By Marcel Duclos

A few moments ago, the weight of a lifetime crossed over from a client only to land full force across my chest like a load of mined iron oar. Here I am sitting at my desk, feeling the weight of that discharge. The unearthed deposits seem to be filling my own mineshafts that I emptied over the years as I mined for gold. I need time to survey my landscape and to account for the state of my union.

I find myself gazing at the office wall without any particular focus point. My gaze meanders over the blank stucco-like open space before me. I follow the promptings of my body inviting relaxation and a letting-go of mental control. I sink into an expanding awareness of my body to the limits of my skin. Coextensive with ego-consciousness, taught Freud. Something very old has been activated deep within me. I have no clue.

The patterns on the wall covering, imitating sandstone slate, draw me in further and I notice the tightness in my chest. “Breathe,” it seems to say, “Just breathe and you will find your way.” I am surprised to learn that I have lost my way. But is that not how we lose our way, without noticing it? Is there something that I missed, ignored or denied? What has fallen beyond my conscious reach? What lies buried, never before uncovered or covered over by my own neglect? I breathe. Why not? Breath is life. How could I go wrong if I am to go down into some forgotten or discarded mineshaft?

Minutes pass and I sense a stream of cool air expanding the space behind my sternum, inviting me to focus on the room-making going on inside my chest. What is this work triggered by the fancied imprints of deluvial debris? Did I never before take the time to notice? Is it possible that I have ignored this personal invitation during the countless hours that I have served as a guide to others in their dedication to soul-searching and somatic awareness? Have I so concentrated on others that I have neglected myself? If so, what a sophisticated avoidance strategy!

I am amazed that this is the first time I am touched, even disturbed, by these ancient scars facsimiled on the wall before me. I say ‘disturbed’, because I have been distracted from my customary and usual way of being task and responsibility focused in this world. Now I feel unsettled as if awaiting an unfamiliar prompting. I wonder if I will recognize it; and if I do, will I know how to follow it, will I want to? I am startled by what looks like a cross section of a deep ocean floor bed. My eyes trace over the markings. It is as if I were looking at what lay below the sea for countless eons?

I am jolted out of this inner world by the sound of the outer office door. It is time to return to my work; but not empty-handed. I want something to rinse and sift in my own small stream. I want to pan for my gold one spec at a time. I do have a handful of questions for later. What lies deep within my psyche-soma from ages past and hidden by the refuse dumped by my own sea going barge? What archetypal pattern have I not lived on the surface of my sea as gift from life? How do the movements of the ocean’s currents ebb and flow in my body? How do the instinctual thermal energies of life and death dance at the thinnest surface of the costal waters’ edge where the opposites in me meet to embrace in love or in hate?

Today, on my seashore, often more like delta mud, I prepare the sea floor for the generations to come. It will all depend on how I dance with love and hate. The developmental and evolutionary tasks that I complete and those that I leave uncompleted in my lifetime will flow to my children in the sea water of their cells as the blue print of their destiny: the completion of their human wholeness as mine has come down to me.