can feel the pulse of a deeper and more abiding ocean. Every birth is a standing apart that allows us to experience living and loving and every death is just another version of the inevitable way back home. The womb that fills us with hope and the tomb the fills us with dread are actually the same place.
As I say, “Into the Mystic” can be heard as a simple love song, but whenever we love anyone or anything profoundly we may feel ourselves dissolving into an oceanic depth that feels deeper and truer than our fleeting selves. Every time we empty ourselves into living and loving we feel the pulse of a deeper current of which we are beautiful but ephemeral waves.
Or, as Morrison sings:
“Yeah, when that fog horn blows
I will be coming home
Yeah, when that fog horn blows
I wanna hear it
I don’t have to fear it.
And I wanna rock your gypsy soul
Just like way back in the days of old
Then magnificently we will float
Into the mystic.”