Anne Marie: Welcome to KaleidoSoul, Seena! I’m delighted that you’ve stopped by my blog on your journey ’round the world with your new book, SoulCollageĀ® Evolving.
Seena: Thanks, Anne Marie!
Anne Marie: Why don’t we start at the beginning.Ā Please tell us the story of the origin of SoulCollageĀ®.
Seena: Many roots in my past eventually joined and grew into the blossoming and above-ground āplantā we now call SoulCollage. These are too numerous to identify here, but in 1989, there came a moment at the end of a three year program with Jean Houston, when an integration occurred and I made my very first cards.Ā I called them Neter cards and these were all cards that now would be in my Community suit because they were all for people. Over years and with input from others, this first project eventually evolved into people creating cards in the four suits, symbolizing the Manyness of our Souls, and one card, the Source card, as a symbol for the Oneness of all created forms.
At first I used these cards as a therapeutic tool in clinical support groups; then, because everyone loved creating them and found much inner wisdom through them, I introduced the process into other kinds of community groups. It can still be used as a therapeutic tool but it also can be used individually as a spiritual practice and in groups as a transformational ritual.
Anne Marie: Why do you think that people find the SoulCollageĀ® process so useful?
Seena: It seems to me that creating and speaking from images is too much fun to be called useful! Perhaps valuable, or transformative or healing or surprising. Hardly useful, except perhaps as a ātoolā in therapy.
Anne Marie: How many Facilitators are there now and in what countries?
Seena: This changes by the month so I wonāt try to answer that!Ā [Editorās note: Having looked on SoulCollage.com, it says that there are (as of November 2010) almost 1000 trained Facilitators who live in or are doing SoulCollageĀ® workshops in 20 countries:Ā Australia, Canada, China, Egypt, England, Ireland, Italy, Germany, Greece, Japan, Lithuania, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Philippines, Portugal, Scotland, Switzerland, South Africa, and the United States.]
Anne Marie: Seena, what is your personal practice with your own SoulCollageĀ® cards?
Seena: Every morning I draw two cards from my deck of over 100 cards. I have the cards backed by suits and I always draw one Community card and one from another suit. These become my Neters of the day and I put them up on my altar next to the 3 Transpersonal cards which are always there. The rest of my cards are in a pile in the center. I record which cards I have drawn in my daily journal, and sometimes I will email or phone a person who is my Neter and just let them know– if they are alive and I know them personally. I donāt read from these two cards. I just have them up as special Neters to remember.
Other practices, not daily, are sitting and tearing out images for my Facilitator Trainings, and also meeting with a peer group to do readings. We try to do this at least once a month or more if possible. (I have other practices like daily meditation and yoga and walking which are not so directly oriented to SoulCollageĀ®.)
Anne Marie: How has your personal practice changed you over the years?
Seena: This of course varies greatly with everyone who does some sort of a daily practice, and it is hard for me to separate out the results of my daily practice from my current life work which is so involved with SoulCollageĀ®. This process surely has changed my life because Iām thinking about it probably thirty percent of my time. Unlike most people!
But just in terms of my own evolving Soul, I believe that the images on many of my cards have taken on a vivid life of their own, and continually remind me of energies I have available to me. I think I use more of myself because of this, use more of my potential, and I balance my energies better because of this consciousness.
I also have a real sense of the marvelous aliveness of the world around me, of the archetypes that inhabit our invisible world, and who are calling on me and all of us constantly. They guide us and nudge us. The synchronicities of the cards help me know this. I do not feel alone or separate in the universe and have no fear of shedding this body and going on without it into other realms.
Anne Marie: What role is SoulCollageĀ® playing in the healing of our planet?
Seena: I think it has potential to do quite a bit if it continues to grow. The more people heal their own inner wars, the better they will be at healing the wars in families and communities and nations. However that is only the beginning of what I think is possible.Ā If enough people gather, using their images to find consciousness, they can become one more of the imaginal cells forming and joining up in our chaotic world to envision the butterfly that we could become.
SoulCollagers can gather and show that cooperation is better than competition, that partnership is better than hierarchy or patriarchy, that knowing the one and the many is far, far better than insisting on one way or the other. Perhaps there can be a creative inclusiveness in SoulCollageĀ® that will be catching.
Anne Marie: Powerful answers, Seena. Now tell us what we are all longing to hear.Ā Where can we find your new book, SoulCollageĀ® Evolving?
Seena: Just go to this page on Amazon and you’ll find it right there!
Anne Marie: Thank you again for spending time with us today.
Seena: Thank you for having me!Ā It’s been a pleasure.
I madeĀ this card years ago and always thought of it as my “sacred space” card, but then I listened to Kathryn Antyr’s KaleidoSoul tele-class this month and learned quite a bit about the many Goddess archetypes.
