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Highlights of this issue:
 Quotation of the Week
Each one of us has a fire in our heart for something.
It's our goal in life to find it and to keep it lit. ---Mary Lou Retton Soul Friends The Voice of a Different Kindred Spirit Each Week  Julia Still Wells, England Greetings to all Image-Weavers! How glad I am to share some of my soul travels with you at the very beginning of the New Year! May our soul language and network continue to grow and benefit not only ourselves, but our immediate circles of friends and colleagues, an ever-evolving public and this dear planet in general. My name is Julia Still and I am currently living in Wells, England. I am part American and have lived much of my life in Vermont and northwest Massachusetts. I was thrilled to have a chance to participate in Anne Marie Bennett's training for facilitators in 2008. What an eye and heart opener that was! It was made even more poignant by the fact that I was able to join a year after my brain surgery, after which I had to re-learn to speak, to walk and to write. However, I believe that I actually embarked on my SoulCollage® journey in the year 2000 in Lenox, Massachusetts. I had returned from France, having thought that I would live in the South, and I was at semi-loose ends at the start of summer. By the end of the year, I was safely nested in a small apartment and employed as an inn-keeping assistant. I remember sitting in a chair wondering what meaningful activity I could engage in during my free moments-it really had to matter, be imaginative and communicative and involve all my journeys thus far. When I speak of journeys, I do include both the internal and external-of which there are many. Then I remembered that I had, over the years and miles, collected all sorts of items from these same travels-postcards, poems, crosses, fabrics, pendants and a multitude of symbolic talismans-and that they were locked away in trunks stored at home. I said to myself, "Why not bring them out and use them not only for me but for others? Why not share them as signposts that people can use if they want to ?"So began my life with collage. I had no real money to speak of and I was and am an ardent recycler, so I began with the cheap and the useful. I used boxes, magazines and books, second-hand cloth with my own fragments. The second-hand shops had a field day when I appeared and many kind folk started collecting and sharing with me. Thus, not only myself, but the local community had become involved in my visual creations. Ten years later and a panoply of experiences in-between in the US, France and England, I am still creating and talking through my pictures. Before I officially became a part of SoulCollage®, I created my own "business" called JourneyArt and printed cards and had a website. I exhibited and sold my work in Lenox, the Omega Institute, southwestern Vermont, Northampton, London, Oxford and Glastonbury. I believe that members of the public enjoyed my images, but largely did not understand them. As a result, the reception of my style of artwork has had difficulty in finding its niche and the commercial side has been limping along for the past five years. I felt lonely, angry and, of course, misunderstood. I had wondered where do I and my images belong and where can they be shared? That is when I discovered SoulCollage® which gave me a renewed focus, definition and destination for my creative work. When I learned about SoulCollage®, by the kindness and wisdom of Deborah Koff-Chapin, I wanted to become a part of its community right away and I began to create images and suits like no tomorrow. The collages spoke a language that I knew, but could find few to share with. In 2007, I signed up to join the Facilitators' Training, but was interrupted by a very large brain tumor that cried for immediate attention. Before the surgery, I had created over 35 collages, then stopped until one month after a grueling operation. I had lost all hearing in my right ear, my vision severely compromised and my balance went out the window. I could speak, but with difficulty. So, what did I have left? My wonderful imagination, my determined heart and body and even a bit of tumor left behind. The answer was my work, my images, my soul. I created a whole separate series of collages dedicated to my brain tumor as well as continuing with the original deck. This was the only way to reach the depths, losses, feelings, and potentials of such an experience and I do feel that the Divine always has been there to guide me through individual pieces. I graduated with a Master's degree in Animal Symbolism in 19th Century French Literature and have always been drawn by what is unspoken and unseen. Even as a child, I kept my internal world to myself, but would come to take a peek at all things wild and natural or aesthetic. My dear mother used to say to me, "if only you would share what you truly know." Well, SoulCollage® has offered me such a vehicle and I cannot stop. Words have never been available to me both because of the conflict of languages (French-English) or the solitude of most of my experiences. But images, metaphors and symbols have. As well as my unconscious and my body, both of which figure largely in my other work. My advice to anyone needing a channel through which to communicate the depth and richness of what is readily available is to try SoulCollage®. Piece experience and emotion together whatever that may be for you. Eventually, a strength and hope will build and solutions will be found, then shared. There is so much that I can say about this tremendous process and anyone out there can e-mail me through Anne-Marie's group on yahoo or at my private address- juliaspirit@live.co.uk. I am deeply grateful for SoulCollage's creation and to Anne Marie who has been such a creative and welcoming friend. So, to all of you, I wish you luck and blessings on your visual path and unique destination. Editor's Note- You can also see some of Julia's beautiful art on her Facebook page. She is registered there as Julia Still. Here are two cards I would like to share with you:  Young Woman in Hallway Committee Suit I am the One who feels lonely and isolated.  Shedding Committee Suit I am the One who is ready to shed what I no longer need and who re-emerges cleansed and with a stronger heart.
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Our Next Tele-Class Awaken Your Muse, with Jill Badonsky SoulCollage® Facilitator and author (among other things) in California.  Wake up your New Year with this joyful, fun class! We will awaken, tap into, and cultivate the personas of creativity and imagination that can serve our resourcefulness as well as our ability to experience joy. Be ready with your journal and a favorite pen to be guided by a few of Jill Badonsky's The Nine Modern Day Muses 
along with the Creative Muse
Archetype in this journey towards authenticity and creative confidence. Date: Tuesday, January 19, 2010 Time: 7:00 pm Eastern, 6:00 pm Central, 5pm Mountain, 4pm Pacific, 2pm Hawaiian, Wednesday 12am in London, Wednesday 11:00am in Melbourne Australia and Wednesday 1pm in New Zealand
Save the date now. All of our tele-classes are FR*EE for members, always! And remember, don't worry if you can't attend... we'll be recording it and you can listen to it anytime in your Member's Only Audio Library. We will give you the phone number and access code to call in that week's issue of Soul Treasures. Upcoming Tele-Classes and Presenters: February 25, 2010 (Thursday, 7 pm Eastern)- Eye of the Hawk SoulCollage® Reading, with Mili Ballard, SoulCollage® Facilitator & Facilitator Trainer in North Carolina. Mili will share a brief description of the transpersonal map of the psyche that includes the biographical, perinatal, and transpersonal levels of consciousness. Founded on the work of Stanislav Grof, transpersonal psychology purports that for sustainable healing to occur, all three levels of the psyche must be touched within the transformative process. Mili will guide us through an "Eye of the Hawk" reading that incorporates these concepts to potentially expand our awareness, consciousness, and personal healing/growth via our own SoulCollage® decks. Mili Ballard has been a SoulCollage® facilitator since May 2005 and a SoulCollage® facilitator trainer since February 2007. Mili is a training consultant within business and industry and also focuses on assisting individuals involved in their own processes of personal transformation. Mili and her life partner Johnny Dillard, also a trained SoulCollage® facilitator, co-lead "Just" Blank Cards, their private practice focusing on using the communicative power of images to enhance relationships with self and others. Date and time to be announced, please stay tuned! March 2010 - Demeter and Persephone Myth/the Mother-Daughter Archetypes, with mother-daughter team Cat and Darcy Meehan, SoulCollage® Facilitators in California. More details coming soon. April 2010 - Emperor/Empress Archetypes, with Lisa Abend, SoulCollage® Facilitator in Massachusetts. More details coming soon. May 2010- Living Through Breast Cancer with SoulCollage®, with Anne Marie Bennett, SoulCollage® Facilitator in Massachusetts and Win Griffin, SoulCollage® Facilitator in California. Join two breast cancer survivors who have used the process and practice of SoulCollage® for healing on their journeys with breast cancer. More details coming soon.
Creative Journey Game
Now Seeking New Travelers!  Save $20... MidWest SoulCollage® Facilitator Training April 23-25, 2010 in Minneapolis, Minnesota    Registration
is now
open for Anne Marie Bennett's next facilitator training, to be held at
Maureen Carlson's Center for Creative Arts in Jordan, Minnesota, about 20
miles southwest of the twin cities.This training will begin at 3 pm on Friday April 23 and end at 2 pm on Sunday April 25.
Register by January 31, and save $50
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SoulCollage®
Expressionss
