Soul Treasures - Issue #160

Issue # 160

April 20, 2009

Quotation of the Week

Enjoy the little things,
for one day you may look back
and realize that they were the big things.

--- Robert Brault

Inner Journeys
with Anne Marie Bennett

Integrating the Practice of SoulCollage®
Into Our Daily Lives

Silence is Golden

For several years I have been in the habit of randomly drawing two SoulCollage® cards from my Deck during my morning Quiet Time. I always do a little journaling with them as well. As a born writer, it's always been about words, words, words. This might include using the I Am The One Who... exercise. Or it might mean that I dialog with the Neters represented on the cards I chose, or have them dialog with each other. Whatever I choose to write, it always involves giving them a voice, letting them speak, listening to what they have to say.

I highly recommend this process of doing a daily one or two card Reading with your Deck. It's a beautiful way to keep in rhythm with your life, and to stay in touch with all of your Neters in a planned-yet-random kind of way.

But a few weeks ago I had to do without my daily dose of words. I was on the schedule to work several morning shifts at the book store, and therefore missed my intentional daily Quiet Times. I would look longingly at my Deck before grabbing my coat and car keys on the way to work.

One day, in frustration, on my way out the door, I drew two cards from my Deck, took a quick peek at them and just brought them with me for the day. I didn't write from them, I didn't journal with them... I just let them rest in the notebook that I keep with me when I'm working. When I got home, I set them on my Altar for the rest of the day.

I was really surprised at how powerful this was!

I had always thought that if I drew a SoulCollage® card from my Deck, then I had to write from it. It had never occurred to me not to let them express themselves to me with words. I found that simply letting them keep me company throughout my day made a huge difference in how I lived that day. I found that my Neters had a lot to "say" even though I wasn't doing any writing.

I'm not discounting journaling with the I Am The One Who... process. Not at all. I'm just suggesting that once in a while, we allow the silence to speak its own wisdom to our souls.

SoulCollage® Expressions
Ideas and Challenges to Spice Up Your SoulCollage® Practice

Challenge of the Week

Letting the Silence Be Enough

One day this week, try this yourself and see how it feels: Draw two cards randomly from your Deck, and let them hold space for you throughout the day. You might put them on your own Altar, set them on your desk, or carry them with you in your Day Planner. Just let these two cards hold space for you without picking up a pen and notebook. What happens?

Kindred Spirits Member News
Making the Most of Your KaleidoSoul Membership

It's really easy to get to your Members' Home Page:

1. Go to KaleidoSoul.com and click on the "Members Log In Here" Logo on the left, under the lavender menu buttons.

2. Type in your Member's Password and press the Enter Key. .

3. If you've forgotten your Members' Password, please send a reply to this email and request that we re-send it to you.

4. Voila! You're on your Kindred Spirits Home Page! From here, you can access the Discount Shop, The Audio Library, all back issues of Soul Treasures and everything else.

Our Next Tele-Class

Spicing Up the Soul of Life: Random Play with Your SoulCollage® Deck
Presented by Laurel Aston, Creativity Coach, Artist, and SoulCollage® Facilitator and in California

Join Laurel as she guides us to discover ways to use play and random ideas to rejuvenate our relationships to our SoulCollage® decks. Sometimes we just don't have time or energy to do a full-fledged reading with just the right question, but we'd like a little interaction with our cards. Sometimes we may just want to juice things up. These little exercises will catalyze you to use your intuitive nudges on the fly, and you'll be surprised at the renewed excitement you have about the Neters you get to know better.

Please bring with you to the call:

your Deck (even if it's just a few cards)
if you don't have a lot of cards, please bring some images that you've clipped out of magazines, (or you may trim some large images down to 5 x 8, or to the size of your cards)
your journal and a pen
please create a sacred space before you dial in (light a candle, lay out a special scarf, meditate a few minutes, make a blessing, say a prayer, or otherwise invite playful spirit in... ?

Date: Sunday April 26, 2009
Phone number to call: 218-936-4700
Access code: 18761

Time:
6:00 pm Eastern, 5:00 pm Central, 4:00 pm Mountain,
3:00 pm Pacific, noon Hawaiian,
11 pm in London, midnight in Rome,
Monday 8 a.m. in Melbourne Australia
and Monday 10 a.m. in New Zealand

Save the date now.

All of our tele-classes are FR*EE for members, always!
And remember, don't worry if you can't attend...
we'll be recording it and you can listen to it anytime in your
Member's Only Audio Library.
We will give you the phone number and access code
to call in that week's issue of Soul Treasures.

Upcoming Tele-Classes and Presenters:

May 15, 2009 (Friday, 8 pm Eastern) - Using the Wisdom of the Medicine Wheel in your SoulCollage® Journey, with Alexa Singer-Telles, LMFT, SoulCollage® Facilitator in California. The Native American Medicine Wheel offers us a sacred container to honor the wisdom of the seasons and cycles of life, the elemental qualities, and the guidance of animals and archetypal energies. We will imagine ourselves sitting in the center of our own medicine wheel, inviting in the elements of the four directions in relation to the four SoulCollage® suits as a gift of support. We will work with the guidance of the Visionary, Healer, Teacher, and Warrior as they represent the energies of the four directions. Our time together will be experiential, with lots of time for questions and sharing. Alexa has led women's rituals including rites of passage for over twenty years using the medicine wheel as the sacred container to hold the experience. She has been actively engaged in the use of dreamwork, movement, and expressive artwork (both personally and therapeutically) as a process for guidance and healing.

June 14, 2009 (Sunday, 5pm Eastern) - Meditation and SoulCollage®: How Each Enhances the Other, with Marti Beddoe, Meditation Teacher and SoulCollage® Facilitator in Illinois. For new as well as experienced mediators. Marti will share with us some ways that her SoulCollage® practice has benefited her meditation practice, and vice versa. If you are looking to deepen your SoulCollage® work, this is the class for you!

July, 2009 - SoulCollage® and the Art of Sacred Listening, with Laura Hegfield, SoulCollage® Facilitator in New Hampshire. Consider allowing silence to be the container that holds your SoulCollage® practice. I believe that silence can open us to a more intimate listening experience, ultimately allowing us to drink a more satisfying cup of the sweet wisdom our cards have to offer. During this tele-class, Laura will offer some practical tips for incorporating more silence into your life and your SoulCollage® practice (alone, with friends or as a facilitator in workshops). Laura is a SoulCollage® Facilitator, Kaizen-Muse Creativity Coach, Yoga & Jewish Spirituality Teacher, Artist, Blogger, Wife and Mom practicing the sacred art of "life" in Southern NH. Please visit her blog, Shine the Divine to get to know her better before the call.
(Date and time to be announced, please stay tuned.)

Kindred Spirits SoulCollage® Retreat

Come As You Are:
Nurturing Self-Acceptance with SoulCollage®,
A Weekend Retreat

June 25-28, 2009
Rolling Ridge Retreat Center
Andover, Massachusetts

There are only TWO spaces left.... is one of them for you?

Everything you need to know is on this KaleidoSoul page.

Soul Nourishmentt
Websites, Music
and More...

Creation Station
Two new SoulCollage® cards from Dia in Oregon.

Heart-Soul Living
Dedicated to sharing tools and explorations that allow you to discover your own deep wisdom & natural power for yourself, and ground it gracefully into your life. Hint: Click on "Soul Poems" on the left menu and use the links there to read some truly soul-stirring poems.

Music for Every Soul
Music that stirs the soul and spirit, from singer and songwriter Mark Stanton Welch. Mark's music is a magical celebration of diversity and divinity. He partners with Sonia Choquette to play/perform music at her on-site workshops and retreats. And... I am so happy to announce that he is allowing me to use his music as the background tracks on my upcoming CD's of my Magical Inner Journeys (guided meditations). So please check out his colorful website. And if you are stumped by which CD is the best, my choice is 'Life is Good.'

All Books For Less
Amazing website for any book lover. They have zillions of books (I'm not kidding!) on any topic you can think of, all at greatly reduced prices. It's not like Amazon or Half.com where you are buying from individual sellers. This is a reputable dealer and most of the books are available in quantity, which is great for book clubs as well as gift giving. Search for your favorite author or topic and see how much savings you can gather this summer!

Sunshine Cleaning, featuring Amy Adams, Emily Blunt. Sweet, wise little film with a lot of depth and excellent character acting. A little bit about letting go of the past, a little bit about believing in ourselves and following our dreams. In American theatres now.

Inner Surprises - Anne Marie's blog with an intimate look into her SoulCollage® Deck.

Soul Songs - Complimentary monthly newsletter. Each one has a theme, something to do with SoulCollage®, plus an article by Anne Marie Bennett, and Karen Mann, SoulCollage® Facilitator in Australia.

The April issue is all about Playfulness.

KaleidoSoul Community Yahoo Group - This is a safe space where you can connect with other SoulCollagers, post your cards (only if you want to) and ask your questions.

Soul Nourishment - Books

It's All Too Much and corresponding It's All Too Much Workbook, by Peter Walsh. This is the best book I have read in a long time. It is about organizing, but that is only the surface work that this book helps the reader accomplish. It is not about buying organizers and more plastic totes, but about having only what fits in your space, which is a metaphor for your life. In one week, my life was drastically altered by reading this book. I have always been a "neat" and organized person. However, I still had more "stuff" than I could, or would, possibly use. Mr. Walsh talks about living the life you imagine and having the space to do it. Rather than keeping things that remind me of the person I thought I could make myself, I now have a house of things that are the essence of me. I have things I use, I have only two sets of sheets for each bed for each season, for example. I got rid of the creme brulee torch I hoped would make me want to cook fancy desserts. I have the cake pans I use once or twice a year to make special cakes for my kids. The book details the thoughts and thought process around "stuff" and this helped me immensely with all the letting go! I am going to make a SoulCollage® card for Peter Walsh for my Community Suit. He is someone who has freed me to have time and space for SoulCollage® -- rather than working on a lap desk because my beautiful art table has other projects I started but lost interest in but felt too guilty to throw out. I am also going to make a card about "keeping" things and one about emptiness and how full and rich it truly is! Recommended by Kindred Spirit Kate in Massachusetts

Fearless Creating, by Eric Maisel, Ph.D. A Step-by-Step Guide to Starting and Completing Your Work of Art. For writers, visual artists, musicians, actors, and creators in any field. If fear in any form holds you back from your creative work/play in the world, then you will find this book helpful and inspiring.

The Girl with No Shadow, by Joanne Harris. If you enjoyed the novel (and movie) Chocolat, you will love this sequel that follows through on Vianne Rocher's life in a small French village. She is running a new chocolate shop in a different town, but there is no excitement, no magic. She wants a "normal" life for her daughters. Then a dangerous woman in lollipop shoes named Zozie appears in their life and the fun begins. Vianne learns that you can't live without magic... you just need to distinguish the good from the bad. And you can practically smell the chocolate, the descriptions are so vivid.

Soul Treasures is brought to you by
KaleidoSoul.com,
Spinning the fragments of your world
into wholeness and beauty
through SoulCollage®.

SoulCollage® cards are made either from one's own art or from images found in materials which have been bought by or given to the SoulCollage® card maker. These collaged cards are used only for the cardmaker's own inner exploration.

SoulCollage® cards are not sold, traded, bartered, or copied (except as a back-up for the card maker's own use) as is stated in the Principles of SoulCollage®.

Where SoulCollage® cards are available to be seen by others, it is for the purposes either of demonstrating the SoulCollage® process or of sharing the card maker's inner process in the context of community.

SoulCollage® is grateful to the artists and photographers who make this deep awakening process possible and in all ways SoulCollage® seeks to be respectful of their rights.

Soul Treasures is published by
KaleidoSoul.com and Anne Marie Bennett.
Please do not reproduce or forward this newsletter
in any way.