Something New at susanheffronhajec.com

 

I am adding pages to my Souljourner at-Large website and looking for new ways to draw people’s attention to it.

http://www.susanheffronhajec.com

In particular, my intention for 2018, besides the writing and publishing of my memoir, is to develop and maintain small group gatherings that will continue to share the practice of SoulCollage and spread the knowledge of the natural healing method of Reiki.

I will also be adding an Author Page,  Write!Now  and an Island of Silence contemplative practice page for the enrichment of the quiet, inner life….one person at a time….for peace in our world.

 

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Favorite Persons Janet and Catherine and Favorite Place, Catherine’s Studio

 

“I received many many gifts from staying with Catherine Anderson and teaching a Writing Down Your Soul workshop in her studio. A big gift was getting to SLEEP in her studio. Here’s my bed in one corner. What does this remind you of? Think Paris.”  Janet Conners

That is one high honor Janet Conner is mentoring the writer in many of us with our hearts aflame with purpose and divine guidance. She is SoulWriter.

Teaching us to listen to the Voice and record it on the page. I address my Voice as WHO — Whole and Holy One.

 

I am Writer – in – Residence….

…earning my AIC certification —  Ass In Chair.

Artemis, goddess of the heart sets aim on the words that come into being through us…

and Hestia…goddess of the hearth keeps us at home and creative in our writing.

My Hestia is at the loving Crone age and her fire still burns and guides…

Our Plug In For Writers Circle gathering of exquisite women feed the world and shape it into a better world for all in the books that will take seed in the near future.

 

Archangels Michael and Raphael and Angel Gabriel are present to help me during my “office hours” of creativity.

http://www.janetconner.com

 

 

Catherine Anderson of Charlotte NC  is a GRACE FIND for me. I was with her twice in her beautiful and sacred studio at her home, and traced the back yard labyrinth with my feet and the labyrinth of my writing and SoulCollage® cards with my heart and hands.

 

SoulCollage® gives wings to my words. The practice of this beautiful visual/spiritual/artistic practice was begun by Seena Frost and is world-wide now with thousands of facilitators introducing groups to the joy and wisdom building it brings.

 

I Am One Who Is….Blessed Baby.

I Am One whose Power Animal for the writer in me is the Tiger.

 

I Am One who helps you understand the difference between
crash landings and exploration.

I Am One who is grateful to be called to writing,
SoulCollage® and the quiet peace of the labyrinths
I have walked all around the world.

 

 

So Inspiring to be together, create and journal
our Wisdom within.

 

 

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Crying for a Woman I Never Met – Honoring Seena Frost.

Crying for a Woman I Never Met – Honoring Seena Frost.
Posted on January 14, 2016 by Barbara Techel
GUEST BLOG

Seena Frost, Founder of SoulCollage®.com

Crying for a Woman I Never Met – Honoring Seena Frost.

by Barbara Techel

I never met Seena Frost— the remarkable woman who created the process called SoulCollage®. A creative, intuitive, and fun process I learned about in 2014 and trained to become a facilitator.

I was overcome with emotion when I read this on her daughter, Jennifer’s Facebook page today: “my mother and friend, merged peacefully into oneness with Spirit late last night at home with her family gathered around her.”

Why does this feel so emotional? I wondered. And as I thought about it there are many reasons. First, to think about losing my own mother someday I know will be one of the hardest things I will ever have to face. I can’t even imagine it. But I know this is reality and I pray she will have the same peaceful transition as Seena when her time comes.

Second, I have such immense admiration for Seena. She made such a difference in this world. She has helped thousands, many being women, to find their authentic voices and to be proud in letting their light shine.

In a world where so many are frightened to let the mask come off and be who they really wish to be in fear of judgment, to have had someone like Seena who thrived on encouraging others to tap into their own wisdom, was such a gift – a deeply, rich, wonderful gift.
I’m also getting ready to facilitate a SoulCollage® workshop in my home this Saturday in the lower level of my home which I’ve dubbed, “Joyful Pause Studio.” It’s not my first time sharing this process, but it is the first time in my new space.

I can’t tell you how often I’ve felt scared to take this leap – scared that no one will sign up for the workshops —worried about being disappointed. But I’m honored to have five ladies who will be taking part in the workshop this Saturday.

And so it will be an even more special honor in sharing this with this group of ladies, knowing that I, along with over 2,300 other facilitators, are carrying on the legacy of Seena – with our own authentic styles and voices added to the mix.

I discovered through the many thoughtful memories being shared on Facebook of Seena something she wrote in an article that I want to share also in her honor and memory:
“I truly believe that creating our SoulCollage® cards and sharing them in groups adds positive energy to this cosmic vibration, and will help humans move into the next paradigm. We may not be able to see it, but perhaps, if we look up at the night sky, we can be reminded and reassured of the vastness of Indra’s Net, and, as individual jewels, continue to create and share compassion and hope and humor and love.”

Seena, now part of that night sky, shining ever so brilliantly bright – I take into my heart that beautiful vibration of her spirit and hope that by sharing this process with others, I too, can make a difference in helping others feel safe in sharing their inner light.

Godspeed Seena. Godspeed.

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Amy’s Angel

Amy’s Angel

March 27, 2014 by napkinwriter

NOTE:  It is December 19, 2015 and I am thinking about angels today, so I repost one of my favorite stories about angels….I have posted quite a few about our family experiences with angels and there are more to come. I love keeping company with them!

Once upon a time, in the land of Kalamazoo, a small princess was born. She was a beautiful baby girl who had come to bring much joy and happiness into the lives of her mother and father, the Queen and King of the land of Kalamazoo.

This little princess’ name was Amy. The King and the Queen took very good of this baby and she grew to be a happy, happy child who truly believed in magic and knew she belonged in the kingdom of princesses.

Princess Amy especially loved her “Baby Bear” who was with her from the time she was born, until now more than six years later. She loved to play pretend and did a lot of this with her GrandQueen Grama.  They built castles together, played hide and seek together, walked on rainbows and climbed mountains together. They loved spending time together.  They often had tea together.

Princess Amy was very often seen in sparkly dresses and play clothes. If it had sparkles on it, she loved it.

And Princess Amy loves rainbows. She draws and colors them all the time. She even draws rainbow snowflakes.

This is a picture of Amy and Grama walking under the rainbow and in the background, Dziadzia is watching us from behind the rainbow.

Then one day, she drew and cut out a rainbow snowflake, encouraging spring to come after this very long, cold winter.

The very next day the sun shone brightly and melted some of the big piles of snow we have from the winter snowstorms.

Lately, almost every time Amy is playing with Grama, she mentions she is going to have her tonsils out in a short while. Now, with less than a week to go, she even counts down every day until next Monday when the operation is scheduled.

I mentioned to her Queen Mother that we could help Amy’s anxiety a little if she knew she had a special guardian angel looking over her at all times and they could talk about that leading up to the big day.  I told her I would draw her angel and bring it to her and that, of course, her special angel would be a rainbow angel with lots of sparkles on her.

A few nights later, I got a call from the Queen. She said that Amy needed her angel right now, since she knew I was going to find it for her.

With all the graces that angels bring to us, her angel flew right into me in an image I found on the computer.  I had taken a photo of Amy a week earlier as “the sleeping princess” awaiting her prince (me), who would kiss her and wake her up.

So the two pieces went together beautifully on a SoulCollage® card which I was working on at the very moment of the Queen’s phone call. The power and mystery of SoulCollage® works that way.  I finished it up and drove over to see the Princess.

Princess Amy was thrilled to see her angel. She recognized her right away as her own angel that God sent to her. She said she sees the very sparkles that were on the card already in her room when it is dark.  “Sometimes I even feel a breeze in my hair and that must be the angel’s wings,” she said. “Look, even her hair and wings are rainbows.”

“I am going to keep this forever,” she told me. “I’m going to keep this until I grow up and then I can show my own little girl my guardian angel and tell her about hers.”

She clasped her to her heart and said she wasn’t going to be alone and not so afraid to go to sleep now that she knew all the company she would have: her mom and dad, her baby bear, God in her heart and “Sparkle Rainbow Diamond” guardian angel. She thought she should tell the doctor there was going to be an angel in the room.  And that God was in her heart and would tell the angel everything she needed and for the doctor to do everything right.

Her confidence and courage built by the moment, and my daily prayer is that all that good energy stays with her through her first major medical experience. The angel can do that.

And back in the land of Kalamazoo, we will have the popsicles and ice cream ready.

on March 27, 2014 at 9:14 am | Reply
Agnes Cairns

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#3–50-50 The Labyrinth of Our Life and Love

Photo and Book by artist and author Catherine Anderson
http://www.catherineandersonstudio.com/

“Dear Susan,

May the path of the labyrinth support and hold you in love. Blessings and Joy, Catherine 2014.”

Catherine opens her beautifully written and illustrated book with the following observation: “We are not all fortunate enough to have a labyrinth in our backyard to walk whenever we feel the call to connect with the winding path of the labyrinth. This journal can be a place to turn when you yearn for the calming path of the labyrinth.”

Actually, Catherine and I are fortunate ones to actually have a labyrinth in our own backyards. She, just outside her home art studio, where I have been blessed to both walk her labyrinth in peace and gratitude for what both prayer and artistic creativity add to my life…and I, in the backyard of the home I feel graced to have found with my loving husband Tom, to live and enjoy our golden years and our golden Michigan sunsets off our deck just above our labyrinth.

Receding winter of ’15 and the labyrinth reappears

SoulCollage Facilitator Training Weekend with Catherine, 2014

As happy as I am to have the labyrinth in our yard, I still find it challenging to explain its essence to others without going “too deep into the weeds” in way of explanation. I, myself, first found it through Canon Rev. Lauren Artress of Grace Episcopal Cathedral in San Francisco.

I was at a weekend retreat at the Dominican Weber Center in Adrian Michigan on Centering Prayer. But her little black paperback book attracted me in the bookstore, “Walking a Sacred Path.” Eventually, my sacred path led Tom and me to Grace Cathedral, where we experienced another retreat and I completed training in Labyrinth facilitation. We also walked both Chartres designed labyrinths there; one on the Cathedral interior floor, the other just out the door, on the piazza, high on top the hills of San Francisco.  Within a couple more years, we pilgrimaged, once again, to spend a week in Chartres France and attend a retreat on the labyrinth and Sacred Geometry, upon which the cathedrals of medieval times were built. We resided in the Catholic seminary housing right next to the the Chartres Cathedral, originally built in the 1300s, I believe. We walked within it and around it many, many times, photographing  ad infinitum the architecture, sculpture and stained glass phenomenon that it was.

Chartres Cathedral is famed for its stained glass windows, the largest representations of Mary in all cathedrals and its labyrinth dating back to medieval times when pilgrims traveled to it for their annual pilgrimage when they could not travel to other holy sites due to wars and dangers.

Tom and I were here in May 2000.

So what does the labyrinth have to do with our life and our love?

One simple way of explaining the labyrinth is that it is a metaphor for life…..this certainly works for me!  The circular pattern, once begun, yearns ever for the center. And you begin toward that center in wide sweeping circular paths and motions. You are free to stop anywhere along the path, for what?  A breath? A silent message sounding in your heart? A casual gaze upon the blessings of nature and people around you?  A time-out?

Who, among us, doesn’t do this in real life and actually need to do this? Not I, for I need them all to feel the center in my self.  Or the lack of it.  I may know where I am going.  I may think I know where I am going. I may know that I DON’T know where I am going.  I need to feel the Presence of the ONE who does know.

The labyrinth can represent this ONE, by whatever name we call it….for it has many. God, Source, Universe, Yaweh, and so many others.

The path on the labyrinth is not a maze…. you are never blocked once you have begun the walk. no matter the difficulty, no matter the shortness or length of the path, it continues inward and to the center. You experience turns, expected, and sometime when lost interiorly as you walk, a sudden turn appears abruptly.

These are the same types of turns, expectations, interruptions I experience in my married life. Certainly, Tom’s and my union and love resulted in many, many more changes of location than I would have ever anticipated. But on we went, supporting each other, working out the difficulties, enjoying the overflowing joys, and managing many, many times of “letting go” as we journeyed.

And that is what the inward journey on the labyrinth is about…..letting go…..letting it  be……trusting……willingness…..mesmerized by watching your feet take……that one step at a time……seeing only a small part of the total bigness of the path, yet trusting that it is there for you.

Reaching the center, we feel open to receive gifts…what gifts? Any that come, receiving them in faith. For our marriage, I receive the fullness of nearly 50 years of the commitment spoken in our vows so many years ago.  And just like one step at a time,  I know it was not a “once only” commitment to  I do.  No, for us, the words once spoken to us by a priest during some of our Marriage Encounter years ring very true.  “In marriage, you do not speak the words  ‘I do’  only on your wedding day, you speak and live them every day of your married life.”

When you leave the center on your walk on the labyrinth, you walk freely, retracing the path that brought you into the center; it will likewise lead you back out to the world, bringing with you the gifts received in the center and being fully ready to share those gifts with others.  If you have walked mindfully, you are returning from the labyrinth reminded of who you truly are —  which is gift itself– and you have been gently guided back  in balance from the calming path of the labyrinth.

In truth, over the course of fifty years of marriage, there are many opportunities for just the opposite of calm and balance to exist between the partners, and that has been true for us. I have appreciated and strongly relied upon the people and experiences in my life that have built up my faith and my optimism in myself and in my partner and in our life together.  Because even with all the “rock ‘n roll” we’ve met along the way, today I can truthfully say…..

I count it all as grace and my heart overflows in gratitude for the life and love I have in Tom and family.

1969

2015

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Ash Wednesday SoulCollage®

Today’s Ash Wednesday’s 9:00 am Mass, scripture, liturgy and Father Jim’s reflection fed my soul. The selected hymns honed my attentiveness to the season…..and Jesus, the reason.

He came so that we may have life and have it more abundantly. He came and taught the largest lesson on love there has ever been. “Greater life no man hath but that he lay down his life.”  “Love one another as I have loved you.”  “I Am the Bread of Life.”

Tom and I were asked to bring up the gifts to the altar. We, parishioners, recited the Lord’s Prayer in unison…..”Give us this day, our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.”

And we took into our own bodies, the Presence, the Body and Blood of Christ, transformed from plain bread by the priest. We prayed for ourselves and our loved ones and the leaders of our world to be able to……do the next right thing, something Father Jim talked about.

I knew I was going to make a SoulCollage® card for this Ash Wednesday when I came home. One line  from the song Hosea stood out in my mind:

“The wilderness will lead you to your heart where I will speak.”

Over the past two weeks I’ve been reorganizing and harvesting (peeking into for themes, actions, guidance I’ve received) my journals and photographs from over at least the past twenty plus years and this line expresses perfectly the guidance I have received over and over again.

There were a great number of times in my life that I surely did not know where the path ahead would lead and I had to pick a thread of guidance to be able to do “that next right thing” or even have the courage to take the next step. There are many stories coming in Napkinwriter that will illustrate this point fairly dramatically.

So I thought my SoulCollage® card would look something like a wasteland background with some symbols of grace or “light” or something.

But the magic and beauty of SoulCollage® took over immediately and a whole new image emerged instantaneously from randomly selected stock in my materials.

It seems the grace of the Mass and the message of Lent was still in full effect when I sat down to make the card. I took to the table with me my scizzors, glue, card backing and one National Geographic magazine plus three packages of images I assembled some time in the last year.

In SoulCollage®, you don’t really “think” your way into the image. You let the image that wants to come forth do exactly that.

But I was thinking a little bit, I must admit. I thought, perhaps, the National Geographic magazine would give me a desert wilderness type background and I’d work from there.

The first thing I opened to in the National Geographic was the full card size crucified Christ image.  Not the first place I would choose to look for such an image. I knew that was my card; but what else to collage to it?

From one of the three packs of images I had with me, I chose one. On the very top of probably over one hundred images was the image of the inter-twining hands. I knew they went on the card; right below them were images of the loaf of bread and the wheat.  And right beneath those were the people walking on the beach.

All I had to do was sense where they were to be on my card. I composed it and it will be with me in all my Lenten reflections and prayer times.

It is not hard to fall in love with your own SoulCollage® cards. I am in deep, deep gratitude to founder  Seena Frost, and my teacher mentors and SoulCollage friends, Catherine Anderson, Karen Mann, Deborah Storts, Ginger,  Neltje Brawer, Kayle Rice, Dorothy, Mary Russell, and Sara Houseman for sharing and shining our souls.

I AM the Bread of Life.

I AM the One who is Sanctuary.

“I AM the One who is Souljourner.

I AM the One who is your birth mother.

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2014 – Year of Courage and Purpose

I Am One on fire with courage and sacred purpose. I Am One who explodes in excitement and passion. I Am One who companions you through the history of time. I Am One who is your butterfly of co-creation and transformation. I bring you through difficult passages safely and wisely.

I Am the Determined One. I Am One who sees and brings forth goodness.

I want you to know that the wonder of you exceeds the number of all the sands of the earth and your beauty compares with the gemstones of all eternity.

I want you to remember your strength within is founded in the rock-solid minerals of the earth created through the fiery explosion and union of Spirit and humankind.

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Gentle Woman Reiki

Gentle Woman Reiki

Today’s post is a repost of a blog I wrote a couple of years ago. Today, I continue this practice and continue to give Reiki treatments to those who desire them and Reiki attunements to those who wish to add Reiki practice and healing to their lives.

An ongoing update of the blessings of Reiki in my own family life. Many, with medical comments of the belief that Reiki is, in part, and sometimes wholly attributed to the healings experienced. I always treat Tom and he has recovered remarkedly from back pain over the past two years. He had a spinal fusion surgery and a fast recovery as he rehabbed with no further problems and the ability to walk distances with no pain. The previous ten years had been agony.

His skin cancers, especially around his face and scalp, have continued to be challenging, but right along with frequent Reiki treatments, he found excellent care at University of Michigan Cancer Clinic. This past year, he’s had over a half-dozen MOHS surgical procedures and the main doctor on the case said to us, “You are a good healer, in fact, you are the best healer I’ve seen with the amount of recovery you had to do.”  He definitely acknowledged Tom’s role in choosing healthy recovery and encouraged us to  continue the “Raykee” or whatever it was he was doing!

Much of my own healing has come in opening ways of being a Higher Self in my life and one of loving service to my family and the world. It has led me to studies with exquisite masters of knowledge and continuing holistic health teachers; EFT – Emotional Freedom Technique Tapping, Roger Craig, and Nick & Jessica Ortner, The Institute of Heart Math and Heart Resonance; Ilchi Lee, Brain Education System Training; Spring Forest QiGong, Master Chunyi Lin. And the Crystal Wings Healing Arts of Barbara Evans.

Barbara Evans, Crystal Wings Healing Art

Endless Genesis, SoulCollage® by Susan Heffron Hajec

Barbara Marx Hubbard, Evolutionary/Spiritual Questor, and SoulCollage® Facilitator training; and SoulWriting with Janet Conner.  I believe the steady heart-beat of Reiki beats below many of these avenues and points me to the way I want to be in the world as Souljourner at-Large LLC and Prayer and Care Companion. I receive much satisfaction from my three year sustained writing of Napkinwriter. The satisfaction comes mostly from knowing and hearing how many readers enjoy it and the over 30,000 views    the blog has had.  In 2014, I will be compiling a selection of the posts to publish my first e-book on line.

Physical healings have manifested as well; I am in total great heart health, pronounced so this summer after a five year bout with stents and by-pass surgery. I have a fifty pound weight loss to my credit and maintenance of that loss for over a year; a healthy relationship with being real with food and not ever being on a diet again. I have gains I do not really even yet understand in the workings of Energies (loving energies) and the Oneness of God and Us….I just keep on opening to the mystery.

(Insert to Original Post) I just realized I left out a rather large healing in the mid-90s. The complete disappearance of a brain tumor on the pituitary gland  at the base of my brain — without surgery. Immediate diagnosis after an MRI was taken as a benchmark because my daughter-optometrist discovered at my annual eye exam that I’d had a stroke in my eye, causing legal blindness in that eye; surgery was indicated but could not be done because of the location of the damage. I was left to heal, with hopes of getting back to 20/40; I regained sight almost to 20/20 over a not-lengthy period of time.

Surgery was indicated immediately for the brain tumor. Again a set of circumstances led to a second opinion and a medication treatment, along with the Reiki and Reflexology I was doing; again healing and follow up MRIs showed the complete disappearance of the tumor within two years, no surgery and a very short period of meds.  The endocrinologist simply said to me, “You are not the same sick woman who sat before me a year ago, and I’ve done nothing to account for this. Tell me what you are doing!”

So I guess this is a blog all in itself, with my 2011 post to follow below.

June 12, 2011 by napkinwriter

“Her ways are ways of gentleness and all her paths are peace.”
Proverbs

As a Usui Reiki Master, I give and teach a natural healing method you can do for yourself anytime, anywhere. It comes from the Japanese spiritual and holistic healing tradition and has been practiced in Japan and the United States and around the world since the early 1900s.  The tradition, for a long time, was passed on to another verbally and Reiki practitioners receive “attunements” into Level I, II, or Reiki Master & Master Teacher from another Master who comes from the line of Mikeo Usui, the founder of the healing practice.

One can learn much today from books and the internet about Reiki, but the passing on of the Reiki Universal Life Force powers of healing comes from the hand of another Reiki Master.

Beside the universal desire for love, the two other things I’ve wanted in life were good health and personal, all-abiding peace within. In my search for these, I walked many paths, dipped into many wells of knowledge and wisdom and I’ve had a wide variety of experiences that brought either suffering or healing.

And I guess I would add balance to my life-long “wanted” list for happiness. This explains the draw of Reiki into my life. If Reiki is about one thing- it is most certainly about balancing the body/mind/spirit for the highest good. That includes balancing your physiology and this impacts how you experience your life positively.

When I give a Reiki treatment to a person (hands above or gently on a fully-clothed person), two experiences are common and shared by anyone I treat.  First, they experience an intense heat penetrating where ever my hands are placed above or on them; second, they go into a deep relaxation — deeper than shivasana, experienced at the end of a yoga session.

As a Reiki practitioner, I am doing nothing but acting as a vessel for the Universal Life Force to do its healing of the person on whatever level they need it; spiritual, emotional, physical. The person in deep relaxation is actually drawing the Reiki healing power into their being, I am not “sending” it.

When, as a Reiki Master, I give a Level I attunement, to another person, they now have the Reiki Power, to self-treat or treat others in their presence; Level II, is a higher attunement for Distance Healing and like “Prayer Sent” the energy of Reiki can be sent out over the world for the healing of persons or the planet. A person requesting Master Attunement experiences Reiki as a Calling, and wants to bring more Reiki into the world throught treatments and attuning new practitioners.

Like the popular phrase in the Star War Series, “The Force is with you,” you can be sure It truly is — Reiki just plugs it in and lights it up!

Reiki has gone to bat for me in the healing of emotional disturbance, soulful direction and on the physical plane where you can see it: heart surgery and not only the healing but the disappearance of a brain tumor without surgery and about 1/4 of the drugs they originally ordered.

Cats love Reiki! I’ve had them dash out from hiding and come lay under my Reiki table when I am giving another person a treatment. They stretch out long and expose their belly (the cats). If I put my Reiki hands on their furry belly, I’m afraid they are going to break their purring machine!

Reiki helps me stay rooted just in today. It reminds me by its principles to strive for and surrender to kindness and honesty, to let go of stress and worry, and to be mindful of my blessings.

When I am out of balance and not able to relax or respond to others in kindness, I suffer. I don’t like to suffer. When I include a self-treatment of Reiki for myself in my morning spiritual practice, my day goes better me and for others I come in contact with.

Reiki is one of the wondrous practices that came to me as one of the results of my search for good health, happiness and a support of my spirituality. Reiki is here to be shared.

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All I Had to Do

It seems like all I had to do this year was find my sunflower child. And I did that.

I found her in an image I could not ignore. A sweet child placing her soft face right into the center of a large sunflower.

I put her in the center of my Intention Mandala for 2013. I look at this often and so the presence of this sweet child is with me throughout the days.

But more than that, she keeps appearing in images I come upon in other places. She was on the East Coast with me when I enjoyed my weekend at the Women Writers and Artists gathering. Of course she was! My 2013 Intention Mandala is “The Year of Joy and Fun” and I was certainly joy-filled and having fun with my women companions, enveloped in writing, art and reverence for the larger story of us all.

During one of the workshops, there was my sunflower girl in a pile of images to be chosen for our projects. You know I chose her!

And today, as I begin preparation for the SoulCollage(R) and Daily Word  workshop I will facilitate at Unity of Kalamazoo in September, I found her once again, as an image in the front of the September/October Daily Word. What a blessing and confirmation for the work I desire to do with this. I have read the Daily Word as a subscriber since 1979. It always lights up the next step in my path with Scripture and Affirmation Truths. I trust it with my whole heart and soul.  Perhaps, that is where the desire comes from to play and pray our prayers and affirmations into image through the wondrous process of Seena Frost’s SoulCollage(R)

In the accompanying poem, “All I Had to Do”, by Donna Miesbach, a question is asked:
“Why, then, did I Not see You?
How could I have
Missed your Presence
When all I had to do
Was stop and look
Within my heart?”

That is exactly what we will do when our workshop gathers and selects the scriptures and affirmations they want to “see” through their own images selected at random from many magazine visuals I have spent tearing from sources recycled and given to me. The perfect images will be present, just as the sunflower girl has been present to me. The attendees will have an awed sense of “All I Had to Do” was…..put some pictures together to express a heart and soul-felt confidence that “this is the Truth of me.” The Scripture, affirmation and image will continue to live in them in a “best friend forever” sort of Presence.

All I had to do when I first came across my sunflower girl image was imagine her at the center of my mandala. This Intention Mandala is based on the work of Janet Conner and her “Lotus and the Lily.” I’ve been making this type of yearly mandala since 2010.  On these mandalas, we put whatever we can imagine we want the most to manifest in our lives on the outside circumference of our mandala. Then we don’t really think about them anymore.

“When the right conditions are present, there is manifestation.”

She also insists we put “big things” on the mandala, not necessarily things we think “possible” to get, because the manifestation comes without effort from our “making it happen”, if your focus is in the right place.  Some of my “big things” have been: a home I love; check; a large weight loss; check; good health and fitness; check; travel abroad; check; financial supply for workshops and training; check; live and love with Tom; check. These are big! These are manifest.

To get to the right place, we first concentrate on total forgiveness of others and of self. And to stay with that, working on that whenever and wherever needed. I do that.

Next, we state the conditions we agree to live. These conditions are written out and placed in the center of the mandala. Mine have changed over the years, but they are my guideposts when they appear on my mandala. So for my year of 2013, My year of Joy and Fun, these are the conditions I live by, as witnessed by my sunflower girl:

It seems like this is “all” I have to do to live a balanced and centered life. “All” is always a very small word, but sometimes “all I have to do” is a very large thing to do; other times, it is as easy as floating with the waves. In any case, when I am doing these things, I cannot miss “the Presence” that is always right within my heart.

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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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