by C. Gretchen Thomas
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Jenny (Community Suit)
by Susan Antelis
I Am a deep thinker with an artist's soul.
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Over dinner at the April 2016 Facilitator Training in California, several of us shared how our SoulCollage® work has affected our family relationships. It reminded me of a story (used here with permission) told by Susan Antelis during my first Facilitator Training ten years ago. Susan uses SoulCollage® in workshops on Long Island and with her art therapy students at Hofstra University. Her story unfolded during a challenging family summer that was bookended by her daughter's graduation from high school and departure for her first year at university. By August they were barely speaking, and Susan had made SoulCollage® cards to represent her different feelings and thoughts, as well as several elements in this painful situation.
Susan woke up well past midnight one night and couldn't get back to sleep, so she went downstairs to make a card about her cherished daughter's leaving home in the midst of an unresolved rift. And there in the dining room was her daughter creating her own SoulCollage® card about leaving home.
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Jenny Soul
by Jenny Tatiana
I Am Jenny full of soul.
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In the darkest hours of the night, mother and daughter settled into working across from each other in a companionable silence, and eventually they began a mutually respectful, adult-to-adult conversation about what each of their cards meant. It was a turning point in that tumultuous summer, and in their relationship.
Susan adds to this story:
We had actually started the SoulCollage® process together during the winter before that, but I didn't realize how much it meant to her. As the months toward her leaving raced by, our relationship got more tense and that is when we were saved by those chance late night card-making meetings. She took her cards to college, where she consulted them to help her make sense of this difficult life transition. Sometimes she phoned to share how a reading was so accurate and helpful to her, saying "Mom, you won't believe which cards I pulled when I asked about . . ." And yes, this long-distance sharing brought us even closer together, as we both adjusted to the notion of separating and yet staying connected. This is of course the major rite of passage for young adults and their parents at that point in their lives. For my part, in addition to the joys of making MeCards4Kids™ with my grandchildren, SoulCollage® has affected my own family relationships primarily through the new understandings I've uncovered by listening to the wise voices of parts of myself during four-card readings. I sometimes consult my cards just before I go to sleep, especially if I feel bent out of shape by my husband's or my step-children's behavior. (My readings usually reveal that it's my behavior that needs to change.)
One night I was sitting with all my cards spread face-down across our bed, when my husband Robin appeared in the doorway, shifting impatiently from one foot to the other, eager to end his day by climbing into bed. I offered him my paper and pencil and declared, "I'll be done a lot faster if you scribe for me." He graciously did . . . which led to our having a wonderful conversation about my question...which led to our looking together through my family-member Community cards...which led to my sharing with him all the cards I'd made through the years related to our marriage, such as this one from the past:
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Sudden Surgery by Gretchen Thomas
I Am One Whose husband had unexpected heart surgery yesterday. I have felt being married to Robin has been like winning the lottery; now I am confronted with what it would be like if, well, when he dies. We comfort each other, both feeling in the background the spectre of death.
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Sharing cards like this with Robin resulted in the most profound conversation we've ever had about our relationship. He's never scribed for me since, but we talk easily now about how my SoulCollage® practice is evolving, something that never happened until after that night. For both of us it was a very significant marker in our thirty-year connection.
We've all had conversations with fellow SoulCollagers about the meanings of our cards. I think what moved Susan and her daughter beyond one of those conversations into soul-to-soul connection was the act of their making cards together so respectfully in the mysterious dark. What moved my husband and me so profoundly was the deep listening that a SoulCollage® Reading inspires. Those are the complementary and interconnected sides of a SoulCollage® practice: supporting each other in creating meaningful cards, and consulting our inner wisdom though our cards, in order to better understand and appreciate and take action in our lives and in the world.
Today, Susan's daughter and my husband are each very supportive of our SoulCollage® work. They trust that it can move us from a stuck or troubled place to one full of new possibilities, and they have experienced its power to create deep connection. They are each very glad they are part of a SoulCollage® family--and I am very grateful for the healing and growth it has brought.
Gretchen Thomas comes from Welsh/Tennessee miners and an Iowa sisterhood. She taught young children and then their teachers, before serving for thirty years as a Unitarian-Universalist minister. Repeating the Facilitator Training this year has significantly deepened and improved both her Facilitation and her own SoulCollage® practice.
