How I Refresh My Heart and Soul with an Intuitive Creative Process Called SoulCollage®

’Cause who doesn’t need refreshing from time to time?

If it works for me, I trust it will work for you, too.

Today my soul needs refreshing. Tomorrow it might be my heart.

She’s parched, longing, and tired.

Not tired in an I need more sleep way, though that’s true, too.

But tired in the sense that she’s run out of steam helping me hold things together when I really need to let go and let God. Or Spirit. Or Shakina. Or the Infinite Nameless Source.

My soul is where and how I connect to the holy sacred, which is a well that never runs dry.

It’s just that between answering calls and emails, putting out fires large and small, lending a sympathetic ear or ten, and sitting with some painful memories about a dying child, I’m pooped and drained. All out of inspiration.

Too tired to meditate. Too parched to pray. What’s a spiritually-inclined, maxed-out, creative soul to do to refresh herself?

Back to the well, obviously. But which well?

At the moment, I’m called to the intuitive practice of SoulCollage®.

What, pray tell, is SoulCollage®?

Glad you asked.

SoulCollage® is the brainchild of visionary art and Jungian psychotherapist, Seena B. Frost. She also has a Master of Divinity from Yale. The process of making a deck of small collages to reveal and heal evolved out of her art therapy practice, infused with inspiration from Jean Houston.

It’s called SoulCollage® because souls resonate with visual images. I think of it as their love language. When I’m drawn to a particular image–photograph, natural vista, or work of art, my soul’s saying pay attention here.

This is particularly true when the image is not one I’d normally notice. I consider that an underscore or exclamation point.

Now that that’s clear allow me to step into my Canva.com cocoon and allow spirit to bathe me with fresh images and messages. I’ll be right back, so don’t touch that dial!

Okay, I’m back.

At first, I grabbed a favorite Goddess image. But when Canva wouldn’t let me have it rain behind Her, I knew something was amiss. I was not soothed but rather even more restless.

So I let Her go, took a breath, and began again. This time with water.

Rain and rainbow came together with a splash of green. And my whole being sighed from a deep place. Ahh!

I was drawn to this young woman and her neutral tones, which matched the birds perfectly. Barn owls speak to me as spiritual icons who keep showing up in my collages and other images. Holding the baby in her/my hands, under the watchful eye of the hovering mother. felt just right.

The collage felt complete in a less-is-more way I’ve come to trust.

Now I’ll ‘read’ the card and see what my refreshing soul has to say:

“I am one who needs, honors, and relishes the rain. My soul is soothed and revitalized along with the verdant earth. The rainbow blesses me as a luminous flash of Spirit, winking at me, showing off even. I am one whose outstretched hands become a soft place for fragile ones to land.

“The message I have for you is to make time to return to the well — the rejuvenating and refreshing waters of nature, of Spirt, again and again — more often than you think you need to. Because like your body which is thirsty long before you feel parched, so, too, is your soul.

“Drink deeply of all that the natural world and the Spirit world offer. That way you’ll be ready to share your gifts with enthusiasm and ebullience. When the soul is tired, like you, she needs to rest.”

There I have it. Nothing earth-shattering or unfamiliar. But oh so timely with its reminder that I need and deserve to rest, refresh, and give myself and my soul much-deserved breaks.

And not only that, drink from deep wells.

Of water for the body. And of Spirit for the soul. Not every now and again. All the time.

Thank you, Soul~Spirit. I needed that!

Here are additional resources for SoulCollage® and writing.

Marilyn Flower’s the author of Creative Blogging: Ninja Writers Guide to Character Development and Bucket Listers, Get Your Brave On. Clowning and improvisation strengthen her resolve during these crazy times. Follow her Sacred Foolishness and Stay in touch!