In 2022, I had the opportunity to participate in a project of a coach friend of mine Nathalie Sauvé, that has asked a few writers to offer a written reflection on life transitions for her newly started magazine "Naltitude" vol. 1 Vivre un transition" (Live a transition).
My participation in this project, was based on my own experience of life transition in 2018, when I left my bread and butter clerk job at the Université de Montréal's libraries to go full time creator and artist as a self entrepreneur.
Here is a basic translation in English of this article. The original French version is available through the link below.
"The Blue Hour"
"For fourteen years, I worked evenings in one university's libraries. I survived with a lump in my throat at having to confine myself to a schedule, a hierarchy and heavy protocols. My stomach churned at the thought of working for others. Always doing everything for others, never listening to myself! For me, evenings were "work" and days were "life".
"Life" consisted of drawing, life consisted of assembling Japanese papers. I let the cranes soar in indigo skies studded with golden stars. I created galaxies of ink punctuated with red scales. I fashioned variations on the azure of Delft porcelain. My fingers continuously stained, I gorged myself on ultramarine, moods and words. I lived at my own pace, gloating until dusk, until the transitional hour, the blue hour, the hour when everything turned upside down... In the evening, I had to go to work.
Then, four years ago, I put an end to "work" the way some people put an end to their lives. In one fell swoop, I cut the umbilical cord to dental insurance and the stuff that butters the bread. At 45, I jumped into the abyss of a life without savings. Carpe diem! To hell with the permanent world and accumulated retirement! "Self-employed" was a delicious name that I let melt on my tongue with delight. My life became the present moment.
This eternal moment is the only thing I know now. Gone was the future that so many people were preparing for in the anguish of lacking. I stopped weighing, counting and worrying myself sick. For once, I've chosen myself, I've decided to "artwork".
First, I traveled through the grey of the North, on the high cliffs licked by the sea spray I'd been dreaming of since childhood. Then, back home, I chose to feed on absolute, to drink in the freedom I could only serve. I gradually came back from the slumber of so-called "adult" life. I've finally brought my gagged inner child out of the closet and started laughing after so many dreary years.
Learning and creating are the only things I've ever known how to do. I consumed what little retirement I had accumulated, continuing to create harmony and beauty. I've also created a virtual stall on the world's great web, where I release my golden birds and galaxies of ink, to beautify the world and make ends meet. To work is not to laze about. I've never given so much of myself and my time. But to work is to believe in what we are and what we do.
Today, I sip my bergamot tea and create pottery and collages every afternoon. I don't always know how I'll pay for paper, glazes and rent, but trust and faith that I won't lack for anything are my faithful accomplices in this living studio. I can once again savor the magic of the blue hour and starry skies. I dance to Bach or Gardel in my studio of joy. I get drunk on light, savoring the moment.
I've chosen myself for the first time, I've chosen to embody a different world. A world where I give as much as I receive. A world where art and harmony rule over my administrative board. A voluntary simplicity, assumed and more than amazing...
On the day of the great leap into the abyss, I trembled, I cried and I feared. Since then, I've never regretted a thing. Every day, life feeds me and I offer it everything. It's uncompromising to become who I am. It requires loving yourself more than convention, more than the false beliefs that say you'll be stripped naked.
And even if we do find ourselves naked? Isn't that the only valuable gift we've ever received? The one that kneads us like clay, the one that gives birth to ourselves? What more beautiful adventure than that of transmuting our fears and our chains?
Then we find ourselves, like children, laughing, confident, finally unshackled...
To all those who are afraid to jump..."
(2022) The Blue Hour in "Naltitude", no. 1 Vivre une transition
(2022) L'heure bleue dans "Naltitude", no. 1 Vivre une transition
Who is Mokusho Abigaëlle Richard?
As a starseed soul, intuitive artist, iconographer, transmitter, collage artist and travel photographer, my soul purpose is to share my higher self connection and spiritual intuitive guidance in the form of a reading or Creative Intuitive Transmission with meaning (iconography), high vibration words and artwork as an original art collage of Japanese art style washi chiyogami paper (normally used for origami). It also takes the form of color and black and white photo digital files of travel, nature, landscape, animal, urban, architecture and b&w photography. Both are for sale as wall art in my art shop and their creative process and inspiration is discussed in blog posts on this website. They are also shared as videography on “The grounded starseed” Youtube channel, to offer you high frequency art.