3. Now slowly place your SoulCollage
cards, one by one on the blanket.
You can do this in whatever order makes
sense for you.
For example, following the tradition
of the Medicine Wheel, I placed my Committee Cards in the East, Community Cards in the South, Companion Cards in the West,
and Council Cards in the North. Do whatever feels intuitive to you.
4. As you place each card, name it silently
or out loud, with a few words of honoring:
For example: “My Awakening to the Day in Gratitude Self – What a Beauty!”
“My Inner Critic – Ah, look at how she holds me to perfection.”
“Sasha – My Heart Chakra Lion – How Bold and Protective
You Are!”
Appreciate the card as you place it,
and re-member the history of its making.
This does not have to be long and involved,
- in a short moment you can have a flash of recognition of the card’s role in your life and that’s all that’s
needed. It’s just this flash of honoring this presence that has come to you.
5. Once all the cards are placed, survey
the beautiful tapestry of images before you,
Notice the themes and interconnections;
how some cards may represent the energies of more than one suit. Honor these
connections by moving the cards into groupings that feel intuitively right. Perhaps
you’ll have suits that border on each other, or overlap. Enjoy this seeing of the larger picture, and bringing the parts
into meaningful relationship with each other.
6. Now, focus in on each of the suits
individually:
a. Beginning with the Committee Suit,
notice what parts of yourself you have honored. Acknowledge and appreciate them. Ask
if there are any voices that have not yet been honored. Write these down and
make an intention to find a way to honor them.
b. Look at your Community cards now as
a whole. Appreciate the web of connection that brought these people into your
life. Ask yourself “Who in your community have you not made a card for yet?” Envision how you might honor your
relationship with them, what images come to mind. Journal on these.
c. Companion Suit – Honor each
of the animals and see their relation to one another. Ask if the energy that
you currently feel connected to in each chakra has found it’s animal companion and its full expression? Close your eyes and scan each of your chakras and see if any animals come to visit. What are they telling
you? Journal on this.
d. Council Suit – As you view these
cards as a whole, you might sense that there are some cards that represent large impersonal forces (like life and death, fate,
rebirth, etc.) and some have more of a personal feeling, of an archetypal energy that manifests itself to you in a form that
you have a relationship with. Group your Council in a way that feels meaningful
to you. Picture them as a Council that you can come and sit before and hear each
of their voices. Make some gesture of honoring them. What archetypal presences
have you felt compelled by in your life, that still need to be acknowledged? Journal
on these.
7. If you have a Source, SoulEssence
or Witness Card, turn your attention to these transpersonal presences. (or the
object you have chosen to represent them.) Sit in silence beholding the many and the One, and let the awareness of this reality
– the many forms of the Divine and the One Source – be felt on a deep level.
8. Then as you feel this reality deepen
in your consciousness, just rise up and using a drum, rattle, bell, chimes or maybe your voice, make music over each of the
suits, honoring them and calling them to wake up and let this energy be activated, calling upon the neters to be fully present
in your life, and ask them to awaken you to their teachings. It’s
said that the medicine tools are always awakened, it’s we who need to be awakened to their medicine. Then
make music over the Transpersonal cards, to honor the Unity that is reflected there.
Take as long as you wish to do this and voice your own intentions for your relationship with your cards,
in whatever way feels authentic to you.
9. Seal your work with a final statement
of intention and gratitude, perhaps with a good strong breath blown over the cards, and then blow out your candle.
10. Then leave your cards out for as
long as possible, and let yourself just absorb their energy and bear witness to them.
When it is time to put them away, do so with a reverent slowness, so that each is incorporated back into the deck with
gratitude and appreciation. Reflect on any journaling that you have done during
this ritual, and let it inspire you to a deeper relationship with your cards, and to a renewed creativity.
This is my New Year’s wish for
you: That you find a way to truly honor the presences that have come to teach you, and may this practice deepen your soul
work & your love and gratitude for this process & your SoulCollage community.
Blessings, Jeanne Marie
©
Jeanne Marie Merkel 2009
