Sunday, September 5, 2010

THE FOOL: The Traveler



I am the One Who travels light. I am the one who enjoys the view.


I am a perfectionist or at nature lazy, I'm not sure which. I seem to exhibit both extremes of Virgoness. The first cards I made--in fact the cards I love best to make--are usually single images that turn out to be perfect. Either that, or I tend to spend hours moving tiny elements around with a toothpick. But this one, The Traveler, is a single-image one.

In the traditional SoulCollage(R) suits, the Council cards are archetypes active in your life. Seena Frost suggests that there are Council archetypes that everyone possesses. The Fool is one.

I wouldn't have called this my Fool card, but it certainly fits. It reminds me of a wonderful cartomancy deck The Desert Oracle, which employs a similar desert background for the entire deck. I thought about using this image in a similar fashion. The figure reminds me of Ginger, my friend who taught me to read Tarot over twenty years ago on Nantucket. Once we were reading on a bluff near the ocean, a pretty steep bluff as I recall, twenty or thirty feet. As we read, a young man, an acquaintance of ours, ran up to us and through our space. "Hmm. Nowhere to go but down. Guess I'll have to do that." He ran deftly down the bluff and continued his jog on the beach below us. It's not always that you get a timely visit from the Fool.

This card is also unique in that it's currently my only horizontal image.

The Fool is the Zero card, related to the Joker in playing decks. The Fool represents us at the beginning of any endeavor, ignorant of danger with only our intuition to guide us. The Major Arcana is considered the Fool's Journey. As the Fool travels, he passes through various trials, gaining experiences on the way to becoming The Wise Fool.

The Fool surveys the path below, but looks ready to step into the precipice. She travels light. All she is missing is her dog.





Saturday, September 4, 2010

The Fool's Journey, a personal odyssey in SoulCollage(R)




I spent the last couple of weeks in July “on a tear” assembling ten new SoulCollage® cards. TrueNorthArt's blog party turned out to be a good excuse. I put together four Community cards, one character card, two Council, two Committee, and my first Companion card.

When I told my husband I had 22 paper cards, he said, “Good, now you have a Major Arcana.” That set me to thinking. That, and Kathryn Antyr's use of collage for the Hero's Journey.

How might I fit my existing cards into a Major Arcana pattern?

I tossed and turned for a couple of nights running through how I might move things around. Then I got up and did it. Then the cat sat on my cards. Then the monsoon rains on the only humid day of the year caused the cards to swell, so I had to press them back into shape with the help of a couple of thick phone books. (Phone books are still good for something. You can't press stuff using Google.)

I'd done something similar once before. I’d heard a writer using tarot suggest collaging a set of Majors for your writing project in an afternoon. I'm not nearly that brave, but upon discovering my in-progress 50's noir had 22 characters...I once spent forty-five minutes in Starbucks moving them around into a Major Arcana pattern. And guess what, it worked. Very well, in fact.

Writing coach Steve Barnes says if you internalize the Hero's Journey as a writer, you're golden. Your subconscious will make the story for you. I've been a tarot reader for 22 years. (There's that number again!) I wondered if I'd internalized the Fool's Journey enough for it to affect what cards I created first.

The following is a very subjective trip through the Fool's Journey using what's on hand, including Community cards as well as Council. Some are very obviously archetypes. Others fit into the sequence through design elements.

I hope you enjoy this syncronicitious journey.

Friday, July 30, 2010

New Cards! SoulCollage(R) Blog Party

Hello, Blog Partygoers! Welcome to my SoulCollage(R)Blog...Thanks to Kathryn Antyr of TrueNorthArts.com for hosting the party and encouraging us to get to work...Here's an eclectic group of goodies from my "current" folder that were only waiting for a deadline and a glue stick :) Enjoy!!

Update: Go here for a slideshow featuring my old cards. And here to see cards and commentary from a SoulCollage(R) workshop I took last fall. Thanks for stopping by!


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Old Cards...

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Cards from a SoulCollage(R) workshop...


...led by Michele Manos, October 2009, Amado, AZ



Ancestral Gifts

...We have been warriors and peacemakers, mothers and fathers, mystics and simple people. We have been priests and rabbis, priestesses and witches....You are so much more than the limits of your body. You can tap your strength and also your legacy. You can heal your DNA.





High Priestess

I am the One who is the High Priestess.
I am the One who is aware of the sacred in the profane.
I am the One who bears the pain of my tribe.
I am the Woman of Mystery.
I am the One who holds women's secrets out in the open.





Fire Mummy (Death)

I am the One who is a dessicated shell, purified by transformative fire.




Make a Noise!

I am the one who expresses my self with the freedom of a child.
I am the one who is willing to make a fool of myself.
The guidance I offer is:
Open your mouth.
Communicate.
Don't care what the judges think.
Keep your eye on the prize.
Embarrassment is for sissies.

Sunday, July 18, 2010

Soul Collage Blog Party!

From True North Arts:




You are invited to explore SoulCollage(R) during the month of July and to share your cards in a Blog Party on July 31st, 2010. This party is open to EVERYONE! Go to this page: http://bit.ly/soulcollageblogparty for full details!

(Now to figure out how to transfer the pictures from the new camera onto the computer....)

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Anne Marie Bennett interviewed at Writer Apprentice



Today at my other blog I'm interviewing Kaleidosoul founder and SoulCollage(R) facilitator Anne Marie Bennett about the release of her new book, Bright Side of the Road: A Spiritual Journey Through Breast Cancer. Anne Marie talks about her journey and shares about her writing process. I'm honored to interview her. She's a delightful lady. Stop by!

The Writer Apprentice