Almost every day, I use my SoulCollage® app to draw a card. I have a low wicker table that I use as a SoulCollage® display area (some might say, "altar"). I have my three Transpersonal cards spread upon it, and each day I find the physical card corresponding to the one the app has drawn for me, and then prop that up against the back of the table and the wall.
Today, unusually, I drew a Committee card and couldn't face displaying it! The card shows me as having been shamed by others. The card consists of three figures - the shamed person in the middle, and a shaming figure on each side. I had a startlingly strong reaction today - I did not want to put these shaming people on display.
My therapist might have asked, "What can you do to strengthen or comfort this shamed aspect of yourself?"
So I grabbed a stack of cards (at the moment, my cards are in two stacks - the Committee and Council cards in one, which is the stack I took, while my Companion and Community cards are in another pile), and deliberately and consciously flipped through them, looking for support.
In the end, I found I had chosen two Committee cards and two Council cards. I used them to cover up the shaming people, literally, and to give support to the shamed figure, figuratively. [For the photo, below, I moved the Transpersonal cards so they wouldn't distract from what I wanted to show.]
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| today's SoulCollage® display |
You can just see the shamed girl, wearing a white veil, in the middle. On either side of her are the Committee cards. The one on the left is called "avantouinti", which means a dip into a hole in the ice (often in conjunction with a sauna bath). What a healing idea, to do something promoting physical well-being instead of dwelling on what I think that others think of me! The other is one I call, "What the-?!?" This card represents a willingness to call out (or at least identify) inappropriate behaviour by others.
On the upper left you see my "Trickster" Council card. I suppose the Trickster might tell the girl not to take everything so seriously. On the right is a Council card called, "The One and the Many". This is one of the principles said to undergird SoulCollage®. Here, the card seems to say, "That shamed girl is only one little part of you."
I was so pleased to come up with a positive response to my initial negative feelings upon drawing today's card. There is obviously more work to be done with this card, but this felt a manageable start.
