Hi, my name is Rita and I am in love with the SoulCollage process.  I first heard it referenced in a magazine article and went to Anne Marie's web site (KaleidoSoul) to find out more about it.  I just started making some cards and felt deeply moved and changed by the process.  One of the first cards I made is about losing my mother to Alzheimer's (shown below).

I have made many cards, some about shadow parts of myself, some giving expression to powerful spiritual experiences, personal breakthrough moments, or parts of myself that I value or want to strengthen.  I love the experience of feeling something within and then using images to find a way to express that.  Sometimes I feel a physical and energetic shift inside me when a card captures something and I am then able to make a sound or breathe in a new way.  Sometimes I am just awed at the beauty of the card or what it expresses.  At times it feels good to put something horrible out on the card and be able to witness it there.  I have made many cards about trauma I experienced as a child and find it healing to have those incidents and that pain acknowledged and expressed.

At times I work out personal issues by making SoulCollage cards.  For example I made a series of 3 cards about not having had a baby and by the third one there was a new message and understanding about the role of this in my life.  I love it when cards hold "surprises" and teach me something that I didn't intentionally put there.  I also love the writing process with the cards and the wisdom that comes.

I have been making cards for about a year and a half.  I am also a marriage and family therapist (as well as a SoulCollage Facilitator) so I have incorporated SoulCollage into my practice.  I have offered two one day workshops in SoulCollage, and introduced women to SoulCollage as an added process on two 5 day summer retreats.  Last winter I facilitated a SoulCollage/Sandtray Worldplay Group as part of my practice and it was very powerful.  It amazed me how SoulCollage provided a way for each woman to enter herself deeply and even speak about things that were unspeakable before. 

I attended a spring retreat inMassachusetts this year with Anne Marie which was amazing and this past fall I completed the SoulCollage Facilitator's Training with Seena Frost.  Another facilitator, Dianne Mathes and I are offering our first SoulCollage Weekend Retreat this coming February. 

A tip:  I use a glass breadboard with yoga mat cut to fit the bottom so it doesn't slide around.  It creates a lovely hard, even surface to make cards on and you can even use an exacto knife on them to trim edges of cards.  These are very popular at the workshops. 

A favourite quote that I use at workshops:

Listen to your life.  See it for the fathomless mystery that it is, in the boredom and pain of it, no less than in the excitement and gladness;  touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden part of it, for in the last analysis, all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace.   --Federich Buechner 

I am just beginning to create a new website and will post my cards there soon:  www.soulcollage.ca

I am the one who is losing my mom to Alzheimer's.  I am the one who watches my mother's brain disintegrate and who sees her blank face.  I am the one who experiences how she is cut out of my life when she is supposed to still be here.  I am the one who sends an angel and a white rose to honour the sacredness of my mother's journey.  

We are the ones who are the ancestors.  We are the ones who hold the wisdom and who hold you.   We are the ones who cherish mother earth and know the holiness of all of life.  We are the ones who live with our hearts wide open to the suffering, the joy, and the sacredness of life.

Stillness
Suit: Committee

I am the one who finds a way to stillness in the midst of it all.  I am one who is willing to enter the stillness and whose soul is fed by the quiet there.  I am one who discovers that stillness connects me to the Great Mystery and then connects me back to who I am.