Council: Labyrinth

With thanks to: jurvetson for Step and Repeat; Telstar Logistics for Pink is the New Yellow; adamjinj for [365-22] A-Z & New ; ramson for Glass mosaic in the Kew Gardens Rhizotron entrance to the treetop walkway

I am One's for Labyrinth

I am One who reminds you that the direct route may not be the obvious one, nor necessarily the best.

In shadow, I am one who confuses you with all the twists and turns.

I am One who wants you to keep on trucking... Trust your intuition when your head spins.

Update:

The most interesting happening, in relation to this card, is that it drew some unasked for criticism from a flickr user, whom I've never met before and who calls himself an art critic.

What's more he used a very interesting phrase, he said I'd "over-egged the omelette". Now I'm aware of this as a phrase for overdoing things but in this context here are my thoughts about it, including as many other over-used clichés as I can think of:

• You can't make an omelette without breaking eggs
• Omelettes are made from eggs so you can't really over-egg one, unless, of course, you are worried about putting all your eggs in one basket.
  
• Egging someone on is to goad them...
  
• In the last 3 or 4 days I've eaten more eggs than ever in my life before... I've had difficulty swallowing and so have been eating scrambled eggs... and yes you can over-egg those... they need a little milk to soften them...
  
• Hard to swallow criticism?
• Getting egg on ones face? From being pilloried, having to sit in the stocks and take all those rotten eggs being thrown?
• Over-egging the pudding? Now yes that's much more possible... but I've given up puddings (since the beginning of this year... and kept to it fairly well too!)
• My mother, a trained but failed artist herself, often used to tell me I ought to have stopped sooner... this developed into a tendency to produce only sketches... and these days something of a preference for the unfinished... I clearly managed to break through this conditioning here!!! Yippee! That's a real turn up for the books. Another step forward.
  
• He certainly wasn't walking on eggshells was he? Isn't that a strange phrase...
  
• I doubt he's a really bad egg... though ever since Pirates of the Caribbean that's had a different nuance for me...
  
• As sure as eggs is eggs... this is a bit of a curate's egg...
  
• Maybe the way to over-egg something is to use overly rich eggs in the first place... like duck or goose... but you mustn't kill the goose that laid the golden egg... and surely that's teaching your grandmother to suck eggs isn't it?

And oh dear since looking up egg on the web I could go on and on... so many phrases that revolve around eggs! I've never enjoyed a criticism more!

Bliss

Thanks to: ArtBrom for Ruby-Throated Hummingbird, tilghmank for hummingbirds, ap. for hummerFlower2_060728, Aim and shoot! for humming, Thomas Hawk for I Needed More Time to Figure You Out , Yogi for Humming Bird (Attempt #2), PhotoFlunky for hummingbird

I made this collage inspired by Inspire Me Thursday's theme today of Hummingbirds. Also because Joy Eliz has recently posted some photos of hummingbirds that she took herself.

This card makes me smile!

2 Committe Cards: Body and Home Seeker

Whew that was a long break - just over a year! Yesterday I mentioned SoulCollage® to Jim for the first time in months and then a few hours later got a flickr mail mentioning a new Soul Collage Card group... so not being one to ignore a synchronicity here are a couple of new cards:

This image has been collaged from the following images on flickr - all with appropriate creative commons licenses: Tratamiento de belleza by jmpznz , Church in the Alps by Pianisimo [Away in EUROPE until the 19th], Stairway to.... by Today is a good day, Morning Grass by Gabriel Robledo, unititled by Seth Tisue

For the moment I'm simply calling it Body.

I am One who needs more rest than you are willing to give me.

This image has been collaged from the following images on flickr - all with appropriate creative commons licenses: Attimo di luce by Eric Perrone, My walk down the beach 4of4 by Kanaka's Paradise Life, untitled by bracchetto, Insects ~ Yum by freebird4, He Doesn't Really Chew Boots by Jennoit, BIG BLUE by Niffty, Crescent Moon by bogenfreund

This is a card about my restlessness here in Bristol. I'm calling it Home Seeker:

I am One who is still looking for the perfect place to be.

I'm sure more words will come with both of them later.

Soul Collage

Tinker mentioned Soul Collage in her welcome comment on this blog. I ordered it immediately, I didn't look at any websites or blogs first; I just felt it was appropriate, and despite coming from a marketplace seller in the US who ships here (UK) and over Christmas it came before I had a chance to blog here again!

The process is actually called SoulCollage® with that registered trade-mark symbol required when using its proper name. So in general I'll just call it Soul Collage.

It has a website - www.soulcollage.com and there are quite a few blogs that are either dedicated to it or that include them in passing, here are some:

• SoulSisterStudio
• SoulFragments
• SoulCollage talkabout
• soulcollage journey
• SoulCollage Adventure - Ashland, Oregon
• Sacred Ordinary
• My SoulCollage Cards
• LinDeZines
  
• Lee's SoulCollage Cards
• KaleidoSoul Inner Surprises
• From The Soul
• Ebenezer Scribe
• Cathy's Blog
  
• AcapellaSoul
• AcapellaSoul Journey

And other websites:

• Kaleidosoul
• SoulCollagers' Respite
• Sparking Art

Soul Collage cards come from the less conscious parts of ourselves. They are created through collage, sometimes directed towards a purpose and other times in a spirit of exploration.

The main system is based on four suits:

1. Committee
2. Community
3. Companion
4. Council

Plus a single Oneness card

The Committee cards are meant to be where one creates images of one's inner personalities - for instance most of us have an inner critic and an inner child in one or more guises, etc. It also allows for those parts which not everyone will have - for instance an inner writer, an inner athlete, etc. This is potentially a very large suit!

The Community cards are intended to be places where our outer influences are given images. Friends, pets and others who have had an impact on us. This could also be a big suit.

Companion cards are animal totems associated with each chakra. So for most people this suit would have 7 cards in it.

Council cards are for the archetypes which influence us most. In the tarot these are the 22 cards in the major arcana. One of the joys of this system is that there is no fixed set, no fixed number.

Cards can be made without knowing which suit they will belong to beforehand.

The way that Soul Collage cards are normally made is by collecting images from magazines and then collaging onto a chosen size of card - for instance 5" by 7". It is suggested that each suit, once assigned to a card, is given a different backing using wrapping paper.

My first impression is that this is a very inspiring way to make a personal deck. It is very much in line with what I've been doing with my weekly mixed media collages. It frees one from having to have any set numbers of cards (except perhaps for chakra cards). And there are already people out there working in this way. It seems that most decks do get to be as numerous as standard tarot decks and their variations.

My grumbles about it are these:

I do wish the 4 main suits didn't all sound so alike - Committee, Community, Companions and Council.

I need to think more about the Companions - I certainly have more than 7! Indeed some of my favourite non-tarot cards are collections of (non-animal) companions - for instance the Australian Bush Flower Cards. I also work with chakras beyond 1-7... and have done for years.

The word Neter is used where I'd be inclined to call it Essence or Spirit. Having worked with flower essences etc I've got very used to interacting with energies in this way. I do appreciate the idea of keeping each card's energy pure. That seems very important to me.

I am concerned about publishing straight-forward collage here. I rarely blog my collages unless I've manipulated them so much that their constituent images are no longer recognisable. The book says:

Should an artist recognise an original image of his or hers on a card shown in this book, we want to assure that artist that the SoulCollage cards are not made for resale, and that the recycled image is being cherished.

All very well, but those images are being published in a book and on a website. The book at least is being sold, as are workshops. And the inventor of all this, Seena B. Frost, has obviously seen it as necessary to protect her own interests with all this registered trade mark stuff... this all makes me uneasy.

I'm happy to use found images in my private work (and already do) but am much less happy to publish the work made using them in anyway.

Yesterday I worked on three images. (I'm doing all mine using digital glue - a lot less messy!) I've printed them out but will only blog one here as the other two are still too clearly a collection of other people's images. For me this is a sign that they are not yet finished.

I've decided on a format of 5x7 inches. This makes for very big cards compared to my normal decks. I expect that I will print out a smaller set that is more shufflable later.