Every Picture Tells a Story

I was watching the Robert Redford interview from The Actor's Studio a while back, and learned something new. One of his passions has always been telling stories. He spoke of growing up with stories being a part of the fabric of his daily life. Stories were told to teach lessons. Bedtime stories were a given. He grew up drawing and sketching and writing stories. I didn't know this about him (even though I have a SoulCollage® card to honor his creativity and integrity and passion for the environment)! And they all seem to be intertwined. His art informs his writing which gives him breadth as an actor and vision as a director. And all of it stems from a love of storytelling. 

I gravitate towards novels and stories that tell deep, passionate stories about real human beings. Plays and musicals thrill me inside when they are burning to tell a powerful emotional story (Aida, Les Miserables, Into the Woods, Kiss of the Spider Woman... to name a few). 

To me, a "good" piece of art tells a story too. Look at your favorite painting, your most-loved photograph, your most treasured SoulCollage® cards. Are there not stories there? And are those stories not medicine to your soul? I find them to be Medicine which soothes the spirit the way aspirin and a cool wash cloth soothes a headache. Medicine which takes our twisted journeys and straightens them into magnificent things of light and truth, stories worth loving and sharing.

What story does your favorite SoulCollage® card tell about your journey on this earth? 

Who can you share that story with today? 

How does the story of your life show in your art? 

Do you have a card in your Deck for your favorite storyteller?

Using Tree Wisdom & Healing in Your

SoulCollage® Cards

with SoulCollage® Facilitator Roberta Rook from Maryland

Saturday,

August 31, 2024

Time:

1pm Eastern

FR*EE for our

KaleidoSoul Kindred Spirit members.

Only $10 for non-members

Easily Accessible from Anywhere in the World! 

Video recording available if you can’t attend

in-person.

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The Stories We’ve Loved 

Become the Lives we Live  

At seven years old, with dusty flip-flops barely hanging onto my feet, I scamper through the familiar maze of blankets and tables holding a wealth of varied goods. Vendors call out to me and my best friend, Autumn. Even though we are dressed in too-small hand-me-downs, we can’t possibly look as though we have any money to spend at the Ashby Flea Market this morning. We are in our element in this sprawling weekly community garage sale in the outskirts of Berkeley, California.

But I do have a precious collection of change jangling in my pocket, so when Autumn skids to a halt with excitement in her eyes in front of a large vendor blanket piled with books and magazines, I quickly join her. “Look!” she says. “ElfQuest comics!”

She points to a stack of comic books. I had never read comics, and hadn’t heard of something called “ElfQuest.” But as soon as I lay eyes on the cover of this book—the richly colored and dramatically rendered scene depicting a fair-haired elven lass, caught in the magical death-grip of a darkly mysterious sorcerous—I know I need this story in my life. So I fork over my pocket full of change, receiving the book with a kind of reverence.  



Thus began my love affair with ElfQuest, and with the story-telling art of comic books generally, which is still alive and well four decades later. I spent the rest of my youth haunting the aisles of comic shops, getting lost inside of fantasy, art and story. It was a place for an introverted kid to create space for herself. It was also a place to encounter adults who still loved art and story, who had not bought into society’s expectation that they should leave that behind in childhood. That made an impression on me.

I grew up, and eventually stopped hanging out in the corners of comic shops (well, sometimes), but the stories stayed with me, especially those filled with magic beings who could talk to plants, shape rock, glide on the wind, and heal others with a simple touch—Leetah, the elven healer priestess, wise and kind. As a child, Leetah became an inner mother figure for me. Slowly, as I grew up, became a mother myself, and began creating sacred spaces in my life, she became an aspirational reflection of myself.

It was fantasy, I knew, and yet deep within my subconscious, it was also shaping my values, world view, and sense of self. Mostly, this was happening subconsciously, but there came a day when I could see it clear as crystal. While leaving an abusive marriage, and struggling through the abyss that followed, I found many healers and practices that helped me reclaim myself and rebuild my life. SoulCollage® was one of them, as was Reiki. I wanted to share these practices, and so I trained as a Facilitator, and then as a Reiki practitioner and teacher.  

In my first Reiki training, as I worked with my partner, my hands resting gently on her shoulders, focusing on the connection of energy between us, I was suddenly overtaken with the most profound sense of déjà vu. I had been here before, hands on a hurting person, mind focused on healing energy; but when?  

And then it hit me: I had been in this exact stance many times throughout my life. But only in my mind, in my imagination. Within the story that ran so deep in my psyche it almost felt like real memories. The story I’d loved since I was seven years old had guided my life in ways that have only become revealed in the last decade as I am finally mature enough to step into the life I dreamed when I was a child.

The integration of childhood fantasy with mature, adult capacity and vision has been one of the most profoundly healing experiences of my life. So of course I went looking for this thread within my SoulCollage® deck, and it didn’t take long to find it: Curious Inner Child in my Committee suit (above), ElfQuest in my Community Suit, Self Knowledge in my Committee suit, and my archetypal Council suit Healer (shown here). Finding these cards already living in my deck, and laying them out in a thread that tells this aspect of my own story, was one of the most joyous experiences with my SoulCollage® practice.

So, friends, I invite you to reflect on the stories you have loved since childhood that live within you. Reflect on the places in your life where these stories have shaped or guided you. And make cards that track this thread in your life. You may find an inner compass that has guided you this whole time.

Michaela Daystar trained as a SoulCollage® Facilitator in 2013 with Mariabruna Sirabella and Seena Frost, and has brought SoulCollage® into myriad spaces, from college classrooms to government agencies. She is trained in the Japanese origins of the system of Reiki through the International House of Reiki, and teaches all levels of Reiki at her wellness studio in Davis, California, as well as on-line. Visit Michaela at her website, HeartScapes. 

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This program is intentionally developed for life-long learners, seekers, deep thinkers, artists, healers, educators, guides and SoulCollagers. It is a Jungian-based depth training offering distinctive experiential learning that can build and hone your expertise to hold, guide, coach and serve others, while using transformative art, narrative coaching, and blended process. The 12-month program is designed for you to align, shine, and experience your life with new perspective and potential. This is the right time to explore your sense of presence, to open into unrealized dreams, and determine your unique voice.

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