Celebrating 15 Years of Soul Songs!

Dear Soul Songs Readers,

That’s right . . . 15 years ago I sat down at our family’s old desktop IBM and put together a very rough issue of what would become a treasured reading experience for over 2,500 readers worldwide. In September of 2005, there were only a handful of readers, so we have come a long way! You can read that first issue here. NOTE: It says “Issue #2” at the top because Issue #1 was just an email I sent out to let people know that the first issue was coming soon.

You may note that the first newsletter, designed to connect SoulCollagers around the world in a spirit of creativity and community, was originally called “KaleidoSoul Inspirations.” But that phrase was too long for the newsletter builder I was using at the time so I created a contest to rename it. My lifelong gratitude goes to Elaine Vallante from Massachusetts for offering the name Soul Songs, which still lives on and will continue to live on as the name of KaleidoSoul’s monthly fr*ee newsletter for all who love SoulCollage®.

If you read that very first column I wrote in that very first issue, you’ll notice that I shared about my personal experience with dragonflies. Ah, sweet synchronicity! This month (September 22) I launch the publication of my first women’s novel, Dragonflies at Night: More Than a Love Story. On one hand, it’s a tender, bright, romantic love story, but also woven through it is the belief that those who leave this world for the next one are never really gone. And Dragonfly plays an important symbolic role in the entire story. The reviewer from Sublime Book Reviews said, “the story conveys an important message of positivity and hope.”

If you’d like to stay in touch with me about the novel, upcoming online book launch parties, author interviews, contests, give-aways, and more, please take a moment to add yourself to my author email list here. This is my first novel, but it won’t be my last!

We chose the theme of HOPE for our 15th Anniversary issue because it’s something that the world needs a whole lot more of right about now. I’d like to leave you with this quote from Barbara Kingsolver. Speak it out loud a few times… or let it just live in your heart. Who knows? It might even inspire a SoulCollage® card or two!

The very least you can do in your life

is figure out what you hope for.

And the most you can do

is live inside that hope,

running down its hallways,

touching the walls on both sides.

~ Barbara Kingsolver

Deborah Cort from New Hampshire

Date: Sunday, September 27, 2020

Time: 1 pm Eastern

FR*EE for our KaleidoSoul Kindred Spirit members.

Visit this page for more info now.

And it is through that double door of “Sensing Possibility” that my own hope is fostered.

Hope is something that so many of us are grasping for right now. In the midst of so much unexpected change and challenge in the world, hope can be hard to find. There have been times I have been cynical about hope, but if I take a deeper look I can see that hope has been ever-present, sometimes active and other times less so - but Hope has been constant. Emily Dickenson shares these famous words:

Hope has truly been like a lantern within my life— a space of inner commitment and connection. When I have been determined to step through the darkness and work toward the hope that I claim, extraordinary things come forth. It is that active determination that seems to offer me insight and allows me to expand my experience.

What I discover beyond the doors is often illuminating. Possibilities are “hopeful energies” that help me to clarify and build ways to face challenges and make changes. When hope has been dashed, it has often been around things that are out of my control. When I take back my Hope and choose to apply Hope into my own life choices, I can exercise my voice and vision to create immediate movement toward change.

Hope comes in many forms, and finding a powerful way to express your hope through images, words, music, poetry…etc. determines how your hope will become visible.

Your SoulCollage® cards are your space-makers, your hope-bringers. They balance the light and the dark; your cards and art create the very places where hope lives. Hope provides the

questions that invite you to see and feel.

Ask your cards to tell you where you can grow your hope. Be fierce and nurture time with your images. Be conscious: explore the unfolding of a poem, release anxiety with a short meditation, allow your body to release. Turn technology off. Take a break from media. Be present. Speak your truth and also listen. Be creative: bring paint to paper, cut images, blend and layer to create collage… These are the very ways that hope is discovered and uncovered. In these moments of active creation, you are offering space to open the doors to the possibility of what can be better.

It is during times of challenge that hope can be lost and found. Seek the wisdom in your own personal practice to understand the actions that can grow your hope. Expand your hope into active energies that affirm and inspire.

As you create, use images and your SoulCollage® practice to speak to the hope that you hold for yourself, family, friends, and community members. Your hope may be focused on the earth, trust, social justice, relationships, health, children, food, medicine, consciousness, education, communication, the bees, the trees, wellness or wonder. Make your own sacred spaces within your art; let your SoulCollage® cards and your art bring your hope into the field of greater awareness; let it become empowered and ripple through local communities, and then in wider and wider circles.

Live within your art as you create more of what you see. Be that “thing with wings” and allow your hope to fly forth and generate change.

What does Hope mean for you?

Where is Lost Hope guiding you?

How is Found Hope offered space to grow?

Where do you hold Hope in your body?

What does it look like? Feel like? Sound like?

What does Hope look like when you “live inside of it?”

How will your own Hope take shape?

“…don’t ever underestimate the importance you can have, because history has shown us that courage can be contagious and hope can take on a life of its own.” – Michelle Obama

Cat Caracelo, M.A. is a Depth Coach and has been a SoulCollage® Facilitator since 2007, working with expressive arts and transformative process, guiding individuals and groups internationally. Cat is the founder of JourneyPath Institute and guides Creative Depth CoachingCertification and Circles Training Programs. Her dynamic Mythos Journey + Quest eCourses offer transformative process and mythic themes designed to explore one’s own stories, seek healing, and expand possibility. Please visit Cat’s website, Journey Path Institute to find articles and information about depth coaching, classes, training programs, and retreats.

Within each year there are important transitions, threshold times that invite us to step in, reclaim, heal, feel and find the brilliance of our potential. QuestPath invites you to begin a yearlong mythic adventure!

Engage your sacred journey, mine your life and experience an integrative process, inspiring art, and creating space to deepen your personal path. Travel and connect with amazing women as you choose your path. Dip in or dive deep with the seasonal energies and mythic themes offered around the eight seasons on the sacred wheel of the year. Connect with an amazing tribe of Quest sisters, traveling together all year.

Curious? There’s lots more info here.

(If you’re a Kindred Spirits member, don’t forget to use your special coupon code).

Looking for ways to go deeper and have more fun with your SoulCollage® cards?

Each of our Video Retreats includes a 4-hour Zoom video class recording, plus handouts and resources.

Work through the material and exercises at your own pace.

Use the material and activities and teachings to deepen your own personal work with SoulCollage® and/or to create your own SoulCollage® workshops!

Read more about all 8 video retreats here.

Haiku :

Waves caress my cheek.

The sound of mighty waters

Fills the still starlight.

One star guides my way.

She is my own self, my true

Lodestone in the night.

Future themes include:

October: Boundaries

Facilitator Trainings: Information about content and dates/locations of upcoming trainings of SoulCollage® Facilitators.

SoulCollage.com - The official website of SoulCollage® Inc.

KaleidoSoul - Spinning the fragments of your world into wholeness and beauty through SoulCollage®.

Join Kindred Spirits for SoulCollagers this month and save $15 with coupon code SOULSONGS15