I mentioned last week I would write about my experiences at my retreat with creativity and Soul Collage. I have attended a weekend with Soul Collage, but this was the first time I combined an 8-day silent retreat with a creative activity like this. I wondered what would happen.
I really enjoy Soul Collage. First, you must know a quirk about me – I failed scissors in kindergarten. God did NOT sprinkle many fine motor talents into my DNA into my soul when I was created so being artsy isn’t not a strength BUT Soul Collage is something I and really anyone can do.
Creating a collage is of course putting together a picture using photos from various sources to create a new photo as a form of self-expression. Soul Collage goes much deeper. This trademarked process was created by founder Seena Frost who was a trained marriage counselor and held a Masters degree in psychology and theology. It is way of seeing an aspect of who you are in a new way. The only rule is we can’t publish on the internet our cards as we have used copyrighted material from books and magazines to create them and that would violate others’ rights, so I can’t show you what a finished card looks like.
Most cards are 5 inches by 7 inches and are composed usually of 2-3 various photos pasted together. Often one serves as a background with another smaller one becoming part of the big picture.
I created 2 or 3 cards each day and then took them to my spiritual director each morning during the retreat. What added to the retreat was her questions and insights as she looked and noticed things about the cards. I was amazed how each set had a theme about them that reflected my prayer and deepen my retreat. God is amazing.
The process of creating these cards added to my time with God. Creating them slowed me down, helped me hear God, and opened my heart to new ideas for journaling and prayer. It was a peaceful practice.
The retreat yielded many other lessons – time with God is always fruitful and my journal is full of notes that will still bear more lessons yet to be harvested. I know this practice of getting away and sitting quietly at the Lord’s feet feeds my soul each year and renews my spirit.
Other lessons learned: I knew I was carrying heavy grief from others but never realizing how much of my own grief I was still clinging to. I was reminded to let go and allow God to unfold my time in God’s way, not mine. Walking the labyrinth brought about amazing surprising lessons each time – about letting go and realizing that many things will never be the same but also wonderful gifts, yet to come. This theme of trust in God this year that keeps growing and reappearing in my life and now this word “open heartedness.” What does this mean? And the power of small act of kindness – ahh a future blog post of about that!
So many lessons and insights. Yes, a rich retreat and time with God. God is amazing!
How has God blessed you lately?
These activities do sound very amazing, Jean! I’ve not heard of soul collage but how fascinating. I’m glad you came away refreshed from these rich experiences. It gives my heart a boost too just hearing about them. 🙂
Look up the Soul Collage website. It is a fascinating and insightful retreat activity, Lisa. Retreats are always refreshing and ones that lead me closer to God with great lessons. This one presented some interesting distractions too but I did learn even from them.
So glad your time away proved fruitful and uplifting, Jean. Praise God! I’m curious about the Soul Collages. Were you given prompts to steer your thinking? Or did you just open your heart to wherever the Spirit led? I’ve dabbled in Bible art journaling–would like to do more!
all spirit led. They had tons of books and magazine available full of photos to chose from and we were invited to chose whatever called to us. It was amazing what “jumped” into our hearts. Sometimes what didn’t make sense at first came together in such meaningful message at the end. very powerful!
Thank you for explaining further, Jean!
These collage cards reminded me of a trend when I was in high school that some of us did. We’d take an old Coke bottle and cut meaningful words/phrases that we though described us at the time out of old magazines. Once we glued them onto the bottle, we had quite the self-portrait. Oh, how I wish I had hung onto that one item, but it’s probably better staying in the past as is my past self.
I’m so happy that this retreat was both different and rewarding for you in so many ways, Jean. I’m looking forward to hearing more. Blessings!
love the idea of putting this on a coke bottle. How creative!! would be so fun!!
thank you jean…..great idea abt making pics of a current you with other pics…i assume its another way to journal and keep track of past present and future??..can take pics from diff sources??..im with you ..flunked scissors…cannot cut straight anything…God is blessing me by your blog and the concepts you present weekly…
peace of the Lord be with you…
yes it was a form of journaling and free art in some ways. You just created freely and all of a sudden there was an insight in front of you – a peek into your heart and a lesson for yourself. Glad I am not the only one to flunk scissors!! haha