After the training, I was moved to put the process into immediate action for others. I work at a museum and facilitated a workshop for education interns there. Using a theme to focus them, the interns got right to cutting and pasting, and came up with language for describing their cards that was reflective, surprising, and moving. These young professionals voiced fears about their own teaching and working with audiences and gratitude for the opportunity to express their personal side within a work context. They noted that the process was meditative (not some old art project!) and felt like ritual.

It was a thrilling experience for me and has bonded all of us in a way that might not have been achieved in their ten- month stay at the museum. My hope is that these interns will remember their own feelings when they interact with the children visiting the museum.

The interns refer to SoulCollage often. One said she would drum up business if I wanted to do another workshop away from the museum, and another intern is planning to do a collage workshop with high school teens.

Not long after the workshop, I made a trip to Sarasota, Florida to see my 83-year-old mother. During my visit I set up tables and magazines for a SoulCollage workshop with seven of her friends. Although these retired professional women are on the opposite side of the spectrum from the museum interns, I talked about the meaning of SoulCollage, the four suits, and Seena in basically the same way. I also gave them a theme to focus their work. Since neither group knew what they were in for when they sat around the tables, I thought it was only fair that I ease the way. (I think if people knowingly sign up for a SoulCollage workshop, my goals would have been specifically about creating a card for one of the suits. However, in both of these cases the "SoulCollage" process was a surprise.) My mother's friends worked diligently, at first picking an image intuitively, and then using it to create a card around how they see themselves as retired people at this time in their lives. Beautiful and insightful, it was a wonderful experience for all of us.

Back in NYC, one of the interns asked me to talk to her friend in Chicago about SoulCollage to help her structure a workshop for teens and women in the shelter system. We talked extensively, and she did lead a small group of women in their early 20s, along with some staff. Everyone had a wonderful experience, and the women were eager to make more cards at home. The Aftercare Department that sponsored the workshop wants her to do more workshops and proposed setting up a "collage corner" in their office.

For my birthday, I decided to have a SoulCollage "sister circle." I invited a few friends over. We had a wonderful, soulful afternoon and evening. One woman said she had been waiting her whole life to see an image of a black girl doing her communion. (Before everyone came, I had ripped out an image of three black girls in white lace for the pile). This woman turned it into a triptych and expressed a story she hadn't shared since childhood. My friends lingered around for hours. My daughter, who struggled for five hours to make one card the last time we did it, easily produced a most honest and revealing card. The power of this process is inspiring. After my daughter (age 31) returned home, she told a friend about the workshop. They called and asked if I would do a workshop with their friends.