TAP INTO YOUR INNER WISDOM WITH SOULCOLLAGE®
Author: Lynn Schelitzche, Director of Faith Formation
June 01, 2018
When was the last time you made a collage? Perhaps you have created a vision board, or perhaps you use images in your journal practice. For most of us, I imagine that we recall the joys of making a collage either with our children or from our own childhood. What if, now as an adult, you could snip, assemble, and paste your way to some revealing insights? What if, in the middle of a transition or at a crossroads there was a way to get some helpful inner guidance with a decision? SoulCollage®, an intuitive collage process, is one way some people find their answers and at the same time are able to rest, play, and have fun.
SoulCollage® is a fun process that anyone can do. People make a deck of 5 x 8-inch collaged cards, one card at a time. These individual cards make up a unique deck, where each card represents a different aspect of the individual. The deck includes four suits (see sidebar) and three spiritual cards. The three spiritual cards signify the Divine Source, one’s SoulEssence, and one’s inner Witness. As Seena Frost describes:
SoulCollage® has a spiritual underpinning in that we imagine that there is an overall oneness, a unity, a formless realm of being in which every form comes. We call this oneness Source. We make a card for Source and we place it in the center of readings to symbolize unity, and it is a silent card. We also make two other silent cards that are spiritual cards: one for SoulEssence and one for The Witness. This SoulEssence is unique to us—our special and divine potential for this life in the world. Witness is our potential for becoming conscious. All our other SoulCollage® cards do their best to reflect and speak for these spirit cards. As we create cards for these parts and name them and speak for them, our soul is working as a unit to discover what our talents and passions are—how to manifest them in our external lives . . . in our work and the world.
People use their SoulCollage® cards to access their own inner wisdom and spirituality. They find direction by journaling with supplied guided questions and their cards. The cards show us what we need to focus on in our lives now. The cards can also help when we are planning a life change because a personal deck of cards represents our own 'inner counselors' whose only job is to pass along insight, information, and challenges that may lay buried in the busyness of our daily lives. Various guided questions sheets are provided for these times. SoulCollage® validates that we have all the answers inside us.
The book SoulCollage® Evolving: An Intuitive Collage Process for Self-Discovery and Community (Hanford Mead Publishers) describes the process developed by Seena Frost, an art psychotherapist who earned a Master of Divinity from Yale Divinity School, had a master’s degree in psychology, and immersed herself in a three-year study of anthropology with one of the world’s leading anthropologists. These areas of spirituality, psychotherapy, cultural studies, and creativity—combined with her interest in psychiatrist Carl Jung’s work about the importance of myths, stories, dreams, and archetypes in our lives—served to inspire Seena to create the process. Seena used the process in her work and found that the work with her clients was so effective and quick, that word spread and she started receiving more requests from people who wanted to be clients than she could handle. From there, she started training facilitators to spread this process to more people. SoulCollage® has been quickly growing since its availability over the last 14 years with more than 3,500 trained facilitators who are practicing in 48 states and 44 countries.
How does one make such a deck? There are three steps:
1. People choose visual images intuitively from piles of images that have been gathered from magazines, catalogs, calendars, books, and more.
2. They collage a card or cards using those images they have chosen.
3. They “listen” to the card and journal its wisdom from their new image created.
Looking in on a SoulCollage® workshop, one would see people who decided to take a little time just for themselves. They are seated around a table, scissors, glue, and 5x8-inch mat boards in front of them. After a brief meditation that puts the mind into right-brain, creative, intuitive mode, they go to the tables of images and gather those that call to them. Although they don’t understand why exactly, they feel an emotional connection with those images. Back at the table, they cut carefully around the images. They take the images and move them around on the mat board (card) until it feels right, then they glue them down. The SoulCollage® card practically makes itself. Following simple guided journal questions, the individual SoulCollage® cards will “speak” back to the one who made them and offer access to the cardmaker’s own inner wisdom. The journal sheets are kept with each card, which is protected with a cellophane sleeve. All materials are provided in the workshops. When finished, the group places their cards in a circle on a round table. The participants enjoy walking around the circle in silence and appreciating the diversity and beauty of the cards—the inner souls of each other. Participants are consistently surprised with and delighted by their own cards and the cards of others.
As a facilitator, I consistently hear comments about how fast the time in the workshop goes, how profound and meaningful it is, how meditative the experience is, how relaxing it is, how it unleashes one’s creativity, how healing it is, and how insightful the guidance is. Everyone enjoys the physical act of cutting and gluing. It keeps one mindful and present to the moment—the goal of meditation.
I personally have made over 100 cards that I keep in a beautiful box that I treasure. I, like many others, will choose certain cards at various times to display on my prayer table. SoulCollage® is a visual journal that we create to access our inner intuition, our inner wisdom, and our resources. SoulCollage® is one of many wonderful tools to address the question, “Who am I and what am I doing on this earth?” I enjoy SoulCollage® and am delighted to share the process with others who also find it meaningful.
Lynn Schelitzche, Director of Faith Formation, is a trained SoulCollage® Facilitator who offers SoulCollage® workshops at Pax Christi. Please contact her at lschelitzche@paxchristi.com or check our eNEWS and “Event Registration” icon on our website for more information. You can learn more by visiting www.SoulCollage.com and YouTube channel SoulCollage®TV.
Written by Lynn Schelitzche, Director of Faith Formation
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