The Conversation Begins…..I Am One Who

I am in love with the process of SoulCollage(R) and I have my bags packed to visit Catherine Anderson in Charlotte North Carolina to attend her weekend workshop in SoulCollage(R) facilitator training. I hope to begin to bring the joy of this practice to many more people in the Kalamazoo area and beyond.

http://www.soulcollage.com/

http://www.catherineandersonstudio.com/soulcollage.html

Catherine explains this as “a gentle, playful and often joyful way of exploring your life and your deep self.  Using images from magazines, individuals create their own unique deck of cards, where each card represents a different aspect of themselves. There is a deeper level of knowing that is accessed through images.  The process combines image, words, intuition, and synchronicity into a unique creative and artistic process that anyone can do.  It requires no special skills, but can often produce images and insights that are surprising and full of depth and meaning.  SoulCollage® works directly with the language of symbols, images and archetypes and is an insightful process of self-discovery.”

“I am One who places high value on Fitness and Health.”

What Catherine says, in a neat little nutshell, is most certainly true. Since I attended her Introduction to SoulCollage(R) workshop last year, I have been gaining in the stack of my SoulCollage(R) cards, which arise spontaneously and intuitively.

And they certainly speak volumes to me. That is the neat thing about SoulCollage(R). No one else interprets your cards. You, alone, listen to and attend the “speakers” in the card. They are incredibly wise, and I get the sense that even though I think I am hearing the message for the first time, some part of me has “always known” their message to be the truth of me.

“I am the One who jumps in and knows I can do this!”

Seena B. Frost planted the seed for SoulCollage(R) some time ago back in the 1980s. Even though these cards and this process can serve on the deepest level of psychotherapy, and do that, she convinced millions that  anyone could do this creative process with a good pair of scissors, pre-cut mat board cards and images you can find anywhere, and glue!

Author of SoulCollage(R) and SoulCollage(R) Evolving, Seena has a world-wide website and a facilitator training process working around the world as this practice expands exponentially.

           Seena Frost
http://www.soulcollage.com/

I engaged with Karen Mann, of Australia, in an 8 week fascinating and very instructive course of a combination of SoulCollage(R) and FasterEFT, Emotional Freedom Technique of Tapping. What a way of bringing SoulCollage(R) home and attaching it to body memory! Thank you, Karen.  (And learning to think and speak like an Australian was great fun).

Karen Mann

Catherine Anderson is a most gracious woman-artist who has walked her path of creating a life filled with what she loves to do and be…..and that would be creator, artist, photographer, writer, woman leader and inspirer, and author of her award winning book, “The Creative Photographer”.

http://www.amazon.com/Creative-Photographer-Catherine-Anderson/dp/1600597165/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1375814650&sr=1-1&keywords=the+creative+photographer

 Catherine Anderson

(Note: I am amazed! I just saw this on special on Amazon.com for $9.87, which has to be the bargain of the century. The wealth of knowledge, creativity and image in this book is worth much more than ten times that, so be like a phantom and treat yourself to a “steal”)

Catherine has brought SoulCollage(R) facilitator training to South Africa, India and is teaching art inspiration in Italy, being a global ambassador for the wonders wrought through soul with imagination, camera, images, lines, circles and squares. The world provides the sacred canvas for creation.

Long before I knew about SoulCollage(R), I had met and come to love Jan Phillips. I also have had her CD “All the Way to Heaven” for many years. I love every song on that and it’s hard to say I have a favorite, but “The Artist’s Creed” and “The Conversation” are right up there at the top. I play them both for my own enjoyment and contemplation and for many groups I facilitate in spirituality and holistic health.

Jan Phillips is out front of the WomanSpirit wave of life occurring now. Jan calls out loudly, but lovingly, for the Life Artist in us all, to move forward in a new form of activism that invites others to make a difference and create the change we want to be and see.  She is a force for Wisdom and Truth in our lives and in our world. She does not believe in little. She wants us to live our BIG Selves. And we do that, as one of the lyrics of her songs says, “take the hand of everyone you’re walking with!”  She is creator, artist extradinaire, teacher, author, friend and priestess. This summer, she created the first summer symposium on the campus of Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs New York, “Women(s) Voices for a Change”.

Jan Phillips

http://www.janphillips.com/giftshop.html

Jan’s “The Conversation” seems to me now, to be the perfect spokesperson for SoulCollage(R). In it, a person asks some very meaningful questions, and begins to hear back truthful, soul-opening answers to her queries. That is exactly what happens in SoulCollage(R).

“I Am your Wise Woman within. I Am with you always.”

The Conversation: (Jan Phillips)

“You are my spirit and I call on you to help me remember what I know… You are the flame that lights the path I walk, the guide I need that leads me home..”.

“I am Dave, your big brother, on his journey down Alzheimer’s waters.”

(The Conversation continues:)

“I am the one whose hand is in your hand, I will lead you down which ever path you choose…I am your guardian, I’m your deepest friend, I’m your deepest intuition, I’m your muse…..I am the VOICE that calls you to the light, the TRUEST of the voices that you hear.”

“Every time you call on me, I’m there for you.”

My 3rd Chakra Third Eye – Far Seeing Totem Animal

Questions and Answers from “The Conversation”  Jan Phillips.

“Do you have the answers that I’m looking for?”
All the answers that you seek, you have inside. “

“How will I know if I have chosen right?
If you’ve chosen out of love, love will abide.”

I Am the One with Healing Hands. My gift to you is Peace.

“How am I to know what I am here to do?
Just be who you are , the doing will get done.”

In The Conversation, the answer given to the question posed about knowing “I am of the Light”  is to

“Take the hand of everyone you’re walking with
and the love you feel will spread that light around.”

So I have taken the hands of Catherine, Jan and Seena and Karen and through SoulCollage(R), I will spread the that love and light around.

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Joy is in the Sharing

There’s just something about Jan and a Milkshake!

Well, it is time to check in with Jan Phillips, visionary creator, artist, speaker, and all around beautiful, SOULFUL WOMAN! I’ve been thinking of her since I am taking notes on Barbara Marx Hubbard’s  book, Birth 2012 and Beyond — the notes coming from the interview done by Jan in the first part of the book.

It seems Hubbard got stuck on what she wanted to say — and she has a lot to say — and then a visit from Jan created a SYNERGISTIC explosion which formed the first part of her book.

Well, who would have doubted that would happen, given the pioneering souls of these creative and thoughtful women! Not me.

Here is a note from Jan’s May 1 Museletter:

From Jan Phillips May 1 Museletter

                  It is blasphemous for any of us to say ‘I am not creative.’
All we do is create. We have desires and we create experiences
from our desires. We have experiences and we create stories
about those experiences. We hear the stories of others, and
we are moved to tell our own.

                We wake up every day to an empty canvas of twenty-four
hours and every night we go to bed having created our
masterpiece for the day. We can do this consciously or
unconsciously, but we all do it nevertheless. And the ones
who are conscious of it are the ones most actively engaged
in the work of evolution, of unification, of ongoing cosmic
revelation.”

So not only have I been thinking about Jan, but I got to feeling her presence, as I slipped her All the Way to Heaven CD into my player and gave myself over to the wonderful melodies and even more wondrous words other songs which create a great melodic, lyrical time-out meditation.

I am one who believes every woman should buy herself a Mother’s Day Gift for the very gift of being feminine is the gift of creatively giving birth. You can buy this CD (I’ve had mine for about 20 years now) at Jan’s website:

  http://janphillips.com/cds.html  This CD is available at this website and I heartily recommend it as a gift to yourself.

“All the way to heaven is heaven” said  Catherine of Siena. And all the way through this CD is all the way to heaven says Napkinwriter.

I am going to give you just a short sampling of the words to the songs on the CD. Keep in mind that some of these words she wrote some time ago were not ideas collectively agreed upon as you might find today…….I see them in the evolutionary path of forming our reality, for much of this is being spoken about now.

These words engage our imaginations and our souls and our eternal hope always of the divine moment of NOW, the confidence of something supportive, grander, larger than we see in  our own selves and yet they actually describe the “bigness” and sacredness and divine-ness of our very self that comes into view as we deepen our prayer practices and spirituality.

From the CD, written and recorded by Jan (partial lyrics of several songs):

 “The God that you’re seeking needs not to be sought
you’re already one like the sea and the salt
the Source is within you, the force is at hand
it’s been in your soul since your life began.”

“Each soul I’ve created
contains all the heavens
I am there in your midst
Look around you, you’ll see.”

“You are my spirit and I call on you
to help me remember what I know…
You are the the flame that lights the path I walk
the guide whose hand I need to lead me home.
I am the one whose hand is in your hand
I will lead you down whatever path you choose.
I am your guardian, I’m your dearest friend
I’m your deepest intuition, I’m your muse.”

“Sometimes I feel like a child again,
sometimes I feel so old–
there’s days when doubt gets the best of me,
days when I’m fearless and bold.
but I’m open for the learning
try to keep my candle burning
it’s not as easy or hard as I’ve been told.”

Jan says the reason for making the CD is because “the joy is in the sharing.” Because this is what we do as creators.We shape our thoughts and experiences into forms that can be of use.

And she travels world-wide, and even inspires already inspired leaders and visionaries like Hubbard with her Truth that these creative endeavors are only useful when we put them out into the world.

Jan’s gift to us is that she is always asking for us to put our gift into the world — which is the Shift Barbara Marx Hubbard is looking for to birth Earth 2012 and beyond.

(from Jan:)
“So rejoice, my child, in the gifts that you have–
the light of the world is the torch in your hand
and when you get beyond your fear and your pain,
you’ll see God in the being who goes
by your name.”

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