By Soul Card Collage is a sacred creative process to bring understanding and healing to the Self and the Soul.
All that is required is trusting our intuition, our inner wisdom. Each Soul Card we create reflects an aspect of our essence. It is a simple collage process everyone can do. We can use the imagery in our Soul Cards to find answers to our innermost questions, to bring clarity to confusing situations, to crossroads, and to healing the body and the spirit.
The Soul Cards reflect both our light and our shadow side. Through Soul Cards we can access the shamed and rejected parts of our being to bring wholeness and healing.
In our mistakes, we find our mistakes.
In our shamed and flawed places, through our fear, anger, and illness, we find connection and healing. Only when we embrace those parts tenderly and with curiosity, can we live an examined and wholehearted life.
When we read our own cards, we call on our inner Wise Wild Woman: “I am the One who…”
The inner Wild Woman is the Crone, The Elder, the Trickster, the Dancer, the Dreamer, the Healer, the Maiden, the Mother, the Inner Child, and the Enchantress. She guides us in unexpected ways through the imagery our subconscious creates on the cards, and through our intuitive interpretations.
She nurtures, calling us to self-compassion
The Creative Process:
- You will need one or more pieces of 5×8” cardstock (I have them cut at a framer from offcuts, but you can improvise). Also, a glue stick and scissors.
- Have a small pile of magazines: gardening, yoga, national geographic, and others with inspirational imagery. I purchase them in second hand shops.
- Tear out or cut out pictures, colours, patterns, or whatever shiny thing appeals to you, trusting your intuition (no words- the subconscious speaks in images).
- Trim or tear edges and then arrange some of your images in a pleasing way on your card. Try to fill the entire card with overlapping images.
- Use a gluestick to attach the images in a way that pleases you in this moment. Trim the edges with your scissors (or an exacto knife and nail file if precision pleases you).
Don’t plan, just play!
Reading Your Cards:
If possible, create your Soul Cards with a friend or a group. Soul Collaging with a small or large community of women is a joyful and meaningful way to connect. You may also create and read your cards solo.
In a group, you may work in pairs or trios, or a small group, with each person reading their card while the others listen attentively without comment, holding space for the speaker. If possible have an ‘asker’, who speaks the questions aloud to the card ‘reader’. Another person may be the ‘scribe’ to capture the answers in a journal or on a page. Or you can move meditatively through the process on your own.
The Soul Script:
Close your eyes and take a deep cleansing breath. Now, opening your eyes, truly look into your Soul Card. Admire it. Honour it. Respect it. It is a beautiful expression of some aspect of your unique Self.
You will use your imagination and intuition to interpret your card. Pretend that you are speaking as the main figure in the image – you are that image, whether it is an animal, a person, a chair, or an apple. Now, answer these questions:
- Who are you?
- I am the One who…
- I am the One who…
- I am the One who…
- What do you have to give me?
- My Gift to you is…
- I give you…
- What do you want from me?
- I want you to…
- I want you to know that…
- I want you to remember that…
- What is your Shadow/Positive side?
- Shadow
- Positive
- Is there anything else you want to say to me today?
- What is the Core meaning of this card, its Essence? Can you give the card a name, a title?
Sit for a moment, absorb the Wisdom from within and then change partners for another reading. You may create many cards over time and choose from your deck for a reading, creating new meanings from cards you have interpreted before. You may come to your cards with a specific question or wide open to inner guidance. You may choose to share cards in your community and read from each other’s cards as the imagery and archetypes have both a universal and an individual quality.
SoulCollage was developed over 30 years ago by a psychotherapist, Seena Frost, to combine creativity, insight and healing. “The intention is to offer a creative practice for exploring, healing and evolving…so every Soul is able to manifest its unique SoulEssence in increasingly balanced and joy-filled forms.”
Soul Card Collage is a form of art therapy, a beautiful partnership between following your heart and discovering your soul.
Art therapy is a profound insight therapy, a way to learn about yourself through imagery, colour and symbols. Pictures and symbols hold ideas and help us connect to inner wisdom, deeper than the thinking brain or ordinary consciousness may be aware of.
Soul Card Collage offers an opportunity to focus on where you are in life and explore where you want to go. The Soul Collage process is playful, joyful and profound. To learn more you can contact me for individual art therapy or group introductions to the process.
Soul Card Collage is a form of art therapy, a beautiful partnership between following your heart and discovering your soul.
Art therapy is a profound insight therapy, a way to learn about yourself through imagery, colour and symbols. Pictures and symbols hold ideas and help us connect to inner wisdom, deeper than the thinking brain or ordinary consciousness may be aware of.
Soul Card Collage offers an opportunity to focus on where you are in life and explore where you want to go. The Soul Collage process is playful, joyful and profound. To learn more you can contact me for individual art therapy or group introductions to the process.
Some Useful Links
Ashfield Living Flow Yoga: check out retreats and workshops of soulful yoga and art https://yogaashfield.com.au/
SoulCollage Therapy Certification https://www.soulcollage.com/
Alison McKay SoulCollage and Art Journal facilitator Byron Bay https://www.facebook.com/alisonmackay.blok
Check out youtube for how-to inspiration for your Soul Card creation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4NlG9JW4Go
Writer | Artist | Therapist | Speaker 