Friday, October 3, 2008

Council Suit: Crone Celebration

I am one who celebrates the stepping over the threshold into cronehood to welcome aging. I am one who is rising and taking flight from the drowning state you were in. I am the one who ages with silent wisdom and who has seen more than I would have wished for. I look behind me and notice a sea of history and look ahead and see the time shortening. I move beyond the past longing into celebrating each day.

My gift for you is in honoring the aging process as well as the wisewoman within you. I bring the gift of losing the need to conform in order to fit in. I give you the strength to draw on your wisdom to pull yourself out of the flood and take flight. I give you the gift of retrospection and wisdom to live in the now.

I want you to have the freedom to bounce from black and grey to color. I want you to peel away restraints as you age and paint your toes red. I want you to embrace the mourning and sadness when there is need and then celebrate life and the strength that comes from the seasoning of experience. I want you to pass on the wisdom to the maidens that come after you, to share the gift of your insight that comes from experience. I want you to revel in your sageness as crone woman.

1 comment:

Mary Jansen said...

I want to paint my toes red too! Great and liberating words Debbie! Thanks!

The process of SoulCollage®

When I first discovered the process of SoulCollage® , I was attending an annual women's retreat in Arizona. As a professional artist, the workshop description of a creative collage experience really piqued my interest, particularly as it was focused on exploring the self - something very familiar to me. I had never heard of SoulCollage® but within the few hours of the workshop, I knew it touched me deep within my soul and spoke to me in a way that was a natural, creative companion to my journaling, writing, and self-discovery work. Working with these small creations, I leave the behind the world of the rational mind, concrete logic and the need to strive for perfection and I step into imagination, poetry and imagery as the process takes wings.

SoulCollage® is a unique process developed by therapist Seena Frost over twenty-five years ago which takes symbols, images, spiritual practices and reflection on archetypes to create small artistic collages that illustrates one's story. Each card is very personal and represents portions of one's journey, yet is also creative and fun to do as a group with others. Quiet reflection combined with the intuitive process of creating these collages opens up yet another world of expression as one taps into an inner knowing and journal the words, prayers and inspiration that arise from this process.

With this process, a deck of artistic cards is created - small collages that represent your personal mythology and the many aspects of your very self, your soul, and all the guides and companions that walk your journey with you. Each "suit" represents one of the following facets of your life: a part of your personality, people who support you, an animal that has special significance to you or a mythical or religious figure which guides you. Anyone can make these cards and there is no artistic skill needed. By "paying attention" to your life, the images from various ordinary magazines and other published works will almost choose you.

This blog was created in order to share my collages with students, family and friends that are interested and eager in begining this collage and journalling process.


- Debbie Cannatella