What is a Van Morrison Moment?

A Van Morrison moment is a fleeting glimpse of perfection in the world around you. (Photo by author)

In 1984, I worked on a low-budget independent film in New Zealand called Shaker Run. I was a production assistant and traveled with the second unit crew to shoot b-roll footage not requiring the primary actors. One day we were filming drive-by car shots on the snowy roads of Mount Cargill. After a few hours in the frigid weather, it started to snow. We hustled to get the final shot and return to town before the roads became impassible. When the driver reversed the camera truck, he wedged the tires into a mound of snow. We were stuck.

The sun was setting and there were no other cars were in sight. I felt a sense of dread, wondering how we’d free the truck and return to civilization. That’s when one of the camera assistants, a Wellington denizen named Peter began laughing. “You know what’s happening here, don’t you gents,” he said. “This is a Van Morrison moment.”

Peter climbed into the truck and retrieved a large boom box. He inserted a Van Morrison CD called Live at the Grand Opera House Belfast and pressed play. The instrumental strains of “Into the Mystic” echoed against the mountains. He lit a joint and passed it among the crew. Within minutes we were all baked.

The truck headlights illuminated the falling snow. The engine hummed like a large cat. Miles below, streetlights and building marquees came to life as the small town of Dunedin readied for evening. We all became quiet and peaceful. What seemed like a horrible situation minutes earlier now felt serene and perfect.

As Peter explained, a Van Morrison moment is a flash of transcendence, a fleeting glimpse of perfection in the world around you. As in Aldous Huxley’s Doors of Perception, you’re allowed a peek behind the curtain of “reality.” It may only last a nanosecond, but the encounter yields several truths. Everything is interconnected. The world is ordered, not random. And you are exactly where you’re supposed to be.

Peter compared the moment to Van Morrison since the Irish troubadour often sang of mystical experiences in albums like Moondance and Astral Weeks. The experience need not be accompanied by drugs, though it often is. The key is that you experience an alternate reality transforming your view of existence.

I’ve had two Van Morrison moments in my life. The second occurred in the early 90s. I was going through a painful break-up and was questioning everything in my life. As part of my healing process, I kept a dream journal. One morning I awoke from a powerful dream. Before I could record the imagery, the fragments faded away. All through the morning I walked around in a haze trying to recall the dream but nothing materialized. I drove to my parents’ house to have lunch with my mom. As I was heating soup, I banged my head on the metal flue above the stove and knocked something to the floor. I looked down and saw a small giraffe magnet, the animal’s head now broken off the body.

At that moment, the dream came flooding back to me. I was in my parents’ living room trying to corral a full-grown giraffe. My father stood behind me with a whip, lashing my back as I struggled with the animal. The giraffe was agitated, thrashing around, slamming its head into the ceiling. The giraffe broke through the roof. I looked up and saw blue sky. I climbed onto the giraffe’s back and escaped the house, feeling a sense of relief and freedom.

As I returned to reality, I stared at the broken giraffe magnet on the floor. I looked from the kitchen to the adjacent living room where I’d just battled the giraffe in my dream. I couldn’t understand what was happening. Where did the magnet come from? How is it that I “accidentally” knocked the magnet to the floor?

I was in therapy at the time and I used dreams as a means to explore my swirling emotions. I drove to Griffith Park, my favorite place to write and contemplate. As I navigated the back roads of the park, a park employee wearing an orange vest stood in the road with a large stop sign. I exited the car and asked what was happening.

“We’re moving a sick animal into the zoo hospital,” he said. He pointed to a large building. I’d passed this facility for years never knowing what it was. It was the animal infirmary located behind the Los Angeles Zoo. A truck appeared towing a huge trailer. I watched in disbelief as two handlers opened the trailer and led an adult giraffe toward the hospital gates. The giraffe struggled, thrashing against the ropes trying to break free.

I felt energized and dizzy, caught between worlds. It was as if this scene was playing out just for me, my dream life and waking life merging before my eyes. I watched in awe as the giraffe was corralled into the medical center. The rest of the afternoon was a blur.

I sat on a boulder and filled pages of my journal. I was aware I’d experienced something metaphysical, something beyond everyday logic. Nothing felt random anymore. Nothing made sense yet everything seemed perfectly sensible. I felt a connection to a power greater than myself.

I’d had a Van Morrison moment.