60 minute SoulCollage® tele-class
with SoulCollage® Facilitator
Ariana Newcomer from California

I’m Linda Woolfson, MA, PhD, SoulCollage® Trainer & Facilitator, writer, translator and creativity catalyst. My particular enthusiasm is to bring words and images together to fire our imagination and enhance our lives. I have a passion for exploring SoulCollage® in innovative and creative ways.


Evolving Trust

Our local beach yesterday was so stormy, the spring tide so high and the wind so strong that I almost decide to give my long-awaited walk a miss and go home. For days I’ve been longing for this break between the rain-showers. So off I go, leaning into the wind.

What is that at the other end of the beach? With the steel-grey waves this high, surely not surfers? Two slim figures are running. Kite-surfers – in this wind? Their colorful kites flap for a moment on the beach, then rise up behind them, filling out into taut, glistening arcs as the two young men launch themselves full-tilt into the flying surf, then jump nimbly onto their boards. I watch entranced as they glide along a wave, parallel to the sand. Across the wave-tops, in the tearing wind they skim, relaxed as on a summer day, then take off into the air, turn fully upside down, kites billowing, then turn again, skim lightly towards the shore, and touch base on the wet beach.

I gasp as off they go again, this time straight out into the ocean, riding the wave-tops, lifting up into the air, touching down on water, up, down, gliding, jumping, bouncing, skimming and sailing back to shore. I’m so glad I stayed!

It is breath-taking to bear witness to such skill, resilience, daring, talent, guts, courage and athletic beauty. Yet without the underlying, much-taken-for-granted bedrock of trust, none of that would have happened. From the surfers’ perspective, trust in their understanding of wind and water, trust that the elements will behave as they predict, that their own well-trained muscles, bones and sinews will withstand and respond to the battering of wind and waves, and that the mind and the reflexes will all work together in harmony.

Even from my own perspective, it required trust to be on that wind-swept beach: trust, based on long experience of this particular beach, that I could walk across it on a stormy day and not be swept out to sea. Trust also that that there wouldn’t be a tsunami in the next half hour.

So much of what happens in our lives rests on this complex blend of experience and intuition. SoulCollage® gives us a wonderful way to explore over time and develop our awareness of the intricacies of our connections with trust. From about the age of three onwards, building trust involves cultivating a relationship with ourselves. To develop trust, we must meet the challenge of becoming open and thus vulnerable:

Here is my Committee suit card called “Wide-Eyes and Vulnerable.” This Neter says...

I am one who has decided to put aside timidity and fear, to take a risk and to come out of hiding. I am scared at the wide-open spaces out here yet full of wonder at the world around me.

Building trust between colleagues, family and friends, is an epic adventure of living. Betrayal is, after all, the core of tragedy, while trust is the “glue” of many of the best things in life, ranging from productive collaboration with colleagues, to friendships, community, love, relaxation, fun, shared jokes and intimacy.



And beyond all the complexities of the many human interactions involving trust, there’s trust as it merges into faith, playing its part in how we relate to past and future, create sacred space, and develop our personal connection with the one-ness of the universe.

Above is my Council suit card called Evolving. This Neter says:

I am one who, while lighting the candles, connects with the light. I sense my belonging to a greater Oneness. I am one who builds my awareness of the clarity and the mystery beyond human understanding. I am one who is evolving.

What does your SoulCollage® deck show you about your current connection with trust? Go through your deck slowly, mulling over all the cards which relate to this important theme. Once you’ve done that, create another card purely intuitively, while meditating about what trust means to you. Trust that another facet of trust will come forth! 


Linda Woolfson, MA, PhD is a SoulCollage® Facilitator and Trainer, writer, translator and creativity catalyst. Of South African origin, she now enjoys living a dual-based life between the United Kingdom and Portugal, running SoulCollage® and creativity workshops, retreats s & Trainings in both countries. Linda has been exploring the creative process through writing for many years and working with SoulCollage® since 2009. Join her next month at KaleidoSoul to enjoy tuning into your five senses and exploring how your senses can enliven and deepen your SoulCollage® journey - details in this newsletter. Read more about Linda’s activities Collage Your Life and on her Facebook page.
 

Fearless
Committee Suit
Karen
Ohio

I am the one who trusts myself to remain steady, no matter what’s swirling around me. I am the one who knows how to maintain my balance by using the right tools. No matter how distracting the circumstances, I am one who looks straight ahead to my destination and puts one foot in front of the other. I trust I’ll get through this to the other side.




Trust
Committee Suit
Leeann
Pennsylvania

IAOW rides furiously into the unknown trusting that I will arrive safely. I am one who is not sure of where I am going or why I am going but I feel compelled to make the journey. I am one who believes that one must step out and take risks. I am one who will walk the tightrope trusting that my support system will catch me when I fall.




Surrender
Committee Suit
Anne Marie
Massachusetts

I am the one who has LET GO and yet I know I am safe because I am attached to Spirit. I am the one who is relaxed and floating and held. I am the one who trusts that Spirit is holding and will hold me always, in life as well as in death. I am the one who has let go of the holding on. I am the one who is letting Another hold me instead. I am the one who is free.




Trust
Council Suit
Anne Marie
Massachusetts

I am the one who rests easy as I take each next step. Whether I am moving forward with someone by my side, or diving freeform and alone, I trust that I am on the absolute right path, and that the next step will always be revealed to me.
 

Please feel free to submit one of your cards for a future issue by sending a reply email to this newsletter.

Future themes include: