Author: Monique

The Way Out Is In

Posted on by Monique

 

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The Way Out Is In

 

Hexagram 29 K’an/The Abysmal (Water)

 

“In man’s world K’an represents the heart, the soul locked up within the body, the
principle of light inclosed in the dark…Water sets the example for the right conduct
under such circumstances… Water reaches its goal by flowing continually…When we
are in danger we ought not to attempt to get out of it immediately, regardless of
circumstances; at first we must content ourselves with not being overcome by it…A
spring flows sparingly at first, and tarries for some time before it makes its way into the

open…we must wait until a way out shows itself.” 1

 

 

Emerging from my night time journey, I float to the surface of waking life in slow motion. Time has not yet influenced my body, as spirit soars freely—watching. Although we are still in the depths of winter, I feel the first stirrings of spring within.

A restlessness emerges from the dark waters of my soul—lost to an emptiness filled with impatience that aches for things to be different from what they currently are. In this moment I feel trapped by the heart-breaking realities of life on the planet.

I decide to take Impatience and Trapped-ness for a walk. I patiently follow while Impatience leads, and Trapped-ness rides along in my heart. Moving at racer’s pace, my heart devotedly pumps blood to my extremities so that I can keep up. Impatience shows no sign of slowing down. Trapped-ness quietly watches.

“What are you running from, and where are we going?” I wonder out loud. “Anywhere but here.” Impatience mumbles. So we continue on. And on. And on. Until the trail turns into a sheet of ice, causing Impatience to freeze in her tracks.

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Deep Ecology Of The Soul: Dying Into Life

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Deep Ecology Of The Soul: Dying Into Life

 

“Ah, not to be cut off,
not through the slightest partition
shut out from the law of stars.
The inner – what is it?
if not intensified sky,
hurled through with birds and deep

With the winds of homecoming.”

-Rainer Maria Rilke

 

 

Shortening days, stormy winds, lowering sun, harvest moon, wafts of composting leaves, and layers of grey and white clouds signal the end of a growth period announcing the waning of energies that have been pouring outward toward the light of the sun. We are reminded that nothing stays the same and that growth is bipolar- happening both outwardly in the visible realm and inwardly in the invisible realm.

Twinges of grief float like mists as the long, warm days of summer evaporate into a sense of sweet relief- the kind that comes after deep surrender. Earth welcomes us home to her fecund soils to be re-formed- reshaped in the home of our inner world.

Just as the plant beings deconstruct and return to the earth from which they have sprung, autumn is the time salmon return home to their place of birth to reproduce and forward new life.

Salmon, like all life forms on the earth, fulfill a particular ecological niche in the world. Their life is not theirs alone, but contributes something of value to the greater whole. In this way, they live in wholeness.

Salmon are born in freshwater, migrate out to the sea when they reach a level of maturity, then return to their original birthplace. It is not certain as to how salmon know where their home is. Scientists believe it may have to do with using the earth’s magnetic field like a compass, and then once they reach the river, smell guides them the rest of the way.

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Entering the Sacred Gap: Realm of the Po Soul

Posted on by Monique

 

Painting by Monique Gaboury 2004

Acrylic on wood panel

 

 

Entering the Sacred Gap: Realm of the Po Soul 1

 

Temporary Pathways

The atmosphere is charged with an empty kind of fullness as I rise before the sun. Under the black light of a new moon, a grove of fir in silhouette dance like apparitions in the breeze. I too feel like an apparition this morning- between sleeping and waking, night and day, summer and winter.

In my bones is an aching awareness of the seemingly infinite gulf between what is known and unknown, nothing and something, heaven and earth, self and Self, self and other, wholeness and fragmentation, wildness and domestication, questions and answers. Like the moon awaiting her monthly rebirth in the night sky, I await the clarity of light upon the faint, darkened edges of unknown possibilities.

On the beach I notice that the sea is further out than I have seen in a long time, exposing more of the hidden realm than usual. The indistinct vacuum of the new moon is pulling the tide far from the edges of the earth, temporarily offering untravelled pathways decorated in multiverses of living and dead mysteries from the deep sea.

 

Empty Vessel

 

 

 

I walk out to the end of the bluff where I lay on the light sand and breathe with the earth. Two osprey hunt over the sea in front of me. Mugwort 2 grows in thick clumps along the bluff behind me, delivering me further to in-between where I drift between time and space in meditative emptiness and deep renewal.
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