Ongoing SoulCollage® Journey

My journey with the SoulCollage® process continues......

It's a very, very rainy day here in Northern California. More of a winter than a spring.   It is a great time tolose myself in reverie and let Image, Imagination and Intuition reign.  Here are some of my most recent SoulCollage® cards, that I have made  during each one of my bi-monthly SoulCollage® groups..  I love the intuitive nature of this process. I am always astounded at what comes through.

I am the one who seeks the source,  the maiden self, journeying over hill and dale, carrying my baggage with me, however, by now i have learned to empty my basket, so I can renew and fill myself up when I arrive at the water's source. One part of me, often questions the journey, and has regrets for lost time, but the other part of me, revels in arriving at the deep healing springs, where I can wash the dust from my soul, and drink deeply of inspiration.  I am the seeker, the water bearer, the questioning one.

I am the old peasant wise woman, the sage, the bruja, the healer.  I have lived a long life, and seen many things.  I know the struggles of those here on this plane and have the remedies to help them.  I do not offer my services, but wait for the seekers to approach me.  I take the pain of life experiences and turn them into pearls of wisdom, that are food for the soul.

I am the one who walks with awareness, one foot after the other, in the moment with my breath.  I am the one who meditates through doing and making, and organizing the elements of life into beauty and pattern. I am the pattern maker, the calm one, who takes life's challenges with a grain of sand, and transforms matter into powerful pattern.  I am in alignment with myself and the universe.

I am the one who, honors the connection between the spirit realm and the world of matter.  I salute and welcome the ability to turn matter into gold.  I am the realm of the archetypes, connecting and making sense of the images that spin from my reveries into my conscious mind.  I drink to the beauty of images, I drink to the beauty of imagination.  I salute the magic of life.  

I am the Goddess of Intuition.  I link by the umbilical cord of life force ,to all those  who trust and open to the unconscious.  I stand on the connection, the cord or web that links me to the waters of the unconscious, and to the hearts and minds of the open ones. I am protected by beauty and power even though I hover over the edge.  I wait for the jewels of wisdom and magic to offer up their gifts and then link those gifts to the world.  I am one of the Wise Ones..  I am the Muse.

If you are intrigued, perhaps you might be interested in joining in one of my SoulCollage® groups here in Sonoma County, Northern CA.  ... or you can check www.soulcollage®.com for facilitators near where you live.

Until next time..  ciao.

More SoulCollage® cards...still making them

Well lately, life has been grounding me a bit.  I did something to my left knee, and have had to slow down tremendously.  I am trying to let it heal, but it is real slow going.  My impatience has me up and running in my head, but my body can barely hobble.  Today, I wound up canceling on a excursion, and then losing the keys to my studio, and finally, my car was dead when I tried to go somewhere needlessly.  So the universe is truely forcing me to be still and slow down.  Nonetheless, I made 3 new SoulCollage® cards today.  So I am sharing them here, as well as a few more that I did about a week ago.
Without further ado....

                                       Transforming the ordinary to the extraordinary....

                   Trust has always been an issue, but really it is a non issue... because there is a greater story afloat here.

                         I guess I am meant to write about all the wonder, awe and musings....
                                         These first three are the ones I made today....


                                                the following were created in the past few weeks..

 I Am The One Who celebrates  in nature ~ I transform through my connection with the earth

                                   This is the essence of soul..

 The waterfall of abundance.......

I Am The One Who looks within, who notices the patterns of life around me, often taking me  away from what is right on front of me, that is  blossoming and ready to fly right in front of my very eyes.  So . Pay attention.


Today I came across this Mary Oliver quote, it fits to end with this.  


"Instructions for living a life. Pay attention.   Be astonished. 


Tell about it."   — Mary Oliver

Almost a Month....since Last I posted.

It has been almost a month since I have last posted anything here.  Creatively I continue to flit from art process to art process.  My encaustic painting has for the moment, fallen by the way side, in favor of mixed media collage.  I have been making cards, working in my various journals, doodling around collages and just plain playing with the art process in small doses.

I love to work small on card stock, begining with  a loose watercolor, or cutting up and old watercolor that never really worked.  

Then looking for images that seem to fit the background, adding them and then doodling around them in pen, ink and rubber stamps.

One thing leads to another and I play with them until I am satisfied.  Then I glue them onto a blank card form and walla....art with a purpose, a card to send someone or a small collage to be framed.

Occasionally I fold up one of my watercolor rejects and collage on them as well.

They take on a life of their own, becoming whatever they turn into.

Then I doodle around them as well.  What a wonderful soothing past time

for someone with energy to burn creatively, without worry about product.

I spend many an evening in the studio, chatting with my husband, on the phone or visiting with friends while I do this.  Serious art, NO, but fun, soothing and Happy Making. YES.

Sometimes I stop before I go to far, letting these small card collages be sweet simple 

statements, that can be sent to friends or maybe sold on my etsy shop.

Other times they become enigmatic visual storylines, that please me just for the sake of being.

Or they are just ways to reconfigure images that live in my expanding image bank....

in my journals awaiting more work to be done on them.  So this is what I have been up to this month, as well as being a bit addicted to my facebook mandala page where I have been posting mandala images almost every other day.  

All of this work is simply self soothing, life enhancing, art making, that takes the edges of off my day, and fills me with joy.  

Happy Artmaking to All!

Playing in the Studio..

I facilitate a women's art support group twice a month at my studio....it's called the Medicine Art Group.  Art making is a medicine when we open to its ability to transform and soothe our souls.  

We have been working on intention setting since the begin of the new year, using art as a way to visualize our intentions.  This past week we moved into creating Affirmation Cards as a way to support our intentions for the New Year and as reminders to hold positive thoughts.   It was so much fun, I plan to keep making them myself, perhaps a whole deck of them.  Here are the ones I created on Friday.

I am facilitating an Encaustic Weekend at my studio, next Sat. and Sunday, so this past weekend I have been having so much fun getting prepared for it.

I have been cleaning wax off of brushes, rearranging,  making encaustic medium and altogether having a great time, priming the pump so to speak. It seems like part of my creative process is to periodically, organize, revision, clean and renew my enviornment.  

 I am excited by the possibility of doing more encaustic classes, and am begining to see myself moving more and more into my artist life, now that I am no longer teaching at the JC.  I am beginning to revision the layoff as a positive...an opportunity to really live my dream and make a financial success from it.   

My affirmation cards, tie into this, by opening to abundance coming to me as I grow my dreams, out of the simple pleasures that fill my soul....all the while allowing for Great  Mystery to provide the details.

I will post photos from the Encaustic workshop next week, so stay tuned.