Talking with Seena Frost

Today I am excited to be talking to Seena B. Frost, the originator of the SoulCollage® process. I met Seena first through her book: SoulCollage. Then, in 2004, I took a SoulCollage® facilitator training and met Seena in person. Now, here we are, having a conversation about her new book SoulCollage® Evolving, An Intuitive Collage Process for Self-discovery and Community.

1. How has SoulCollage® changed in the years since your first book, SoulCollage®, An Intuitive Collage Process for Individuals and Groups, was published?

Mainly it has grown! There are nearly 1000 Facilitators now, all over this country and the world. Lots of people with SoulCollage® cards in hand.

The essential practice of creating collaged cards and speaking from the images to a question has not changed except in those unique ways it is absorbed into individual Souls. This is a process meant to access the personal wisdom hidden in Souls, and that wisdom will be unique to that person’s evolving story. So the process is the same but the results are continually new and different. I hear so many reports from both Facilitators and other people doing the process of what has come up to surprise and change and heal them, using their cards.

Facilitators have found ways to adapt the process to fit better into the populations they serve, sometimes by changing wording, such as changing the word Source to God or Spirit; or by not using the suits or all four of the suits. I am sure there are many other adaptations that I have not heard about.

I just hope that our core principles are maintained so people do not begin to read other’s cards for them or sell their cards or make cards for a given list of Neters, rather than making ones for those Neters they recognize within themselves or that have grabbed them to guide and challenge. These would be changes that would make the resulting practice no longer SoulCollage®.

As we grow larger and larger, it is important that we hold to the integrity of the basic practice.

What are the 3 most important things for a SoulCollage® beginner to keep in mind?

This is a difficult question because so much depends on what people bring with them, in their minds, as they come to the experience. One, I suppose that I would say that there are almost no rules in doing this process, and that whatever they create will be right. Ask them to send their inner critic out to tea so they can just have fun creating.

Two, as they browse for images, I would ask them to get out of their minds, and let the images choose them. Trust the process: trust that what grabs their interest has hidden depths of meaning that they don’t need to know yet.

Three, keep it simple. Each card is to have its own energy and name. One primary thing that defeats beginners is that they often try to get too much on one card, make it too complex, by putting several energies on it. So emphasize that a card can be very simple, with just an image and a new background. Then they can make another and another.

Of course four is the experience of speaking from the image, the “I Am One Who” process, which it’s best not to warn them about until you are ready to do it for the first time. Surprise is number four. Let them be surprised by the activity of participating in an image.

If different, what are the 3 most important things you would want experienced SoulCollage® artists to keep in mind?

For experienced SoulCollagers, I would have some different reminders. It’s my experience that people who attempt to do the practice completely on their own at home very often fail to follow through. I cannot underline too strongly the need for an on-going community or at least one other person that you meet and work with. It may be an on-going support group of just three or four, or even an on-line group that you check in with regularly. This is because your cards want to be seen! You need to show them and read from them and be surprised by them again and again within some sort of community framework. So this is number one.

Second is to develop an on-going practice with your cards that you do at home, very often a simple one. Keep your cards out of their box unless you are taking them somewhere. Let them have a special place in your home, like a shelf or a small table or an altar. Draw a couple each day as your Neters of the day. Journal from them if you have time. Look at the cards drawn from your most recent reading and notice synchronicities. Let these Neters continue to speak to you through some ritual or practice. That’s number two.

The third is to keep creating cards. Always be watching for images that grab you. If someday you have too many cards, put those with less energy or the ones that are repeats of others, in a retirement box. Look through them at times to see if an image has reignited for you.

And to add a fourth reminder: Be sure to create the Transpersonal cards and to integrate the understanding of the One and the Many into your practice. It is a core piece of SoulCollage® if you want this process to be part of your spiritual life and not just your psychological life.

In speaking from a card is it better to start from a single image or from the card as a whole?

Definitely begin with an image, usually a central image unless a lesser image on the card grabs your attention as you turn the card over in a reading. It is much easier to actively participate in the energy of one image than to try to speak from the energy of the whole card, even though it is the same energy. At least it should be the same energy. Our right brain is best at imagining and role playing, and that part will go directly to the image that intrigues it. I think it is our left brain that will best speak about the whole card, explain it and talk about its meaning. The left brain is our interpreting part and it gets to name a card. However this naming needs to come second, after the image has spoken. Then the left brain will have the intuitive information it needs to go on and name and explain and interpret the whole card. This process does not forbid, or even consider inferior, our thinking and interpreting function. It is the order in which they are used that is important.

The Universe Communicates in So Many Ways...

I am the one who longs to use language to make people fall in love with the Universe.

This card was made by Janet Bogia. It represents her 5th Chakra, the throat. Rather than a single animal it is a group: primates.

I love the bed I've made

Who are you? I am the one who…
· Loves the bed I’ve made for myself
· Is comfortable and soft – surrounded by light in my bed
· Is artistic, spiritual, and happy – delighted with what surrounds me
· Loves the play of this world and other worlds together and the hands that make that happen
· Has traveled but is most comfortable at home
· Is surrounded by possibilities and reflections – bubbles and beads of happiness, gaiety and creativity
· Is colorful, floating, moving along in new and exciting ways
· Is colorful, buoyant, vibrant, discrete & yet pervasive

This card was made by Ava Walters. What a wonderful goal: to be able to love the bed you've made.

The Still Point

I am the one who is centered.
I am the one who knows I am deeply connected to the natural beauty around me.
I am the one sitting in the Still Point of my Being.

I made this card to bring back a day spent on the Willamette River in Oregon. Picking wild blackberries from the canoe, the sun and sparkling air--such a magical afternoon. But more memorable still was the drive home. In my car, on Interstate 5, I felt such stillness, such radiance. Driving home was Heaven.

Sweet Darkness

This is the latest card in a "suit" that represents poems I love and can speak from memory.

Sweet Darkness

When yours eyes are tired
the world is tired also.

When your vision is gone
no part of the world can fine you.

Time to go into the dark
where the night has eyes
to recognize its own.

There you can be sure
you are not beyond love.
The dark will be your womb
tonight.

The night will give you a horizon
further than you can see.

You must learn one thing:
the world was made to be free in.

Give up all the other worlds
except the one to which you belong.

Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet
confinement of your aloneness
to learn

anything or anyone
that does not bring you alive

is too small for you.

~David Whyte

Witness

This stunning card was made by Ava Walters, a member of our SoulCollage group. I asked her to talk a bit about her card. The Witness is one of the "silent cards" who does not speak in "I am the one...." language. This is what Ava had to say about making her card.

I have had the images for awhile. I love the woman with the elaborate eye make-up and the little angel and devil drawings. I have been wanting to make a Witness card. I started playing with the image of the woman on a card and was going to use her alone since she is so compelling -- then noticed the devil and angel drawings and started experimenting. As it started to take shape, I realized it was my Witness card. The woman looks down with a soft gaze while the 'good' and 'bad' parts of me do our thing -- It does not matter to the witness -- she just watches -- no judgment. Would that I could be more like that.

Ava

Joy!

This card is by Sue Ann Zderic. Here are her words:



"I am the one who is joyful in all that I behold, who says, Yes to life, who rejoices in all the love that flows to me."

Zero Circle

I made this card at Santa Sabina retreat center recently. I was attending my fourth meeting of the Embodied Life Mentorship Program with Russell Delman.

I haven't spoken from this card yet, so have no "I am the one..." statement. However, one of the participants at the gathering read this poem. The card and the poem seem like a perfect reminder of what to keep in my mind and heart.

Zero Circle -- by Rumi (version by Coleman Barks)

Be helpless, dumbfounded,
Unable to say yes or no.
Then a stretcher will come from grace
to gather us up.

We are too dull-eyed to see that beauty,
If we say we can, we're lying.
If we say No, we don't see it,
That No will behead us
And shut tight our window onto spirit.

So let us rather not be sure of anything,
Besides ourselves, and only that, so
Miraculous beings come running to help.
Crazed, lying in a zero circle, mute,
We shall be saying finally,
With tremendous eloquence, Lead us.
When we have totally surrendered to that beauty,
We shall be a mighty kindness.

Second Chakra - Dove

When I walked into Sheila Filan's house and saw this card I said, "Wow! Can I put that on my blog?" I knew other people would want to see it as well.

This card is from the SoulCollage Companion suit. It represents the second chakra, the place of creativity. Here are Sheila's words regarding this card:

I am the one in whom creativity and color are inextricably combined. I am the one who desires to express my creativity in expressions of peace. I am the one whose creativity is flowering and bearing
fruit.

What does this card want from me?
This card wants me to revel in the excitement of new discovery.

What does this card have to give me?
This card gives me the wonderfulness of trickling and oozing color. It give me a feeling of settled enthusiasm.

Sheila and I are offering a workshop to make Companion suit cards. Check out our website SoulCollage Adventure

Let's Celebrate!

I am the one who offers hope.

I am the one who cares about honest leadership.

I am the one who forges alliances to solve problems.


What does this card want from me?
This card wants me to help create a better nation, a better world.


What does the energy of this card have to give me?
Inspiration.

"This victory alone is not the change we seek. It is only the chance for us to make that change. And that cannot happen if we go back to the way things were. It can't happen without you, without a new spirit of service, a new spirit of sacrifice. So let us summon a new spirit of patriotism, of responsibility, where each of us resolves to pitch in and work harder and look after not only ourselves but each other."
--President-elect Barack Obama