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.
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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®. |
The Ancient Pattern of Story
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Art and stories… offer meaning to our lives
in a way nothing else can.
Science can’t. Logic won’t.
The soul needs story and meaning
to help us endure this life.
~ Patti Callahan Henry
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When I was first learning about archetypes at the beginning of my SoulCollage® journey in 2005, I knew immediately that Story is an archetypal energy that has had a strong hold on me since I was very young. My parents read stories to me from a very young age, and then I learned to read them myself. I don’t remember this, but my mother loved to tell the story of how she began reading me The Wizard of Oz when I was five, and then one day when she didn’t have time to continue it, I was so impatient to know the ending that I finished it myself!
I began writing my own stories as early as the second grade, and as I grew older, I gave in to the pleasure of creating plays and novels. Looking back, I can see how stories I saw and heard in TV shows, movies, books, and music throughout the years have touched and deepened my own life.
Carolyn Myss refers to archetypes as "ancient patterns that exist in human consciousness." Sit and breathe with this phrase for a moment. Ancient patterns. Existing in human consciousness. For me, Story is indeed an ancient pattern that is known throughout all human existence, no matter what one's race, creed or culture.
I couldn't find anything in any research I did about Capital-S-Story being an archetype. But I had listened well to Seena Frost. There are many archetypal energies that aren't listed in the popular books available on this topic. We each know our own life so much better than any other, so I made a card (see image above) to honor this theme of Story that has influenced so much of my life. Here is what this Neter says to me:
I Am the One Who offers the gift of light through the power of Story. I Am the One Who gives the story words and meaning. I Am the One Who creates the story, who enables you to see the story in many different ways. I Am the One Who teaches and gets messages across through stories.
I Am the One Who gifts and inspires your inner writer. I Am the One Who fosters your love of reading, your love of television, your love of movies.
My message for you today is this: I am a huge part of your life. My energy has been active inside of you from the very beginning and will continue to the end. Pay attention to me. Honor me by allowing my energy to flow through you especially through your writing.
Do you relate to this theme of Story in your own life? How and when has it played an integral part in your journey? Gather some images to honor the archetypal energy of Story with a card.
If you don't relate to this particular archetype, meditate on the idea of archetypes as ancient patterns that exist in human consciousness.
Looking back over your life with this in mind, what patterns do you notice? Choose an archetypal energy that you want to honor with a SoulCollage® card and commit to making it within the month if you can find the "right" images.
Editor’s Note: If you enjoyed Anne Marie’s column (and challenge) today, there are 86 more SoulCollage® essays in her book Into the Heart of SoulCollage®, available here on Amazon.
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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 and two adolescent felines who keep them hopping. Her other books about SoulCollage® are available here.
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60 minute SoulCollage® tele-class
with SoulCollage® Facilitator
Lisa Handley from California
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Winged Wisdom
With which winged wonders do you feel a special connection? What better way to tap into winged wisdom than with your SoulCollage® practice! Join us for this 60-minute Zoom class focused on summoning the wisdom of your winged allies and guides while spreading the “wings" of your own wisdom as well.
Date: Sunday May 23, 2021
Time: 12 pm Eastern
Easily Accessible from Anywhere in the World!
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I am Cat Caracelo, M.A., a SoulCollage® Facilitator, life coach, and artist from Petaluma, California, offering my work individually and in global teaching forums. This column is for all of you who are exploring your creativity and are ready to discover more depth within your SoulCollage® journey. |
Tending and Transforming Experience through Story
There is power, pain and pleasure found in our stories. Whether universal, personal, collective, familial, ancestral, communal or imaginal, we define our life through story.
Story is the stuff that is embedded in our psyche; it is treasure that lays hidden until it is uncovered and brought to the surface. Some stories happen to us and others are generated within us. We may find that harnessing a story is a highly energized experience, like a storm stirring, but a story that has you tripped up, distressed or disarmed can prove to be an ongoing challenge.
Through words, memories, experiences, dreams and images, we tap into pieces of our own story. When we find the place it fits, no matter what pain or pleasure it holds, it is beautiful to know that something has been returned to you, that is truly aligned.
Being and belonging is another way we recognize story, because each will orient us to the emotional atmosphere which is by nature a tending place. It is almost impossible to do a story, but being allows us to feel into the experience. So too, when we discover new energies in an image, the image inhabits the space and the space becomes a sacred container that holds a story that is both present and evolving.
Story lives within the fibers that connect us all. Like fascia, this unseen weblike stuff creates the constellations that will both orient and hold us together. To be aware of story is also to recognize where you are living inside of a story or perhaps you are in the strange land between stories…
The power of story is innate within us, yet we can forget to invite the storyteller to awaken.
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It is the Storyteller who is a vessel of collective. She gathers all the stories that shine in the night sky and live in the world of possibilities, where she brings them all into her sanctuary. Seek her wisdom and ask for a story; some of them are destined for you and will become yours over time. She sits back to wait, knowing that all energies move into alignment when one is called to connect.
It is the Story-Weaver who is concerned with movement. She knows that story offers powerful energy to activate, catalyze and create. Is the story-weaver who brings the fullness of experience into active manifestation.
It is the Story-Tender who offers solace, who listens and companions the stories that hold pain. She is the one who knows and offers sacred space to stories that are lost and found. She often transmutes recovered stories into discovered stories, where reclaimed stories can become brand new stories.
I hope you will go out and let stories happen to you, and that you will work them, water them with your blood and tears and your laughter till they bloom, till you yourself burst into bloom. – Clarissa Pinkola Estés
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Seek the Storyteller, the Story-Weaver and the Story-Tender in your deck. Notice how and where they each express differently.
Many of us have been asked to remember stories that come down the ancestral line. For many of us, this kind of story-tending and ancestral remembering is powerful and aligned with a growing wisdom. But the world is also asking to pay attention to the current landscape of life, to become aware of the stories of those we don’t know, to look at the stories we don’t want to acknowledge, to tend that which cannot be fathomed. This is stretching and expanding the abilities that live within us already . . . do you sense that?
How do we tend to the stories that are so full of pain and shame that they burn us at first glance? For myself, it is through my relationship with story-tending and art as healing that I can touch something so painful and offer it space. So when we witness each other’s truth, we are honoring the stories that swim in the space where we all live.
How do you resonate with one or all of the above story archetypes?
Through art making, making marks, touching paper, layering images, finding form, exploring color, moving materials . . . explore what you are feeling, seeing, sensing and realizing through story. Each story you step into invites you to find the jewel that catches the light.
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Cat Caracelo, M.A. is a Depth Coach and 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 Coaching Certification and Circles Training Programs. Her dynamic Mythos Journey + Quest eCourses offer transformative process and mythic themes designed to explore ones own stories, seeking healing and expand possibility. Please visit Cat’s website to find articles and information about depth coaching, classes, training programs and more:
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We always feature SoulCollage® cards from our readers. Here are some of our readers' cards that represent the them of Story. |
The Writer
Committee suit
Jennifer
California
I Am One from whom words flow like water, like waves, and the passages become poetry. I Am One Who receives inspiration directly from God through nature. What I write is as solid as stones and as translucent as sunlight. My gift to you is the story all around you, waiting to be told. Dip in your pen, your toe, and swim in the glorious lushness of words. Tell your story. Tell others stories. Tell the stories of the trees and the ocean. Be bold! Be brave! Be a storyteller. I have come to you at this time because it is time – WRITE! I want you to write!
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Story
Council suit
Carol
Oregon
I am the One who is Story. Written or oral, I have always been with you. I am the One who tells what truly happened and what might happen. I am the One who brings delight, absorption, intrigue, tears... I convey and conjure all those and more. I am the One who is a form of magic, both everyday and extraordinary.
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Stories
Suit Unknown
Barb
Colorado
Apparently I am one who plays the leading role in your movie about what is and should be. You believe I auditioned for all these parts. I did not. You might be driving the car but this is my life and my show. I am rooted in Mother Earth and while my branches sway in the wind and I am along for the ride, I am the star of my own show, not yours.
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Anne of Green Gables
Community Suit
Anne Marie
Massachusetts
I am the one who is “Anne with an E” and I am the one who is a kindred spirit. I am the one who is always on the lookout for kindred spirits. I am the one who is lively and spirited and who speaks my mind. I am the one who is resilient.
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My American
English Teacher
Community Suit
Jo
Australia
I am the one who broadened your horizons by introducing stories by authors that inspired you with people of other times, and places you'd never dreamed of.
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Story Teller:
Written On My Skin
Suit Unknown
Cat
California
I am the one who holds the stories of the collective. Written on my skin they live within me, found in the very fascia of the world, they are the web of life. As above, so below - as within, so without… this is the power of possibility that lives within you. Your stories sparks of light, are known throughout time. Gift them space to move through awareness into fruition. It is only in the seeing you can be present to all that is yours.
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Story Tender
Suit Unknown
Cat
California
I am the one who holds the tangles of the darkness. Stories that are not finished are etched deep in my cheek; those stories that generate pain are mine to tend. I am a healer of sorts, but story-tender more, my nest collects and holds the complex...over time the tending tempers, soothes and transmutes, but I am old and we are not done.
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Please feel free to submit one of your cards for a future issue by sending a reply email to this newsletter.
Future themes include:
June: Open Call (send us anything)
July: Balance
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Noteworthy resources for anyone interested in SoulCollage®
KaleidoSoul - Spinning the fragments of your world into wholeness and beauty through SoulCollage®.
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KaleidoSoul
Kindred Spirits
Membership
Accessible * Affordable
Relevant * Inclusive
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UPCOMING SOULCOLLAGE® ONLINE WORKSHOP
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The One and the Many:
Exploring the 12 Gifts Through SoulCollage®
A 3-week SoulCollage® Sunday series
Led by Facilitator Susan Nutting
Strength Beauty Courage Compassion Hope Joy Talent Imagination Reverence Wisdom Love Faith
Join us as we dive into each of these gifts and the ways they can or are helping us on our path. Believing that our best work is done in community, we'll create a safe space to work using the SoulCollage® process to access our inner wisdom. We’ll find ways to make best use of those gifts, connecting with our Neters to renew and find our way in changing and uncertain times.
We’ll be delving into The One and The Many by creating a Jumbo Card to represent the Twelve Gifts. Instead of making 12 separate, independent cards, each representing one of the gifts, we will work on a 4x3 or 3x4 card array creating a large Jumbo Card! Each card will be individual unto itself, but also part of a larger picture. You can see examples of Susan’s own Jumbo Cards at the link below.
Our activities will include discussion, meditation, consulting and reading our SoulCollage® cards, journaling and small group sharing as we ponder the aspects of inner Committee and archetypal Council within our Jumbo cards. You will also have access to a private Facebook group to share your images, cards, and insights as we discover and unwrap our gifts.
Sunday, June 13, 20, 27
1:00 pm - 4:00 pm Eastern online via Zoom
All classes recorded if you can't come "live"
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Other Online Experiences You Might Enjoy |
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Create the Space Your Soul Needs Now
Forever Access Global eCourse
with SoulCollage® Facilitator Cat Caracelo from California
Starts May 26, 2021 - Experience this new three-week workshop, to enhance the energies of visioning. Includes five live gatherings, or take your time and explore as a self-paced journey. This eCourse will illustrate and inspire you to create a framework around your vision and values using the creative symbolism and metaphor of house and home. Consider how your soul home may be reflected in your life through your body, emotions, and stories. Each SoulCollage® may be a reflection of one of your many facets or perhaps it is space you need most, land and sacred place where your life sings. Join us for this fun and potent journey!
Kindred Spirit Members save $30. Use your special coupon code. More info here.
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June SoulCollage® Open Studio:
Fairies All Around Us
with Facilitator Susan Nutting from New Hampshire
June 6, 2021 “I do believe in fairiesI do, I do, I do!” ~ Peter Pan
Do you believe in fairies? In folklore, fairies have been given the mission of healing the environment, protecting animals, and reminding us of the importance of play. Fairies influence the way we see the world around us. Fairies are found in places where they feel welcomed and comfortable! Are you ready to invite fairies into your life? Join us as we create and work with our SoulCollage® cards to hear fairy wisdom and messages.
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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.
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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.
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
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