Issue #195 - September 2021 |
|
|
Greetings, and welcome to Soul Songs, the official KaleidoSoul Newsletter, focusing on SoulCollage® ideas, resources and cards.
Our intention is to fill each issue (and your life) with inspiration, soul-solace and delight. Whether you are new to SoulCollage®, or already immersed in the creation of your deck, Soul Songs is for you!
Please feel free to forward this newsletter to any friends, colleagues, or family members who will enjoy it.
|
|
Hi! I'm Anne Marie, the creator of KaleidoSoul.com, and a SoulCollage® Facilitator in Massachusetts and worldwide online. This column is all about presenting ways to get your soul singing with the deep, wide, wonder-full process that is SoulCollage®.
|
Things are revealed at the right time. Trust that when you don’t know, you don’t know. It’s not a time to beat yourself up, but to be gentle and honest in the space in between. Your clarity will come. Prepare for it here and enjoy the ride.
~ Rochelle Schieck, Qoya
In my thirties, I often took myself on personal retreats at a lovely retreat center out in the countryside of northeastern Massachusetts. Each retreater had her own little “hermitage” and there was a quarter of a mile walk up to the main house where meals were served and Morning/Evening Prayer services were held by the Anglican Brothers who ran the center.
I will never forget my first visit. It was mid-autumn; the air was crisp and cold, scented with falling leaves. The walk from Evening Prayer back to my cottage that night was very dark. Luckily, the Brothers had given each retreater a flashlight to light our way back to our cottages. I had lingered a while in the library after the Evening Prayer service, so I was walking alone. I knew the general direction of my hermitage, but I couldn't actually see it. I could only see as far ahead as the glow from my flashlight, so that is how I made the whole journey from the retreat center’s main building to my hermitage—one little glow at a time.
At first, I was afraid because I couldn’t actually see where I was going, but after several steps I realized that I didn't need to see the whole pathway. I just needed to follow the beam of the flashlight, and that was just enough to take me all the way home.
Looking back, I see now that this is a brilliant metaphor for life. I may not be able to see my final destination on any given journey (career, health, relationships), but as long as I follow the light I am given in this moment, I can trust that I will stay on the path, arriving at the right time and place.
The same is true of our SoulCollage® journeys. When I first started making cards, I was quite guilty of needing to “know” where I was headed, where the card was headed, and what it all meant. After about twenty cards, I got the hang of just doing the next thing, taking the next step, even though I didn't know why, even though I didn't know where the card was taking me.
This is true of how we actually make the cards—choosing images, letting images choose us, laying out a card, and gluing down the individual pieces. It’s also true of the journaling and readings that we do with our cards.
Just trust yourself. Simply do the next thing, and trust that you will always be shown the next step.
Editor’s Note: This is from Anne Marie’s first book of essays: Through the Eyes of SoulCollage®.
|
Putting It Into Practice
The next time you make a SoulCollage® card, pause before you begin. Shake out your hands, your mind and your body. Let go of any preconceived notions of what this card might be about. Let go of control. And just do the next thing.
Choose the next image and glue it down without even worrying about what you'll do next. Stay in the moment and trust the process. Leave the past and the future out of it completely and just be with what is as you create the card. To do this, you need to stay out of your rational left brain, and move more fully into your right-brained, intuitive, trusting, flowing self.
|
Anne Marie Bennett is a SoulCollage® Facilitator / Trainer, published author, website goddess, and two-time cancer survivor who was mentored directly by Seena Frost. In 2005, she fell in love with SoulCollage® and was inspired to use her professional experience along with web technology as a means to serve the world by putting SoulCollage® "out there" in a really big way with KaleidoSoul. Anne Marie lives in eastern Massachusetts with her middle-aged husband, one adolescent feline, and a treasury of birds, squirrels and chipmunks who keep them hopping. Her other books about SoulCollage® are available here.
|
90-minute SoulCollage® Zoom
with SoulCollage® Facilitator
Jennifer Boire from Canada
|
Date: Sunday, September 26, 2021
Time: 1 pm Eastern
Easily Accessible from Anywhere in the World!
No matter the kind of mothering you received, you may feel the need to strengthen your connection to the Good Mother. In this 90-minute Zoom, we will look at the qualities of the Good Mother archetype. She is the one who responds to our needs for safety, protection, and love. We’ll identify which cards we may already have in our decks that provide this. You might already have an inner child card who may be ready to dialogue with this benevolent archetype.
Please bring: any Mothering and Inner Child cards or images, your journal/pen; a Protector card if you have one.
$10 for non-members
|
I’m Linda Woolfson, MA, PhD, SoulCollage® Trainer & Facilitator, writer, translator and creativity catalyst. Trust plays as central a part in our lives as love yet gets surprisingly little attention. SoulCollage® invites us to build a full and healthy relationship to trust – in ourselves and in our lives. |
Building Trust through SoulCollage® |
Why is it that love occupies so much more space than trust in our 21st century imagination? Perhaps because romantic love’s magnetic allure makes ideal material for pop songs, Hollywood blockbusters, epics and box sets. Yet the quieter and more inward quality of trust is also the stuff of the imagination – of the longer-term imagination.
Trust is the stuff of myth and fairy tale – of vows, pledges, striving, word of honor, blood bonds, initiations, loyalty, valor, keeping secrets and telling the truth. What love is there without trust? And what trust is there without love – love for a person, an idea, a vision or a principle? The reciprocal relationship between trust and love weaves a rich tapestry in our lives.
Once, in the precious SoulCollage® peer-group to which I’ve belonged for years, we set ourselves a challenge: to close our eyes, choose one image purely by touch and to create in 15 minutes a card using that image. I was not at all happy with the image I drew: a helmeted man, teeth clenched, goading on his polo pony – not a “me” choice of image at all! Well . . . that SoulCollage® card is now a cherished member of my Committee Suit and it’s a card all about Trust:
|
I am one who reminds you that living fully involves trust. I love my game so much . . . the speed . . . the risks . . . the dance . . . I am one who trusts the sacred bond between horse and rider.
It s an asset, and an anchor, to have in my deck a Neter who emanates unwavering trust. After all, to acquire the capacity to trust, to trust our own discrimination in trusting, and perhaps above all to become worthy of trust – trustworthy – is an integral part of the Heroine’s and the Hero’s journey.
With typical elegance and simplicity, the 19th century British novelist George Eliot said that “those who trust us educate us.” So true – when someone places their trust in us, they are setting us a challenge – to be the best we can be. Whether the context is the home or the office, whether the trust is personal or professional, being trusted is like being handed a golden chalice. And to honor and prove worthy of the trust of another person, we must start by being able to trust ourselves.
SoulCollage® can be a gateway to developing trust in ourselves, at every stage of the way. As with any creative process, taking the first step can be like parachuting out of an airplane: how do we know we can make a SoulCollage® card? By trusting that we can. How do we know we can connect with our Neters? By trusting and experimenting. No wonder that the phrase “trust the process” has an almost mantra-like power for us SoulCollagers. SoulCollage® is like a gym work-out of your trust muscles! With practice, we can develop our strength and skill as readers of our own soul.
|
I am one who gives myself time and space to become still, centered and present. By reading with pleasure and attention, I give myself access to the voice within and to the voice of the universe around me. I am one who is growing in confidence knowing that I can trust myself.
Trust plays a huge part in our lives and deserves to be given space and weight in a SoulCollage® deck. Try working out your trust muscles in one of these ways:
- Choose an image at random with your eyes closed, then use it to create a quick 15-minute SoulCollage® card. Observe how that card connects with the theme of trust in your life.
- Think back to your early life – perhaps to experiences with friendships at primary school, secondary school and into your young adulthood. Journal about the role that trust played in your youth. Then create one or more SoulCollage® cards connected with your life-stories and trust.
- Enjoy a three-card reading, asking your whole deck at least one question about trust in your present life – perhaps “What do you have to reveal to me about love and trust in my life?”
Wishing you a rich and fruitful time exploring trust in your SoulCollage® practice!
Linda Woolfson, MA, PhD is a SoulCollage® Facilitator and Trainer, writer, translator and creativity catalyst. Of South African origin, she enjoys living a dual-based life between the United Kingdom and Portugal, running SoulCollage® and creativity workshops, SoulCollage® Trainings, and retreats in both countries. She trained with Seena Frost as a Facilitator in 2010 and has been delving with enthusiasm into the depths of SoulCollage® and introducing others to this empowering process ever since.
|
STILL TIME TO JOIN US!
September 11 – October 16, 2021
During this series of four 2-hour Zoom workshops, we’ll use SoulCollage® and a variety of other processes to explore our relationships with our bodies. We’ll explore this topic through discussion, card making, journaling and card readings as well as looking at and working with some of our Inner Committee voices.
We’ll be meeting up with an Animal Companion and listening to their wisdom for us. We’ll dive deeply into our chakra energies as well.
And all along the way, we’ll be changing the way we talk and feel about our bodies so that we’re embracing ourselves with constant kindness and compassion.
All Zooms recorded so you don’t have to participate “live.”
|
|
Here are some of our readers' cards on the theme of TRUST. |
Dad
Community Suit
Jo
Australia
I am one who loved you dearly in my way. I am one who did not choose to leave you. I am one who enjoyed being playful with you. I am one who thanks you for keeping me young at heart.
|
Leap of Faith
Committee Suit
Laurie
California
I am one who can reach for the stars knowing my angels watch over me and if I fall the Universe will catch me.
|
Magnolia's Journey
Council Suit
Chigoke
Georgia
I am one who says “trust the journey.” I am one who comes to remind you that each stage is preparing you for the next (let go!). Trust the changes, allow the divine to reveal the magnificence of its plan. Trust that you are whole and perfect at any stage.
|
Trust
Suit Unknown
Sharyn
Washington
I am the one who is not afraid to make a spectacle of myself. I trust I'll live through it and laugh when I tell the story. I am the one who trusts that what carries me can and will support me. I am the one who trusts that wherever I go is where I need to be. I am the one who trusts that I've brought the right 'stuff.'
|
Small Group Ministry Groups
Community Suit
Dot
Pennsylvania
I am one who trusts when I am in my Small Group Ministry group(s). I am one who knows we listen deeply to each other without interrupting and without judgment. I am one who feels loved and loving in this special place of trust. I am one who is grateful for this place of trust. I am one who feels lucky to belong in two such groups. I am one who yearns for the world to be like this!
|
Risk Taker
Community Suit
Cheryl
Illinois
I am the one who trusts myself, my wisdom and all I have learned. I am the one who trusts my soul's precision and expertise in my Divine Assignment. I am the one who trusts the sacred container of the background which holds space for me.
|
Innocence/Trust
Council Suit
Michele
California
I am the freedom and joy of unbounded trust.
|
Trust
Committee Suit
Pamela
Canada
I am one who rests in trust of what comes my way – people, places, activities. I am one who knows that I have been assigned angels to protect and guide me (Psalm 91). I am one who feels free, light, soaring, supported. I am one whose body is alive and exhilarated!
|
Please feel free to submit one of your cards for a future issue by sending a reply email to this newsletter.
Future themes include:
October: Martyr
November: Journeys
|
Noteworthy resources for anyone interested in SoulCollage®
KaleidoSoul - Spinning the fragments of your world into wholeness and beauty through SoulCollage®.
|
KaleidoSoul
Kindred Spirits
Accessible * Affordable
Relevant * Inclusive
180+ SoulCollage-Focused
Audios/Videos
Join this month, be entered in a drawing for 1 of 3 bundles of SoulCollage® supplies!
|
|
UPCOMING SOULCOLLAGE® ONLINE WORKSHOP |
|
QuestPath: A Full Year
of Mythos Journey
Begins October 20, 2021
with Cat Caracelo
Art is a language of the soul. SoulCollage®, Mixed Media, and JourneyCircles™ are the favorite creative ways and you can expand with Word Art, Poetry, Paint, Assemblage, Altered Books and Art Journaling if you desire.
Connect with amazing women as you travel your path. Dip in or dive deep with the seasonal energies, lore, sacred symbols and mythic themes offered around the eight seasons on the sacred wheel of the year. Honor your own pace and creative ways, work with sacred stories, mythic memory, phases of life, personal rhythms, archetypal energies and mythic moments as you connect with an amazing tribe of Quest sisters, traveling together all year.
Kindred Spirits, use your special coupon code to get all benefits Cat is gifting us with!
|
|
OTHER ONLINE CLASSES YOU MIGHT ENJOY |
|
Suit Your Self:
The SoulCollage® Quartet of Inner Wisdom
with Facilitator Michele Manos from California
Starts September 18 - Seena Frost designed SoulCollage® to include four Suits, whose voices guide us with distinct perspectives to reflect our wholeness. This series will help you discover how to get the most from your own deck. You’ll learn various approaches to organize your Neters into helpful, cooperative categories. You’ll also develop new perspectives and enthusiasm for the Suit structure, and find fresh ways to create, interpret and listen to your cards. This journey is perfect for any new or experienced SoulCollager who seeks to further incorporate the Suits in their practice. Facilitators will build new foundations to share the magic of the Suits with others.
|
|
SoulCollage® Fall Zoom Workshops
with Facilitators Jessica Snow and Somsara Rielly from California
October 9- Dreams and Fairytales
November 13- The Gold in the Shadow
December 4- Working with Your Cards
Ready to take your SoulCollage® adventure to new, exciting places? Want to ‘re-enchant’ your deck and process? Join Somsara and Jessica for an inspiring progression of SoulCollage® workshops this fall! Make cards inspired by your dreams and favorite fairytales. Discover the GOLD long hidden in your shadow. Enjoy quality time working with your cards via different spreads/readings and creating one new “action card.” Kindred Spirits, Jessica led our September 2019 monthly Zoom with a fabulous SoulCollage® card exercise, “Who are you?” It’s in your Members Only Audio/Video library, check it out!
Kindred Spirits save $10 on a single class or all three- Use your special coupon code.
|
|
Just look for whatever SoulCollage® topic you are interested in,
and read to your heart's content!
SoulCollage® is a trademarked process created by Seena B. Frost.
For more information about Seena and the origins of SoulCollage®,
SoulCollage® cards are made either from one's own art or from images found in materials which have been bought by or given to the SoulCollage® card maker. These collaged cards are used only for the cardmaker's own inner exploration. SoulCollage® cards are not sold, traded, bartered, or copied (except as a back-up for the cardmakers own use) as is stated in the "Principles of SoulCollage®."
Where SoulCollage® cards are available to be seen by others, it is for the purposes either of demonstrating the SoulCollage® process or of sharing the cardmakers' inner process in the context of community. SoulCollage® is grateful to the artists and photographers who make this deep awakening process possible and in all ways SoulCollage® seeks to be respectful of their rights.
|
|
All articles in SOUL SONGS are copyrighted 2021,
by Anne Marie Bennett, Cat Caracelo, Linda Woolfson,
Marti Beddoe, or Michele Manos.
Articles may be reprinted by permission only.
Image of singing birds Copyright: Kudryashka from Deposit Photos.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
