As the year draws to an end, I’d like to encourage all of us (me included!) to open up a bit more to the idea of being in the mystery (see the Fred Wolf quotation, above). This is one of the best gifts I’ve received from my personal and professional SoulCollage® practice.

What does it mean to “be in the Mystery?” For me, it is all about letting go of the idea that I have to know ahead of time what’s going to happen next. This applies to me when I’m gathering images for a card, when I’m gluing those images down onto a mat board, as well as when I’m gazing at the finished card later as I try to make sense of it.

Being able to allow myself to “not know” opens me up to greater possibilities for the meaning of the card. Practicing patience in the face of mysterious images that call to me (for seemingly no reason) gives all of my Neters permission to relax instead of constantly striving to put words to what is happening.

It didn’t take me long on my SoulCollage® journey to realize that not knowing was a gift. The first time that I made a Mystery Card (that’s what I call the cards I make intuitively that feel just right but haven’t revealed their meaning yet) and realized that I could simply place it in my Deck without having to struggle to “figure it out” . . . well, that was a powerful moment for me! There is a simple, sweet release that happens when I give myself permission to not know the answers right away (or ever).

I also discovered that this ability to live within the mystery of some of my cards transferred into my daily life as well. When I was able to let go of my need for immediate answers for those mysterious unnamed cards in my deck, I found it easier to let go of my need for immediate answers on those bigger questions of my life’s journey: Why am I here? How can I help? What difference can I make? Why is there suffering? What should I do next? How can I be a better person?

Of course, the ease in living within life’s bigger Mysteries came to me incrementally, definitely not all at once. As with all things SoulCollage®, it is a gradual process of knowing, of deepening.

As you ponder how to live within the mysteries of your own deck and your own life, I leave you with this final quotation:

~ Jeff Foster, The Way of Rest 

1. Spend some time this week with the Jeff Foster quotation, above, and journal with this question:

2. What image comes to mind when you hear the words “bow before the unknown?”

3. What Neters are you already aware of that can help you bow in this way?

4. Make a SoulCollage® card for the idea of “being in the mystery” or “bowing to the unknown.” Journal with it. Soak yourself in its very present wisdom.

5. Do a SoulCollage® reading where you ask a question such as “Who has guidance for me about how I can be more comfortable with not knowing?” Or create your own question! Then draw three cards randomly to help you answer the question.

Date: Tuesday, November 17, 2020

Time: 12 noon Eastern

FR*EE for our KaleidoSoul Kindred Spirit members.

Visit this page for more info now.

Seena Frost had an alive and intimate relationship with mystery. She gives this sometimes subliminal yet vital dimension of our experience a very special place in SoulCollage®. She describes with compelling clarity how cultivating a relationship with mystery is integral to our engagement with the SoulCollage® process:

“Always on the edge of consciousness in SoulCollage® is a deeper truth. Underneath the personal diversity of our Neters and the world’s complexity “exists” Oneness, a Mystery out of which these forms arise and back into which they return.” *

Seena encourages us to include an awareness of mystery in our deck. She does so by inviting us to create three Transpersonal cards. Unlike all of our other SoulCollage® cards, these three are silent. There is something paradoxical about the Transpersonal cards, as Seena points out: “When we use images to represent this Mystery, we know they are just that, inadequate symbols pointing towards Oneness behind the Many.” *

Creating and then cherishing these special, silent images of “Oneness behind the Many” gives depth and richness to our SoulCollage® explorations. It’s as if, beyond all the complexity of our many different aspects, we are being met and held by a vastness—impersonal perhaps, yet also like a fine, soft cocoon.

Yet there remains a question: are there also some other ways we might explore and express through SoulCollage® our individual connection to mystery? I would say there certainly are! For a start, many of us love using our minds to puzzle over and resolve some kinds of mystery. Albert Einstein brilliantly described his own take on mystery as a scientist: “The most beautiful experience we can have is the mystery. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science.”

How interesting that Einstein describes mystery as both an experience and an emotion. What might the experience of mystery be? And if it is an emotion, what kind of emotion? If you, like me, are fascinated by such questions, this is fertile soil for your SoulCollage® practice. You may want to explore and celebrate the scientist or analytic thinker in you – that part which enjoys puzzling things out, which thrills to hearing about how Marie Curie discovered radium, or how mathematicians in England during the Second World War cracked the encoded messages used by the Germans. Or you may love doing crossword puzzles or reading detective stories. As novelist Elizabeth Gaskell says, “There is always a pleasure in unravelling a mystery, in catching at the gossamer clue which will guide to certainty.”

If you thrill to “catching at the gossamer clue which will guide to certainty,” you might enjoy revealing through SoulCollage® the Explorer, the Scientist or the Enquirer in you – that part which loves to resolve a mystery. Here’s mine:

For many scientists, such as Albert Einstein, the “emotion” of mystery seems to work as a powerful catalyst to further discovery. Yet theirs is a different relationship with mystery from that of many poets and other artists, some of whom believe, like painter Francis Bacon, that their job “is always to deepen the mystery.”

So what—for you—is the connection between mystery and the love of finding things out? You may want to explore some of the different facets of the “emotion” of mystery, such as the strong yet sometimes scary pull towards its numinous presence:

You may also be drawn to discover more about your own sense of your mysterious place in the sheer vastness of creation, expressed by Rumi here:

We came whirling out of nothingness,

Scattering stars like dust…

The stars made a circle,

And in the middle,

We dance.

As SoulCollagers, every time we consult our cards we engage with mystery. And the more we delve into SoulCollage®, the richer the mystery becomes. Discovering how you resonate to mystery can become an ever-evolving aspect of your SoulCollage® practice. Enjoy exploring!  

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* This quotation and the following one: Seena Frost “SoulCollage® Evolving”, Hanford Mead Publishers, Inc. p. 11

Linda Woolfson, MA, PhD is a SoulCollage® Facilitator and Trainer, writer, translator and creativity catalyst. Of South African origin, she usually enjoys living a dual-based life between the United Kingdom and Portugal, running SoulCollage® and creativity workshops, SoulCollage® Trainings, and retreats in both countries. For the duration of the pandemic she is in the UK, where she is exploring the intriguing experience of dwelling in one place for more than a few months at a time. She trained with Seena Frost as a Facilitator in 2010 and has been delving with enthusiasm into the depths of SoulCollage® and introducing others to this empowering process ever since. 

She is looking forward to running her next series of classes through KaleidoSoul starting later this month, on SoulCollage® and Mary Oliver (see ad below). To find out more about Linda’s workshops, SoulCollage® Facilitator Trainings and retreats visit her website, Collage Your Life. http://www.collageyourlife.co.uk

Would you enjoy exploring how Mary Oliver’s poetry can stir and stimulate your SoulCollage® practice? Then you might be inspired by this all-new Zoom series with Facilitator/Trainer Linda Woolfson from the U.K.

Engaging with the SoulCollage® process in conjunction with poetry, and journaling, will form the basis of our explorations. The classes are designed to be enjoyably relaxing while gently inviting you to weave together poetry and SoulCollage® in some new and surprising ways.

Enjoy absorbing Mary Oliver’s poetry at a cellular level.

Be supported in bringing this challenging year to a close both soothed and inspired.

Future themes include:

December: Mothering Ourselves

January: Source Cards

KaleidoSoul - Spinning the fragments of your world into wholeness and beauty through SoulCollage®.

Facilitator Trainings: Information about content and dates/locations of upcoming trainings of SoulCollage® Facilitators.

SoulCollage.com - The official website of SoulCollage® Inc.