We’re sailing in a strange boat.
We’re heading for a strange shore.
We’re sailing in a strange boat.
We’re heading for a strange shore.
We’re carrying the strangest cargo
Ever hauled on board.
From Strange Boat by Mike Scott
The Waterboys – Fisherman’s Blues
This is the opening to a wonderful song written by Mike Scott of the Waterboy`s. It is called Strange Boat. I love this song. I have spent many hours reflecting on and trying to write a story based around this songs invitation to my heart. This story is still being written.
For this Irish mystic storyteller this song has level upon level of meaning. It is ultimately, I think, a song about estrangement. It reflects the fact that many of us have become strangers to who we are and thus why we are. On one level the song is about who we think we are and as a consequence how strange this journey of life appears to many of us at some stage on the journey.
At this time of writing this opening verse reminds me that the strange boat we are sailing is the body. They strange shore we are headed to is death and the strangest cargo ever hauled aboard is the sense of separateness from Love that we call ‘Ì’ or ‘me’ and ‘mine.’
Those who have had any kind of mystic revelation will tell you that this is truly a strange way to live in the world. It is the way of estrangement from real life. This estrangement accounts for most of the suffering in the world that has ever been and ever will be.
When the Christian mystic Julian of Norwich says, “All will be well, all manner of things shall be well,” we tend to think, “What kind of planet is she living on.” The answer is the shore of non-estrangement from Love.
For this writer this song is a song of remembrance of that other shore which we will all arrive at because we can never truly leave it. We will all one day arrive home and become Lovers of who we are and why we are. When this happens you will laugh at the very idea that you can ever be a stranger to Love.
The strange cargo we are all carrying is the burden of the individual ‘I.’ We think we have to do it all. We think we are this thinker in a body living a limited time frame within a time space dimension. That is part of who we are but it is not the whole or the holy revelation of what it is to live ones full potential. Those with insight, those who are seers, see beyond this limitation and this estrangement. They invite you into that which is not at all strange but appears to be so only to the ego.
Buddhists use the metaphor of the other shore for the state of enlightenment. Enlightenment is experienced when you expand into awareness beyond this strange cargo called ‘I’ that keeps you apart from the light. It cargo isn’t needed because you are Life living Life and not something apart from Life. This can be known directly but one has to give up the strange cargo called “little me.” Most of us will not give up our sense of separate self for what we consider the strangeness of Love.
We’re heading for a strange shore.
We’re sailing in a strange boat.
We’re heading for a strange shore.
We’re carrying the strangest cargo
Ever hauled on board.
From Strange Boat by Mike Scott
The Waterboys – Fisherman’s Blues
This is the opening to a wonderful song written by Mike Scott of the Waterboy`s. It is called Strange Boat. I love this song. I have spent many hours reflecting on and trying to write a story based around this songs invitation to my heart. This story is still being written.
For this Irish mystic storyteller this song has level upon level of meaning. It is ultimately, I think, a song about estrangement. It reflects the fact that many of us have become strangers to who we are and thus why we are. On one level the song is about who we think we are and as a consequence how strange this journey of life appears to many of us at some stage on the journey.
At this time of writing this opening verse reminds me that the strange boat we are sailing is the body. They strange shore we are headed to is death and the strangest cargo ever hauled aboard is the sense of separateness from Love that we call ‘Ì’ or ‘me’ and ‘mine.’
Those who have had any kind of mystic revelation will tell you that this is truly a strange way to live in the world. It is the way of estrangement from real life. This estrangement accounts for most of the suffering in the world that has ever been and ever will be.
When the Christian mystic Julian of Norwich says, “All will be well, all manner of things shall be well,” we tend to think, “What kind of planet is she living on.” The answer is the shore of non-estrangement from Love.
For this writer this song is a song of remembrance of that other shore which we will all arrive at because we can never truly leave it. We will all one day arrive home and become Lovers of who we are and why we are. When this happens you will laugh at the very idea that you can ever be a stranger to Love.
The strange cargo we are all carrying is the burden of the individual ‘I.’ We think we have to do it all. We think we are this thinker in a body living a limited time frame within a time space dimension. That is part of who we are but it is not the whole or the holy revelation of what it is to live ones full potential. Those with insight, those who are seers, see beyond this limitation and this estrangement. They invite you into that which is not at all strange but appears to be so only to the ego.
Buddhists use the metaphor of the other shore for the state of enlightenment. Enlightenment is experienced when you expand into awareness beyond this strange cargo called ‘I’ that keeps you apart from the light. It cargo isn’t needed because you are Life living Life and not something apart from Life. This can be known directly but one has to give up the strange cargo called “little me.” Most of us will not give up our sense of separate self for what we consider the strangeness of Love.
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Love the blog Tony - thanks for letting me on to it. I was a big fan of the Waterboys and I love this track. Keep up the writing. Nick (Songs for the Journey)
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