Where the Wild Things Are: Animals in Our SoulCollage® Cards


60 minute SoulCollage® tele-class
with SoulCollage® Facilitator
Kate Robinson in Massachusetts.

Sunday, December 6, 2015
4 pm Eastern
 

Hello! I'm Imelda Maguire, SoulCollage® facilitator from Donegal, Ireland. Also a counselor and poet, my joy is in working with others in healing and creativity. This column is for those of you who have already made some cards & are ready to discover the symphony of voices inside of you and around you.


For the Love of SoulCollage®

I am hoping that, as this is my final column for Soul Songs, you will indulge me and allow me to share with you some thoughts on what I have learned about love from SoulCollage®.

You will not be surprised to hear me say that, in some ways, I have learned nothing at all about love, that I have just been reminded, through the process, of what I knew all along. This is what SoulCollage® does, after all, in helping us to identify and name our Neters; it draws our attention to something that has been there, within our psyche or our soul, awaiting our attention, awaiting the image that would help us to name them.

But I have also learned much about love. Most importantly, and most abidingly, I have learned that it is possible, through allowing even the most unwelcome, most unpleasant aspects of my self to have a voice, that I can come to accept with compassion, and yes, to love, those aspects of myself. Parts that might have caused me to feel shame or inadequacy in the past have explained themselves to me; they have let me see in what ways they want to contribute to my life, and I have come to love them.

Before I encountered SoulCollage®, I was no stranger to the idea that we need to love ourselves, and I had done a good deal of work on getting to know myself and accepting myself. It wasn’t until I began to allow my “ugly” Neters (my anger, my grief, my lazy procrastinator) to speak to me that I realized I didn’t appreciate them as equally important and integral to my wholeness as the “nice” parts.

When I began to make cards in the Community Suit, it was no surprise to be able to link “love” with the cards I made for precious friends and family members, but it was really wonderful to realize that when I made cards for singers and writers I admired, I could connect more deeply with the part of myself that was responding to their art, and experience that as love as well.

The Companion Suit work is all about love, too. Each of our chakras, with their special energy, becomes a beloved aspect of the self. And of course, I think we all develop a special bond of love with the species that come to represent each of those chakras to us.

I love my cards themselves. I love holding them, shuffling through them, considering them, allowing myself to say “hello” to them, and they to me. I love to flick through them in the iPad app, to have them with me most of the time.

But there’s a whole other aspect of love which I discovered in SoulCollage®, and that is the love within the SoulCollage® community. In 2006, when I went to the U.S. to attend the Facilitator Training, I had never met another Facilitator although I had had a brief email correspondence with both Seena and Anne Marie. What I found was something that has never failed me since – a community of loving people – a family that carries what they have learned from their relationships with their own many Neters into their relations with others. This shows up as compassion, generous acceptance, and encouragement – in short, Love. I have deep, loving relationships with many Facilitators, Trainers and practitioners of SoulCollage® around the world, most of whom I have never met, but whom I have come to know and love through sharing our cards and our hearts.

As this is my final column, allow me to close with a word about one of the people who has been a most loving companion along this journey: Anne Marie Bennett. She has been unfailing in her generosity, support and readiness to invite me to participate in KaleidoSoul’s amazing adventures. I am honored to have been given space to share my thoughts here in these Soul Songs newsletters, and to be included in so many ways in the KaleidoSoul community. She is one of my heroines, one of my touchstones, one of my truest and most loving friends.

What have I learned about love from SoulCollage®? In short, I have learned that SoulCollage® is love. Pure and simple. SoulCollage® is love.

[And a note... This is my final column, and you may be wondering why. I am simply feeling the need for a little space, a little time to regather energy, and I know there are many, many voices out there that we will all enjoy hearing from, so am making space for one of those to emerge. I’ll still be here, and will always welcome correspondence from any of you at imeldacmaguire@gmail.com or on Facebook. With much love, Imelda]


Imelda Maguire is a SoulCollage® facilitator from Donegal, Ireland. A counsellor, poet, Bach Flower Remedy practitioner, and creative-writing facilitator, her joy is in working with others, in witnessing a-ha moments and experiences of healing. She has been sharing SoulCollage® with groups since 2003, when she first discovered the process, and delights in others' excitement on meeting their Neters for the first time.
 

 

Growing Old Together
Community Suit
Kas
Pennsylvania

I am the one who will hold you dear no matter what paths we walk on. I am the one who treasures you as we realize that life hasn't always given us what we planned. I am the one who longs for the pleasure of simple things, flowers, two chairs and you by my side. Come with me my love and let's see what tomorrow brings!




Unconditionally Loved
Committee
Michele
Arizona

I am a child blessed with unbounded, unconditional love from many tender and wise adults. I have permission to be ME!




Mates
Suit Unknown
Audrey
Colorado

I am one who has mated for life. I am one who shares the good and bad with my mate. We get through everything together.




Love
Suit Unknown
Dot
Pennsylvania

I am the one who celebrates love: the kind of love that lasts through all of the seasons of our lives, the kind of love which sometimes breaks hearts but can also heal them. The kind of love represented by all sorts of hearts, recognizing all sorts of loves. The love that beams from our hearts into the world and into the lives of those we love. I am the one who loves the idea of love but I am also one who is challenged to live my life from love’s center and not from fear.




Heart Chakra
Companions Suit
Anne Marie
Massachusetts

I am the one who guards your heart chakra energy. I am the one who teaches you about how to live with an open heart. I am the one who shows you just how open you can be. I am the one who houses Crow energy to remind you that you are part of a larger tribe. I am the one who is surrounded by the lush green of growing things. Grow your heart, dear one, grow your heart.




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

Future themes include:  

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

SoulCollage website - Seena Frost created the process of SoulCollage®, and this is her website.



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


Kindred Spirits Join our fast-growing worldwide membership of people who put the "soul" in SoulCollage®!