SOULCOLLAGE®: EVERY CARD A PRODUCT OF YOUR UNIQUENESS

BY IVETTE EBAEN, SOULCOLLAGE® FACILITATOR  M.A. Transpersonal Psychology, Expressive Arts Facilitator, Artist/Photographer THE REPUBLIC OF IRELAND

SoulCollage®: Every Card A Product of Your Uniqueness

I. Ebaen, Committee Card: I Am the One Who Aspires to Inspire

Several years ago during my SoulCollage® Facilitator’s Training with Linda Woolfson, a gentleman asked me what brought me to Portugal. I mentioned the SoulCollage® training and showed him my deck. He grinned, “So, you going to tell me my future?”

“No,” I replied. “You can do that for yourself.”

SoulCollage® has nothing to do with predicting outcomes. The discovery of our Neters doesn’t make us fortune tellers, psychics, or gets us any closer to winning the lottery. Making your deck is about taking matters into your own hands.

The thing is we are always asking friends, relatives, intimates, healers, doctors, therapists and complete strangers for their opinion and advice about our lives, as if they personally knew more about us than you or I know about ourselves.

This maybe so, yet right here, right now, you are your own oracle and creator/maker of possibilities.

In the Buddhist tradition, wisdom is our birthright. You and I carry within the substrata of our DNA the same divine seed of wisdom. We are the Buddha we have come to serve. Generationally, each and every one of us is an inheritor of the Buddha seed that is ready to sprout, blossom and grow into a tree of enlightenment. The possibility is there if we assume it to be so.

So how does SoulCollage® fit in?

What the composing of a SoulCollage® deck (constructing more than 20 cards) does is create a mirror, a self-image that reflects the parts of the self that require healing, befriending, and/or resolve to make each one of us feel whole.

At the same time, as we make each card, we claim and discover all the different facets that make up the personage known as this self. We get to know those aspects of the personality; the parts of us that have been denied, lost, forgotten, rejected and/or misunderstood. These unrecognized parts of our character can be brought to light, given a voice and a place in our lives – and according to Buddhist Philosophy let go of. Each one of us has to recognize the thing itself, that, from which we suffer. Only then will we understand what to let go of and take responsibility for the imbalances in our lives this misunderstanding creates. Once recognized, the thing itself loses power, loosens its grip and its struggle to survive; and with sincere loving compassion, patience and attention, resistance eventually melts away with trust.

Choosing images to compose cards is meant to acquaint us with the

one who knows best: Who can only be you!

Speaking from, and dialoguing with and through the images enables us to put words to feelings. It enables our thinking-mind to experience a visual understanding of this self we call “I”. The “I” we have come to identify with and others who know us by name. The “I” we have learned to become due to our culture, our role models; the tribe and our upbringing. The “I” that is influenced by traditions, our level of education, our religious beliefs. Everything of what we know to be ourselves passed down from generation through generations and in relationship to family, friends, and lovers; foes and colleagues; teachers and educators; the society and the politics of the country we inhabit.

What we know and who we are we have learned from somebody else…and isn’t it time that you enquired to discover who you are for yourself?

Every one of our SoulCollage® cards is a personal reflection of this self. And because no two lives are alike no two decks can ever be alike. This is what makes a SoulCollage® deck an intimate and unique work of art.

You are one unique thread of the whole of Consciousness - This is how individual each deck is!

No other card-making process compares. No other card-making process presents us with a choice; with an option to choose the symbols and images that through the use of intuition and imagination, expands awareness of this self.

You can create SoulCollage® cards from your stash of personal photos, drawings, graphics, stickers and illustrations. This way you can make each card uniquely yours. So how incredibly creative is that?

Just remember the public domain and copyright-free laws that correspond to the images you choose: Most printed images have copyright laws that protect work by artists and photographers from theft. These licenses and laws prevent anyone using their work for profit, or claiming the artwork is theirs. Also remember not to post your SoulCollage® cards on social media platforms. Using images from magazines or the internet, unless it’s stated that you can, is liable to get you sued. And that my friend, is the only prediction you can count on.

Ivette Ebaen is currently facilitating SoulCollage® and Nalanda Miksang Contemplative Photography workshops online with groups and individuals. To enquire or attend her workshops visit: www.purevision.photography