Shadow Self

In SoulCollage, Seena talks about Shadow Selves, a Jungian philosophy. In the most simplistic terms it the counterbalance to Self. I understand it best in Yin/Yang terms. For every dark there is a light. Can't have light without dark. The shadow is the archetype to the extreme, for example, The Great Mother archetype can be taken to The Overbearing Mother. The Warrior in it's extreme can be The Warmonger. The Jester becomes The Fool.

I think this is a very useful way of being able to embrace all parts of ourselves. When we start attaching to one outcome--or thinking that there is only one way of being, we tend to limit the reality of ourselves. When we think we have to be all good and find it impossible, we tend to go to the extreme and think we are all bad. Embracing the good with the bad, the shadow with the positive helps us to be whole. There's a really good book on this called "The Dark Side of the Light" by Debbie Ford that really develops this theory.

At our SoulCollage gathering Friday I made these 2 cards. They really seemed to be opposite sides of the spectrum to me. The first is the child encased in stone. The adult is running away. It can also be said that the statue is strong....but cold. Intriguing.

The second is my Root Chakra card. A mountain. This mountain seems very warm, very strong. When I did the meditation, the mountain said it is alive, it is evolving, I will know it by the sun shining off the face of it.

I think both mountains/cards are very positive. But only if I embrace the dark as well as the light.

I have to think this through a bit more....there is something here, on the tip of my brain, swirling around....

I really like these cards, they seem so yin/yang to me. What do you think? Any insights to share? I haven't done the I am the One who exercise on them. I have a feeling they are going to come up in a reading and I don't want to spoil the surprise....

SoulCollage

I had the most amazing weekend. Have you ever had one of those experiences that you know is going to change your life while you are in the middle of it? Like you step out of the experience for a moment and witness yourself changing? At one point, we all laid down the new cards we made in a large circle and walked slowly around viewing each other's work and it hit me, this is something far bigger than I ever imagined, what a community we created and how exciting to have the opportunity to take it back to our communities and share it!

Wow. Let me back up. That's Seena Frost in the middle of the circle. She created and developed SoulCollage. SoulCollage is part art, part therapy, part good old fashioned wisdom. You create cards with images that you cut out of magazines or books or pictures you've taken and you paste them onto a sturdy 5x8 card and then you let the images speak. The process is amazing--I have done many, many forms of healing; BioSpiritual Focusing, therapy, tarot, yoga, meditation, tai chi, prayer, etc and I have NEVER had an experience as safe and enriching as I did this past weekend. And that says a lot, I have had some amazing "mountaintop" events in my work and in my life. The potential for helping people from all walks of life to REALLY get in touch with themselves and get some guidance and wisdom as they learn to trust their own intuition is enormous. Plus, the whole art side of it gives a remarkable opportunity to pass on a real legacy of your life.....who you are and where you've been. What a gift to leave behind.

SoulCollage is being used by hospice workers, art therapists, bereavement counselors, ministers, spiritual directors, the list goes on and on. Anyone who works with people who ...... well, who are people, I can't think of ANY group who wouldn't benefit from this. Kids, teens, people getting married, people having children, people getting older, people in all stages of life and death, the list goes on and on.

I was in a group of 60 women, Reiki Masters, Ministers, Hospice Workers, Therapists, Psychologists, Artists, Counselors, Teachers, Writers....It was unbelievable. Just to be a part of it was an overwhelming gift. The energy brought me to my knees. At one point, my "pod" mate, Martha, and I had our backs up against the wall, tears in our eyes, shaking with the intensity of the positive energy of all the various voices in the room. We all laid all our cards out in a large circle, the "One" Source card as the center of the circle and then the "Many", all of the other cards that everyone of these women have made as spokes in this great wheel of voices...

There are no words to describe the feeling of the many different parts of our souls combining and sharing at the same time. It is futile to try. After we laid ALL these cards, hundreds, we got to walk into the center of the circle with our "Pods", 4 of us who became real Soulmates after all we shared this weekend, we quietly, reverently, soaked up the energy of the cards while all the rest of this amazing group of healers sent energy to the center and to each of us. It is an experience I will never forget for as long as I live.

That's all I can say right now. Talk amongst yourselves.....

If you do nothing else, do this. It will change your life in a way that you could never imagine.