Many times I am asked just what SoulCollage is and what it can do for a person. It is a hard question to answer quickly. The short answer being that our deepest self (the Soul) speaks best through images. SoulCollage involves choosing images intuitively and then cutting them carefully and placing them on a card and moving the various images around until it "feels" just right, then gluing them on a card to keep. But that's just the very surface. The process continues where one has a "dialogue" with the card which provides a gateway to your inner wisdom that all too often is silenced by the intellect and constant brain chatter and other distractions.
So let me tell you how I became involved in SoulCollage. One day about 4 years ago, I briefly met another artist and SoulCollage Facilitator at a gathering, and then she showed up a few days later at my yoga class and we got to talking (serendipity rides again!). She told me about SoulCollage and how it has helped her with her life challenges. Then we talked about eventually getting together to make art. I was a bit sceptical about this SoulCollage, but intrigued at the same time. I checked out the www.soulcollage.com website and was even more intrigued but did nothing about it.
Some time passed and I was walking my dog near my home one day and this car slows and pulls up beside me and it's this same gal. Hey! She says, I'm house sitting near here, let's get together to make art! So we did and we had a great time. We had similar interests and hatched a plan to do a learning exchange. I would teach her Zentangle and she would teach me SoulCollage and another artist would share her Mandala knowledge with us. It worked! I was now hooked on SoulCollage and wanted to do more. This same friend was offering a day long workshop which I took and really enjoyed. I couldn't`t glue images down fast enough! It`s as if a fountain had opened inside me and stuff was pouring out into the images I chose. Apparently, my Soul had a lot of talking to do!
The making of the cards is fun and quite often revealing. We are all many layers of existance, not good nor bad, but just as it is. We are all multi faceted, from being a partner, a healer, a friend, a confidant, or a hero and the list goes on and on infinitely. All these different aspects of our psyche reside within each of us and come out as needed in our day to day existence. The cool thing is that they all hold wisdom for us, even, the shadow aspects of ourselves which we tend not to like to listen to.
After we made some cards we let the cards tell us their wisdom by looking at the card and completing the sentence, I am One who. Then other specific questions where asked. So for example with my card below the complete sentence is...
I am One who...is Fire, Flashy and Proud. Yep, she`s in there too!
If you journal in any manner, SoulCollage is a great adjunct to journaling. I quite often journal about a situation then intuitively choose cards to help me with it. What I found was that the more complex the issue, the more cards are needed! Different than Tarot and Angel cards, these are not made by someone else, they are YOUR OWN CARDS. They hold your own unique wisdom. They do not predict the future, but what I find they do is that they help me to see a challenge by offering many points of view which helps to shed light on it and also cuts to the chase. There is deep wisdom in all of us, we just need tools to access it and SoulCollage is one such personal tool.
So I continued to work with my cards, but felt I needed to learn more. I signed up for a Facilitator training in Seattle, but it was cancelled. Then another one came just months before we moved and it was a lot right then, but I went! It turned out to be just the ticket as I was going through a big life change and the gathering of understanding people at the training was really good for me. I came away with new knowledge on how to use SoulCollage and a renewed sense of confidence, knowing that I could unravel most problems using my deck as a tool and guide.
When I got home I introduced SoulCollage to close friends and did a lot of card making and journaling. I wanted to use it mainly for myself while we moved to a new home and settled in.
So now we are here, back in my beloved Canada and I feel it`s time to share this creative process with the wider world. The great thing about it is that you can take it as deep as you want, just want to make cards and look at them, great! Want to go deeper and journal with them? That`s fine too. The point is to honour and give light to these different aspects of ourselves that are here to help us, they truly are.
I do hope you will join me in the Introductory Workshop on October 20th. Just click on Workshops and Classes tab and I`ll see you there! All the wonderfully different parts of you!!
Have a gentle day friend,
Loretta West
SoulCollage Facilitator, Certified Zentangle Teacher, Teaching Artist
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