Deus Aderit*
You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.
St. Augustine
There is a word – “indescribable.” If you insert it into the sentence, you should write nothing further. How can you write and describe something if you have already admitted that a phenomenon that excites you cannot be described? But we are stubbornly adding more and more words after this epithet, which is final in content. It is as if we believe that these new combinations of letters and words will help us bring details to the surface of consciousness, and somehow by themselves, in the end, the details will help us express the experience that struck us.
So once again, I take up a puzzle of letters and words – this time to tell you about the sea.
A couple of years ago, I had a dream that still does not leave me alone. In the dream, I walked across a field, heading toward the shore, rounding some boulders, and then found myself facing the sea. It was – yes, yes – that very indescribable experience with which I began this story. Because the sea was unusual.
It was alive, endless, wise, bottomless, eternal, huge, amazing, beautiful, alluring, awesome, great, warm, cold, dark, bright, iridescent … it was indescribable.
In the dream, standing on the shore and looking at the waves in a daze, I felt how it acted on me. It changed me, elevating me to heaven in a rush of great joy. It freed me from the bondage of my personality. All the details of my present life, with all its problems and worries, dreams and hopes, suddenly turned out to be complete nonsense in comparison with what was blowing in from the sea. The sea gave me boundless beauty, boundless freedom and love.
But then, in the dream, it began to get dark, and the tone of the sea landscape changed dramatically. I felt terrible anxiety. I had to urgently return home, but I did not know the way back.
I remember running along the coast until I came across an old abandoned hotel. Overgrown with ivy, it was empty and dark. There were many stairs and passages; they all led nowhere.
Then I found myself on the shore again and it was already completely dark.
I woke up. The world around me – people and things – seemed fake, like cardboard decorations. The dream was much more real than daily reality. I wanted to go back to my dream, back to the sea so badly… but I had to get dressed and go to work, talk with people, do something, play some roles… all of this seemed terrible.
Many days have passed. The dream experience faded. I live an ordinary life again, go to work, communicate with people. But from time to time a dream catches up with me. It emerges in my memory, and hangs as a translucent hologram, with a dumb question: “Do you remember?”
I remember you, sea. And I know who you are. You are God.
* A part of the Latin inscription above the door of Carl Jung’s house in Küsnacht, Switzerland: “Vocatus atque non vocatus, deus aderit” (“Called or not called, God will be present”).
Watch the video I made based on this essay.
Photo: unknown author and Viet Ha Tran.
