| Soul Singing with Anne Marie |
Hi! I'm Anne Marie, the creator of KaleidoSoul.com,
and a SoulCollage® facilitator in
Massachusetts. If you're just starting to sing your
song with SoulCollage®, this column is especially
for you.
Baby Leopard
When Seena Frost created the Companions Suit, she called it the "energetic dimension" of the SoulCollage® Deck. This encompasses two energies: nature's energy, and the body's energy. The way that these two come together is what makes our SoulCollage® work with animal guides unique.
Seena based the foundation of this suit on the work of Stephen Gallegos, author of Personal Totem Pole. If you are interested in more detail about how these two energies come together, I suggest you read his book and/or listen to Seena Frost's CDs: The Companions Suit or her
Introduction to SoulCollage® CD.
This month, let's focus on the second chakra, which is the energy center in the human body located in the lower abdomen, about an inch below the navel. This chakra, also called The Sacral Chakra, is focused on creativity, emotions, and sexuality. When this chakra is in healthy functioning mode, we are fully aware of our feelings and are comfortable being emotionally and sexually expressive.
 My second chakra companion, Leopard, was one of the last Companions who came to me. I was feeling a bit anxious about this, and one night before sleep, I decided to just ask for it to come forward. I was thinking it might come to me in a dream, but I saw the baby leopard right as I was drifting off to sleep. You can see my Leopard card on my blog, Inner Surprises.
I'd also like to point out here that sometimes, when you are discovering your Companions, you might discover a different element of nature instead. For example, you might "see" the sky, a tree, a flower, a gemstone, a shaft of sunlight, cluster of stars, ice crystals, the ocean, or any other aspect of nature. Allow whatever comes forth to give you its message.
This month why not spend some time focusing on your own Second Chakra? On a scale of 1-10, how in touch with your emotions are you? Are you comfortable expressing yourself sexually? If you feel you need some support in this realm of your body, why not invite your own Second/Sacral Charka Companion to come forward... and watch what happens!
You might also enjoy these resources for your own Companions Suit work:
- Wise and Wonderful: A Guided Exploration of the SoulCollage® Companions Suit - 6 week e-course focusing entirely on this suit. Short weekly lessons with homeplay assignments. Work at your own pace. A unique learning experience.
- KaleidoSoul Kindred Spirits - featuring several audio recordings on the Animal Companoins Suit.
Anne Marie Bennett is a
freelance writer, self-taught artist, SoulCollage®
Facilitator and Facilitator Trainer who trained with Seena
Frost. Her background is elementary education, computer
software training, writing, and mixed media art. She
lives, laughs, writes, and sings (and makes her own
SoulCollage® cards!) in Beverly, MA. More of
Anne Marie's cards/interpretations are available on her
blog,
Inner Surprises.
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| Soul Symphonies with Karen |
My name is Karen Mann and I'm a SoulCollage®
facilitator from Melbourne, Australia. This column is for
those of you who have already made some cards & are
ready to discover the symphony of voices inside of you
and around you.
How I Found My Second Chakra Companion
My companion animal for my 2nd chakra is a lemur. Now I’m not sure if you know what a lemur is... if you do you’re better off than I was when I “met” my companion animal, because when I discovered this companion for my 2nd Chakra I had no idea what sort of animal she was.
I used Seena Frost’s recorded creative visualisation for finding your companion animals to assist me in discovering which animal was my spokesperson for my 2nd chakra. When I participate in creative
visualisations (or guided visualisations/meditations) I often see flashes of images, as though they are on a television screen in my mind. I know that not everyone “sees” images. Some hear things, get a feeling, see a word, or just “know,” but for me, this time, I saw a couple of quick images.
I saw what seemed to be racoon’s face: grey fur, dark rings around its eyes and a striped tail. I also saw some orange arms, swinging through the trees, and I thought perhaps it was an
orang-utan. As part of this guided visualisation, Seena encourages you to allow whatever has happened just to be. I wasn’t sure why I was seeing two animals or what wisdom either of them had to share with me, but I let go of these thoughts and let it just be.
 After completing this creative visualisation, I wasn’t really sure which animal out of the two I glimpsed was going to be my 2nd chakra companion. I made a conscious choice to allow myself to “not know” and decided to continue with some card making, trusting that eventually, at some stage, the companion animal would become clear to me. In that card making session (the exact same day) I came across an article in a National Geographic magazine about lemurs.
Lemurs are primates (related to monkeys & humans). There are 88 different species of lemur, all found only on the island of Madagascar, and some
neighbouring islands, off the coast of Africa. The images that accompanied this article showed one lemur that had black rings around her eyes and a striped tail, and another lemur with orange fur, swinging through the trees (see my card for examples). Once I saw these images, I knew I had found my companion. How this animal, which I had never heard of, appeared in my subconscious is a mystery, but to this day I continue to trust that she has wisdom to share with me.
What I learnt about the lemur (from the article attached to the images) was that the lemur lives in a matriarchal society and that she has evolved into the 88 different species, each of which has specific strengths that allows it to survive in its unique surroundings, which varies from the deep jungle to the desert.
More recently, I discovered a book called KIDS! Indigo Children & Cheeky Monkeys ,
by Scott Alexander King and Dr. Ralph Ballard. In this book they divide people into 5 monkey archetypes, one of which is the Ring-tailed Lemur, who is included on my SoulCollage card. As I read through this description of what they called the Ring-Tailed Lemur Monkey Archetype I received a great many insights or reminders about my characteristics, strengths and weaknesses. In fact, many sections of this chapter really felt like they were written to provide me with some advice in the here and now.
As I currently struggle to make a decision about leaving my current employment, this description of the Ring-Tailed Lemur Monkey Archetype reminds me to find a career that I really enjoy and that supports my sense of higher purpose. It also reminded me that practicing qigong is a very important way to maintain my energy levels. What is amazing is that I made this SoulCollage card about 5 years ago, which was 3 years before this book was published, and yet it feels as though this card was made to lead me to the advice in this book.
Once again, by trusting the SoulCollage process I have been provided with the support I require at exactly the time I require it. I’m not sure that my “rational mind” would have shown any interest in this book, had it not been for the mention of lemurs that I saw. What an amazing place the world is and how grateful I am to SoulCollage for helping me to navigate it!
P.S. A tip about conducting research on the companion animal you have
connected with intuitively is to read any information with an open mind, not
accepting the written word as gospel, but only taking on board anything that
adds value to your personal experience and understanding an discarding any
information that doesn’t ‘sit right’ with you. For example, if you read that
a dolphin represents healing, and this seems appropriate to your situation,
then maybe you should explore this concept further. However, if you don’t
think this applies to your situation, then don’t try and find a way to apply
it to your life... just let it go.
Karen Mann is an artist, art teacher,
Lifestyle Coach, yoga and meditation teacher, and
SoulCollage®
facilitator. Karen has been working with SoulCollage®
cards for more than four years and facilitates a variety
of SoulCollage® Groups. Karen also runs
SoulCollage® Facilitator Training weekends.
Karen offers regular workshops in Melbourne and Geelong,
Australia, and is also available to travel to other
regions in Australia. For more information, or to
contact Karen, please visit her website, Flying Colours Creativity.
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All-Inclusive Complete Audio Package
Four 90-minute recordings
13 handouts
Covers SoulCollage Topics:
All 4 suits
Card Making Ideas
Transpersonal cards
Interpreting Your Cards
Doing 2 Kinds of Readings
Step-by-step instructions
Soul Songs Back Issues - Read back
issues of Soul Songs on
this KaleidoSoul page. An excellent resource.
Just look for whatever SoulCollage® topic
you are interested in, and read to your heart's
content!
SoulCollage® is a trademarked
process created by Seena B. Frost.
For more information about Seena and the origins of
SoulCollage®, please
visit her website.
SoulCollage® cards
are made either from one's own art or from images
found in materials which have been bought by or
given to the SoulCollage® card maker.
These collaged cards are used only for the
cardmaker's own inner exploration. SoulCollage®
cards are not sold, traded, bartered, or copied
(except as a back-up for the cardmakers own use) as
is stated in the "
Principles of SoulCollage®."
Where SoulCollage® cards are available to
be seen by others, it is for the purposes either of
demonstrating the SoulCollage® process or
of sharing the cardmakers' inner process in the
context of community. SoulCollage® is
grateful to the artists and photographers who make
this deep awakening process possible and in all ways
SoulCollage® seeks to be respectful of
their rights.
All articles in SOUL SONGS
are copyrighted 2009,
by Anne Marie Bennett and
Karen Mann.
Articles may be reprinted by
permission only.
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