SoulCollage® Community Update

September 2017

Once I got a taste of the new world of SoulCollage®, cards with all kinds of themes started pouring out of me. About nine months in, some startling compositions emerged that began to hint at deeper unresolved issues. I've spent decades guarding myself against the negative aspects of my relationship with my former spouse. However, a great leap in self-healing was to happen - 4 1/2 years after my first card, in Spring 2017, as I prepared to take the Facilitator Training.

Looking back, I see that those startling SoulCollage® cards reminded me of the factors that led to the break-up of my marriage. The first disturbing card depicted a fully clothed man, smiling, lying in a dry bathtub with several rattlesnakes. The card introduced itself t

	Death Disguised as Love (Council Suit)by Laura Denton

hus:

I risk my life to show the world how strong and brave I am. I hold still, stay calm and cut off from emotion. [...] Why do I take these unnecessary risks? What am I trying to prove? [...] This set of charades deceives only myself.

Oh, I know, said my left brain, t hat's what I did in my marriage. A short while later, another card presented a human skull with hearts in its eye sockets.

I Am t he death that threatened when your vision was occluded by love. I Am One Who asks, "Why would you remain in such a dangerous situation?" I Am One Who also whispers, "You could not see the danger with your clouded vision. Perhaps you can forgive yourself for not having acted sooner."

I'm Your Puppet (Committee Suit)by Laura Denton

Another uncomfortable reminder. Somehow there was more here than just the fact that my marriage had gone bad and I'd left. During the same period, a second theme was emerging: the sense that I had forfeited my authentic self in order to maintain my marriage.

I sit here, detached from my body, attempting to appear demure and alluring. I Am your puppet. I will submit. I will do what I must to retain the comfort of deep connection. I Am helpless to escape these chains that tangle me in our relationship.

Next, almost two years into my SoulCollage® practice, came another glimmer of memory about the death of my dreams for my marriage:

	My Marriage (Community Card) by Laura Denton

I Am One Whose marriage was a union of hearts, an idealistic joining of spirits. Barbed wire fences come between us and block us from the outside world as well. The world we sought to create has become confining, a jail. [...] Each separate heart breaks and falls aside. We become heartless, numb, like robots...

 

Now the cards began to show me a transition to a better world. For decades I had closed myself off for self-preservation, yet now something within me was encouraging change:

Sunflower Portal(Council Suit) by Laura Denton

I Am One Who is vulnerable and exposed, balanced precariously on the edge, trying to hide my shame and protect my essential self. The seed growing within me is ready for harvest. I Am One Who tells you that the key to an alternate future is within reach, antique and gold, alluding to infinite possibility. Reach out, take up the key. Unlock the door. Embark on your newly chosen path.

In the Spring of 2017, as I prepared to take the Facilitator Training, I listened to Seena Frost's Introductory CD. I took note of her comment, "Dreams are collages of images from the immediate and remote past."

I woke the following morning from a dream: I was working in the garden of the house where I'd lived with my former husband and children. As I gradually awoke, I recognized a tenseness, as if confined. "What is this?" I asked and realized I was being hugged - by my ex-husband!

Despite my surprise and a long-standing animosity toward him, I gave in to the feeling, relaxing into the strong, satisfying embrace. Words formed in my head: "You can forgive him." Immediately, relief flooded me. The weight of decades of grief and anger was lifted from my neck and shoulders. I lingered in that sensation in my body and heart.

During the next few days I searched my old photos and created a card depicting my view from that garden, with images of my ex-husband at several ages. This gave me the chance to remember that the relationship had been good before it became bad.

Steve (Community Suit) by Laura Denton

I Am One Who loved you to the best of my ability. I wanted a partner to help make my goals and dreams come true. I was crushed by my inability to make our dreams a reality. I Am One Who persecuted you for both your competence and your failures. I had to put you down so I could feel better about myself. I Am One Who could not recognize that I had crossed the line from which there is no return.

I Am One Who loved my children and was proud of the lives we had jointly created. I was devastated when you left and took them with you. I Am One Who loved you, but didn't know how to express it. I Am One Who lost it all.

Seena's quote, along with the images themselves, just cut right through to my epiphany. It's like the cards were gradually shedding light on the "monster" and once there was enough light, then it turned out not to be a monster after all.

For three decades I have "processed" the negativity of my marriage. I accepted and worked through my own contributions to its demise. I understood what happened - the causes and effects. All these were the left-brain, logical conclusions I had reached. I never would have suspected that open-hearted forgiveness could so dramatically shift me and that SoulCollage® would be the catalyst for this change!
 

Laura Denton, EdD, has had a long career in public education, with specializations in reading and learning disabilities, and now works as an educational diagnostician. She is an avid reader, enjoys doing a wide variety of fiber arts, and has an extensive year-round garden and two adult children.

Read Audrey Chowdhury's article, Getting Started with SoulCollage®, A New Facilitator's Journey, 
from the July, 2012 issue

Purchase and download this recorded video course - Fundamentals of SoulCollage® with Kat Kirby - to start your SoulCollage® deck or to prepare for the Facilitator's Training.

You will receive an overview of SoulCollage®: the Suits, Transpersonal Cards, history of the process, and examples and discussions. A 16-page handout to be used for your own SoulCollage® practice is included as well as two videos and two audio files of the interactive course. The Fundamentals of SoulCollage® course is a pre-requisite for the SoulCollage® Training.