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.

It's been a while-Healing Art making

It's really been quite a while since I last posted here.  My life has flowed into new directions...since my dear friend and cofacilitator, Patricia's  death.  I have been almost obsessively, making Mandala Amulets, from both her mandala's and mine.  Working with her Illuminated Mandala images, has been a healing process for me.  Gathering, cropping, working with the images in Iphoto and turning them into amulets has taken over almost all my other art endeavors, except creating SoulCollage® cards, in my groups.  

Here is the backstory;   I had been making pendants from my art as well as found art, since the fall.  They turned out so lovely that I began to sell them and found them to be quite popular.  Plus the whole process appealed to my love of making things in multiples.  I am  maker.

Healing Star Mandala

Universal Shapes

I made a pendant of one of Patricia's mandala's as a Christmas gift for her. It actually was of her Star Mandala...which is this one here.  She wound up giving it to her caregiver as a gift.  A dear friend of hers, who was at the house during her last month of life, commissioned me to make a series of these for all the women in the loving circle of friends that surrounded her during that time...and I have continued to create them along with Amulets from my own mandala images.So one  thing has led to another, and another and I have continued this artmaking journey for months.  The interesting thing is that this whole process has brought me closer to Patricia, and led me full circle back to viewing all of my mandala's in another light.

Flowering Color Wheel

In order to get an image to be strong in a smaller format, there must be a lot of contrast and not a lot of detail in order to reduce the image  to a contact sheet size. So I am viewing my work with a different lens.  

Heart Healing

I also have realized that I am always soothed by doing things in multiples, which is why I love creating mandalas. Mandalas, have repeating patterns in them, and creating repetitions makes one feel safe and comforted.  Kind of like a visual fence that encircles what is important, what is in the center,  the heart of the matter.  

Goddess of Balance

I have also found more of her  original mandala's, as we  a community of women friends, now go through her art and her possessions, and I have photographed them with an idea to reproducing them in the future.  It has allowed me to really and truely see and appreciate her art, in a deeper light.  And when I work with the images, she is in my mind in a different way, which has taken a lot of the edge off of my grief around losing her.  Healing Indeed!

Soul Mother

Another thing has happened, and that is that this whole process, which has included making the Amulets from all of my mandalas, ( I am now calling them amulets instead of pendants, which alludes to the power inherent in these images) has begun to  bring me a greater sense of abundance, and a new direction for making money.  

I have always felt that my art, and in particular my Mandala drawings, have work to do in the world. That these images enhance and support others, separate from the healing power of creating them,  that the images are meant to inspire others. This has become clearer with this process.  I am grateful and blessed by this entire process and my sadness has been a process of personal transformation.  

Thank you to all who have been following my  musings, in this blog over time, and who find their way here synchronistically.  Always remember that doing Art heals, in subtle and profound ways, whether you feel you can do it or not,  --- JUST DO IT!  you never know where a process will lead you.

Until the next time...when I plan to post my new series of SoulCollage® cards.

Namaste'  

Caterina

Life - Death - Grief and healing through SoulCollage®

As some of you  who read my blog  and know me personally may know, for the past 8 weeks I have been witnessing, holding heart and been totally engaged in the ongoing illness and recent death of my good friend, and co-partner in the Creative Arts Studio and my work as a Mandala Faciltator, Patrica Waters.  This process has been heartbreaking and heart opening, transformational and healing, all put together in one powerful period of time.  Art has helped me to self-soothe and cope with this loss on many levels.  As a SoulCollage® facilitator and at times addict, creating cards in my groups has helped me on many levels to diaglogue, understand, and release sorrow and attachment through these trying times.  

Early on during this journey, I created this SoulCollage® card for my friend Patricia, to integrate her into my inner Community, and honor her presence in my life.  I added in a photograph of her actual hands drawing a mandala, since we worked together for over 20 years, facilitating Illuminated Mandala Workshops.  When we decorated the cardboard coffin she will travel into the cauldron in, on her last physical journey, I glued 8 prismacolor pencils and black canson mi tientes paper cut into a circle, onto the outside of  her coffin, so she can draw in the after life.  This card really brings me closer to her essence now that she is gone.   While she was ill, I made a large color copy of this card to put on the wall next to her bedside as a reminder to her of her strong and vibrant self. 

This card,  the Gateway card, came through for me, during a period when it appeared that Patricia was having a difficult time letting go of this life.  It gave me an image of the Gateway that we must all journey through as we transition from this life to another.  Whether it helped her unconscious or not is another story, but it allowed me to have an image to hold onto, that actually comforted me and gave me a grounding as the Gatekeeper role that I had found myself in. 

Gaia is the Goddess of All is aone of the most recent cards I made, using a photocopy of one of Patricia's drawings, and adding all the animals that she loved and nourished in this life.  Interestingly, the day that I printed it off of her computer , it was  raining out and when I carried it to my car, the rain, dripped on the ink jet print and formed tears.  It set the stage for this card, and how deeply she loved the earth and grieved for it as well. I created this card, on the day that she passed.  Which seems so appropriate to me now. 

The Path.   I created this card as well on last Friday, and although at the time, it related to my finding a new path and direction that calls to me, as I add it to his series, it really fits into her journey as well, being called to the light.  But for me personally, it speaks to paying attention to what flutters in my heart and sings to me as how to know which path to take.

Holding Heart -  This whole experience, has opened my heart so deeply, that I had to honor the heart space, as I held heart for Patricia, for myself, and for all of those who come to my studio and work on those deep inner images that live in the heart space.  It also helped that this was February, the month of holding heart on so  many levels.

This is the last card of the series, which is the Grief card, letting go and looking forward, contemplating what is next, and reflecting on my life, her impact on it, and all the edges of grief death and release.

I hesitate in adding my first person words to this series, offering a process oriented narrative.  During this whole journey I have been the facilitator of a helping hands website, offering updates on Patricia's journey, which is one of the many reasons why I haven't posted here very often. This process has also given me a sense of a new voice that is emerging for me through my writing, which is another door that is opening.  Thank you all for viewing this, and reading this.  Namaste.
Caterina

Healing heART - waxing poetic

This past week, I finally got into my studio and began to do some encaustic painting, 

after a very, very long hiatus. 

 So much has been going on, with my dear friends decline, and trying to fit life into my life, that making art and especially cranking up the hot plate and doing encaustic painting, has totally fallen by the way side.

 But it was exactly what the doctor ordered, so to speak.  I decided to create some loosely related Valentine encaustic paintings, with the thought of having some of it   being  included in a group show.   around Valentines Day,  but what really happened was my opening up to HEART energy.

 Working on these pieces, had the effect of not only opening my heart, but soothing my heart, which has been in various stages of grief for over 6 weeks now.  I lost track of time, slowing down and being engulfed in color, image and playful exploration.  Trying to get in touch with what was I trying to say, or express and then letting go.  To say it way healing for me is an understatement.  I found myself in bliss, happier than I had been in months....at the very least.  I loved what I was doing, and found myself returning to the studio even in the evening, when it is cold, cold, cold out there.  Happy as a clam ( a clam being enclosed in a protective shell, which is what I was doing with my art making...)

This final one, of the series so far, really brought me in touch with release, letting go and letting love guide me.  I love how each of these is so filled with vibrant color, which of course is one of the beauties of encaustic paint, as well of how much they speak to what is going on for me right now, as well as love in all its varieties and depths.

No one has to remind me of how creating art is healing, but I had to remind myself again, as I became immersed in this process, finding happiness and joy in the moment, self soothing myself through color combinations, and the placement of images that called to me.  I am thankful and can't wait to get back into my studio again this week, and let the molten hot colors take me away to another land, a land of joyful creative abandon.  Blessings to all... Ciao

"Doesn't Everything Die at Last and Too Soon?"

I haven't written here since the beginning of the year.  I have a good, dear long time friend, who has been my business partner, teacher, sister and more, who is dying of cancer right now.  My life has been thrown to the winds, as I have tried, along with other close friends, to be there, respond to crisis after crisis and all the needs that arise as someone moves towards the end of their life.

I have been overwhelmed with grief, sick of heart, and also in a state of sacred grace and awe at this process of letting go, and caregiving in different ways.  Facilitating a helping hands website to provide information on her needs and journey, has engulfed my life and time.

Patricia  and I met in the masters program at Sonoma State University in 1985, in a co-counseling class.  We became co-counselors during the semester, and  deep friends over time.  When I first met her, I told her point blank, now don't get any ideas about becoming friends, I am overwhelmed and have to many friends in my life, so I don't want or need any friends.  That first statement, became a story we laughed over many times.   During our time in the Creative Art Therapies program, we were always stunned, by how parallel our art was.  I would be working on a piece and not see her for a month or so, and we would realize that  we were both be working on a similar image, theme or visual statement.

We became co-partners in the Creative Arts Studio, and for  almost 20 years we had a community expressive arts studio, here in Santa Rosa, at 3 different locations.  In 1992, right after my mother died, Patricia treated me to a weekend Mandala Retreat at the Angela Center in Santa Rosa, with the late Judith Cornell.  That was the beginning of our both taking every class we could from her, training and then teaching her work and becoming facilitators of Judith's Illuminated Mandala Process.

Our lives have been very intertwined.

I had not planned on writing this story here, I rarely disclose my deep personal experiences here, but this feels right.  So I have shared one of Patricia's mandala's done in response to Mary Oliver's poetry.

(She turned me on to Mary Oliver as well, what a gift)

So this is an honoring of Patricia, her art, her gifts and her loving generosity.

Patricia setting up at a Mandala workshop that we taught at the Cosmic Cowgirl Studio in Healdsburg.

The Summer Day

Who made the world?

Who made the swan, and the black bear?

Who made the grasshopper?

This grasshopper, I mean-

the one who has flung herself out of the grass,

the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,

who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-

who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.

Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.

Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.

I don't know exactly what a prayer is.

I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down

into the grass, how to kneel in the grass,

how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,

which is what I have been doing all day.

Tell me, what else should I have done?

Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?

Tell me, what is it you plan to do

With your one wild and precious life?

Mary Oliver

Happy New Year to All

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover 

Mark Twain

May your life be filled with blessings and may you take the time to slow down and recognize them.

Happy New Year.

My New Line of Wearable Fine Art Pendants

I have been making beaded jewelry for years..and usually start way in advance of the holidays making it.  Along with my ethnic inspired earrings, necklaces and bracelets.  I have started to create a line of Fine Art Wearable Pendants, that use my own art as well as images that inspire me.

 I have been having soo much fun, I love making multiples of things. 

 The process is extremely self soothing to me...

and so I have been getting happier and happier 

                                                 making a whole new line of jewelry.

                                                   using  my own art  as well as

                                              vintage images I fall in love with

 this is a reduction of an original encaustic painting of mine..

    As is this a crop of the Buddha in blue, another on of my encaustic mixed media pieces

Aren't this lovely.  I just love seeing the possibilities...

So now that I have made soooo many of these pendants...this isn't even a 1/8 of the amount.  I think I have mad about 80 pendants so far.  I have to do something with them.. Send them off to new homes, to grace the hearts of others.  I have posted some of these on my etsy store

But... I am having an open studio  with all of my jewelry and art along with 2  artist friends of mine...Susan Adler...who does such vibrant paintings, they take my  breath away. And print maker Rob Duncan, whose work is stunning.

When: Sunday Dec. 11th from 11-6
Where: 637 Dexter St.  in Santa Rosa, CA ( the JC neighborhood)
Join for some holiday cheer and support local artists when doing your holiday shopping.
Ciao.