Most sessions contain three parts: introducing the process, making cards, and “voicing” cards.

To make a card intuitively, you look through images until one grabs you. Being grabbed by an image doesn’t mean you love the picture or think it would look great displayed in your house. What we’re looking for is an emotional connection with an image. 

Since each card contains a single energy, many times you are looking for a main image, and then a background to put it on. Experimenting with lots of backgrounds and arrangements on a 5x8” card is tons of fun, and as you go, you’ll probably start adding secondary images too!

You need images (magazines, pictures, books, ephemera), scissors, a glue stick, and 5x8” cards, and clear card sleeves (to protect the images). Hanford Mead has starter kits with cards, a card frame (to see how the images look together in the right dimensions), clear sleeves, and glue sticks. Let me know if you need help finding images.

Once you know what kind of card you have–what suit it belongs to–consider the card. Meditate on what it means to you. To voice a card means to say, from the perspective of the card, what wisdom it has to give you. We use the phrase “I Am One Who” to start the voicing. 

Seena Frost, inventor of SoulCollage®, once said every person has a happy child card. So you make a card that represents the parts of you that were happy as a kid. It might show things that remind you of memories, or your family, or even the times you squirreled away to read a book. This card might sound something like this: 

I Am One Who reminds you of the simple joys of childhood. I am always with you, no matter how difficult adult life can be.

Typically, the next questions are 

• What do you need me to know?

• What gifts do you have for me?

• Is there anything else I need to know?

You continue to answer these from the card’s voice, without describing the images that are on the card. If this seems kind of hard to understand at first–don’t worry! I will explain this more in my events.

After you’ve made a card, the first thing you want to think about is what SoulCollage® suit it might belong in. The four suits are Committee, Community, Council, and Companions.

Committee–the parts of you, your personality, your history, your psychology

Community–your people, your pets, your ancestors, your favorite artists/writers/musicians

Council–the archetypes that play a role in your life (there are so many, but common ones include the Warrior, the Mentor, the Seeker–the sky’s the limit on where you take your archetypal inspiration from!)

Companions–these cards come from your energy centers, or chakras. Each center has an animal companion. This is probably the hardest suit for beginners, but there are lots of dedicated meditations to figure out making these cards as you go!

It is my belief that everyone–absolutely everyone on this planet–is creative. That said, you absolutely do not need to be an artist to benefit from SoulCollage®. The process of SoulCollage® encourages us to leave our judgmental brains at the doors. When we gather to make cards, and to speak and share from them, we do not comment on or make suggestions for each other’s cards. This creates a welcoming space for every person’s creativity to flourish.

I won’t lie–the first time you try a new creative practice–or anything new–it can be scary. But most of the fear comes from your inner critic. What I’ve found, and heard others say as well, is that the more you explore the parts of yourself, including the inner critic and other challenging parts of you, the more free you feel. 

When you begin mapping out who you are, how you relate to the world, your relationships to your community, it strengthens your inner wisdom. 

This isn’t to say I don’t sometimes have my inner critic crop up! Absolutely everyone does. But the more I engage in creative practices and get to know me, the more I realize my inner critic is my jerk brain trying to sabotage me.

SoulCollage® is not therapy. It can be therapeutic to examine your inner world, but I am not a therapist, and this process is not licensed to treat any mental illnesses. 

I would definitely recommend, if you’re experiencing mental health issues, that you pursue SoulCollage® alongside regular meetings with a therapist, if only to process anything hard that comes up.

I’ve got you covered—the SoulCollage® website has videos showing you how it works: https://soulcollage.com/get-started/