SoulCollage® - Discover Yourself Through the Art of the Collage

As I try to mesh my newfound love of collage and other visual arts with my longtime love of expressing the discoveries along my soul's journey, I read. A lot.

I have read wonderful accounts and seen beautiful art. Glorious expressions of emotion and spirit are all around. Playful displays of art and words make their way around the world as artists divulge the child within.

One day, as I made my way happily down the internet highway of artists, I crossed paths with a website called SoulCollage®. It is not only the name of the site but it is an art form created by Seena B. Frost, a family therapist. She recognized that doing collage work is very healing and gives a voice to otherwise suppressed feelings.

There is a fluidity in collage. It allows one to express desire, regret, hopes and dreams that before may have been unspoken or even unacknowledged. Seena Frost recognized this attribute of collage and allowed her clients to take advantage of it.

"Seena B. Frost,M. Div., M.A. studied theology at Yale Divinity School," the information on her website tells us, "married, raised four children, and then received a Master's Degree from Santa Clara University. She is a California licensed Marriage and Family Therapist."

In her own words, Seena tells us, "SoulCollage® originated in a program led by Jean Houston from 1987 to 1989. It was a time when I was immersed in world myths and archetypal psychology, and also I was exploring various spiritual paths. I was also practicing psychotherapy in my professional practice. The card-making process evolved over time with the aid of many women in my therapy groups. As they made their powerful, personal cards, shared them with each other and consulted them, we discovered the transforming possibilities of these images. In the book, SoulCollage®, I pass on to you what we discovered."

In addition to writing a book and making the process available to us all, Seena Frost also facilitates workshops and teaches others to do so all over the world. I, in fact, plan to travel West and learn from Seena Frost to be a facilitator. I see great value in this process.

The website will tell you everything you need to know to get started on this soul journey.

I think most of us would like to know ourselves a little better. Most of us want to be authentic people with peace of mind and in good relationship with those around us. A good start can be made by cutting images from magazines and other sources and gluing them to paper.

The book or website will explain the significance of making your own deck of SoulCollage® cards. Once you've gone through the process of making the cards, you can use these cards as you face decisions and choices throughout your life.

This discovery and the SoulCollage® process are ever-evolving. We will forever be making new realizations about ourselves and how we relate to the world around us.

Collage is a wonderfully healing way of creating art and expressing our thoughts and feelings.

SoulCollage® delves further with a focus on our own souls in relation to the many souls surrounding us. By choosing imagery and placement and thinking about our place in the Universe, we can discover amazing things about ourselves and about others and about the ties that bind us together.

The cards created through SoulCollage® are beautiful works of art.

Perhaps you've been looking for a new outlet for your creativity that you can enjoy without a large financial investment. It doesn't get much cheaper than collage. If you have some pictures, paper, glue and scissors (and you don't really have to have scissors), you can begin.

If you think the collaging part sounds like fun but you're not too sure about all that expression of feelings stuff, that's ok. Collaging is fun on the very simplest of levels. If the idea of using collage to express yourself appeals to you but you're not sure where to start or what you really even have to say, that's ok, too.

One of the greatest things about collage is that you can be completely clueless. You can be completely ignorant of where you're going with it. Let your intuition take over. Simplly pick images that appeal to you. You don't even have to know why they appeal to you. If you like it, slap some glue on it and stick it to some paper. Chances are good that when you have completed it, you will start to notice a pattern in the images that you choose. As you try to decipher the pattern, you may discover something about yourself that had before gone unnoticed or unvoiced.

At the very least, you'll have a paper full of images that give you visual pleasure.

They say that confession is good for the soul. I believe that collage is a way of "confessing." It is a way of confessing things that we may be unable to articulate; not necessarily guilt. Confession is not always about telling on ourselves for things we did in secret. Confession can be a statement of belief or it can simply be the expression of a thought that had before been suppressed or hidden even from ourselves. Fear often likes to hide out in our minds, muddling our thoughts. It disguises itself as more noble emotions, like practicality, nurturing or protection. But often it is just fear and once it is expressed it can be seen for what it is and dealt with.

Fear is just one example of the emotions hidden within our psyches. Collage is a great way of uncovering these emotions. SoulCollage® is an even greater way of finding all the great stuff about ourselves that is also hidden.

Try it. You may be surprised at how much remains to be discovered about yourself.