SoulCollage® Workshops

SoulCollage® is a process in which you collage found imagery to make a deck of cards with personal meaning and significance. You can use them to access your intuition, serve as journaling prompts, or just to honor the voices within you. I fell in love with the process because it combined my interests in art, journaling, and spirituality. I run workshops on introductory SoulCollage®, special sessions on each of the suits, and longer workshops geared to more intense card-making and sharing. […]

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Current Artwork

At the moment I’m experimenting with collage and assemblage made out of a special origami paper technique. I’m working with both pre-made birch boards and shaped figures, and assemblage.You can see some of my work in the Flikr gallery at:

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Life Coaching

Is your life pretty good, but you feel like you’re stuck in some areas, or not sure where you want to go next? Could you benefit from a little retuning and help getting out of your own way? Right now I’m training to be a life coach under Martha Beck, the well-known life coach who has many books to her name and is a contributor to O Magazine. I need practice coaching, so right now I’m taking clients for free. […]

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glpQbNU1tz94iHvu.jpgIn my coaching studies, I’ve been fortunate to come across Byron Katie, a wise, kind and patient woman who’s written great books such as “Loving What Is.” Her gig is that if you argue with reality, you always lose. In short, pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional.

Pain itself is hard, but it’s our thoughts about it and what we make it mean that creates significants amount of suffering on top of that. What she says is that all suffering is caused by untrue thoughts, such as “Everyone is smarter than I am,” “I’m such a loser,” and “I’ll die if I fart in yoga class.” And so we live in a continuous torment of our own making.

Katie has you methodically work with each thought, writing it down and doing what’s called “The Work.” This is definitely worth doing, but it’s heady stuff, and takes a lot of introspection and, well, work. I’ve done it with a few thoughts, but tend not to sit down a lot to do it formally. Instead, I’ve come up with a quick technique keeps me “warmed up” and constantly wiggling at those false thoughts from the beginning. Why not nip things at the bud?

I call it the “Byron Katie Bitchslap.” Basically, I  go about my life playing the “is it true?” game. “Someone else should unload these dishes.” Really? “I need to write this blog post right now.” Really?

Because I have kids, they are more than happy to help me with this and throw my misconceptions right down the shithole. Here’s a few examples of how it goes:

#1: I carry a basket load of clean clothes into #3’s room. He takes the entire contents in one armful and shoves it in a drawer. fI twitch and start to hyperventilate. “You can’t do that!”

Boy smiles. “Yes I can. I just did.”

BITCHSLAP.

#2: “You can’t just sit there all day playing Minecraft!”

BITCHSLAP.

Which goes to prove, there’s no greater Zen Master than a 10-year old boy.

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