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The children of the mist
I love the morning mist cloaking the wood and the hills we can see from our kitchen window. The mist is a familiar sight at this time of year. Why do I love it so? It reminds me of the phrase ‘beyond the veil’–denoting those who have crossed over from life to something else, via death—and I think the word ‘mystical’ has some connection to ‘mist’ because of the way in which the mist cloaks and conceals, and changes our perceptions.
It’s always very quiet when the mist is around. By the time people are up and about, and cars have taken to the roads, the mist has usually dissipated.
Mist is not the same thing as fog. Fog obstructs and is heavy, oppressive; the mist is lighter, softer and allows for some degree of vision, albeit altered, rather than preventing us from seeing anything at all.
We see a tawdry and benighted echo of the sacred mist in horror films. Where once we saw opportunities for learning and meditation, now some within our society see monsters emerging from the mist to murder and maim. The mist is to be feared, so goes the subtext. But it is not. The mist should be welcomed. It is moisture suspended in air rising from the earth, water and air and earth being three of the four elements.
The fourth, fire, never makes an appearance with the mist. Fire and mist do not, and cannot, go together. But then fire is too powerful, too cleansing and too destructive to be present in our world as often as the other three elements, at least in obvious and visible ways. Of course fire burns all the time in the heart of the sun and the very centre of this planet on which we live out our lives. We just don’t see it but it’s there, part of the great scheme of things.
The ancient Celts were children of the mist. In the days before the extensive deforestation of this country of Albion, as Britain was once called, before the Romans came, there was a Great Wood that covered much of the land and made mist a much more common occurrence.
We often see the sword of Excalibur presented in films and artworks as rising from the waters of the lake surrounded by mist. The final battle between King Arthur and his own twisted son Mordred took place, so the stories tell, on a mist-covered battlefield. Arthur’s funeral barge in the film Excalibur sails away to the island of Avalon wreathed in mist and attended by shadowy ferryman-like figures. Without the mist there would be no mythology of King Arthur. It is the unacknowledged character present throughout all the stories, a personality of force to be reckoned with. It attends mystery and significance like a nurse-maid waits upon a woman in labour.
The mist is a doorway to the Otherworld, the land of the dead and of the fey. Every morning when I see the mist from my window, stretching out across the beautiful landscape, it affords me quiet contemplation time, gently turning my mind to the sacredness and wonder to be found in all things.
Yes. I love the mist. I’m grateful for everything it brings to me. And it is so very, very beautiful to simply behold,
the gently stroking
God of the morning
redefining
edges, masking.
