A Mid -Year, Summer Solstice Ritual with SoulCollage® Cards

Inspired by my friend and co-blog creator, Karen Paquin, who recently celebrated the 2^nd year anniversary of her blog “The Wonder of Runes” (Yay Karen! Congratulations!), I decided to conduct a ritual for the upcoming summer solstice.

You may remember that Karen and I launched Engaging Inner Wisdom on the winter solstice, and then started the new year by reflecting on the past and envisioning the future. We began planting seeds of intention, and doing the work necessary for the seedlings to grow. We’ve been nurturing our projects since the vernal equinox.

On Friday, June 21, 2013 we will experience the longest day of the year (shortest night), aka the summer solstice, and as a result we will have an abundance of energy, time, and the vibrant enthusiasm associated with the sun at our fingertips.

This bold energy of encouragement brings with it the opportunity to expand, work hard, play hard, and move forward, thrust into our big, bold adventure that began earlier this year. Soon, on the autumnal equinox, we can harvest all that comes from this exuberant, vibrant, energy-filled time. What we harvest doesn’t just come from work, it can come from the time we spend with family and friends, vacationing, enjoying leisure time, and basking in the sun.

Intent on knowing how to put my best foot forward as I move into the second half of the year (we are after all, at the midway point) I enlisted my SoulCollage® cards to use in my ritual. These cards are considered a “personal oracle” because I created the cards and selected the images used on them,  I ask the questions and I answer the questions – in doing this I tap into my subconscious and receive powerful insight. If you create your own deck, you can do the same thing. I will talk more about SoulCollage®  in upcoming blog posts, but for now, I will share my summer solstice ritual with you, and the meaning I derived from my SoulCollage® cards.

When I work with my cards I like to set sacred space, so I set off with my altar to regale the sun in my backyard. I lit a candle, shuffled my cards and decided to ask them this question: “As I step into the second half of the year, with the sun’s energy at its height, which Neters (cards) wish to guide me and move me forward?” After selecting four random cards I engaged in several SoulCollage® writing activities, and here is what the cards had to "say" to me (abbreviated for the post):

Card #1

This card provides me with peace of mind and a sense of clarity. I am reminded that when I listen to my intuition, I can trust in the future. This card tells me to hold on to summer’s light and energy, but don’t cling too tightly. Its green color suggests that my heart chakra plays a role in the upcoming months. I am also reminded to lay out a plan, and gently follow it.

Card #2

This card focuses more on a path, a narrow path. It speaks to the importance of structure and passion. It encourages me to follow my path, and to make sure that I don’t sacrifice structure for passion. I can see clearly, and I am encouraged to engage in joint ventures.

Card #3

This card is all about peace, harmony, loving kindness and compassion. It reminds me to stay heart centered and open my heart to both give and receive. When I do this I will benefit from the marvelous gems that are near and dear to my heart. It suggests that even though things may get strewn about at times, and seem chaotic, as long as I am operating from my heart, I will be ok.

Card #4

 

This card encourages me to “jump on board” and not get weighed down by my "wet blanket" i.e. my negativity, whining, and comparing myself to others. I need to turn my thinking around and see the marvelous opportunities that are just waiting around the bend for me. It reminds me to be grateful! I need to turn and look at the blessings in my life! There are marvelous, golden opportunities awaiting me on the horizon.

So, what do I get from all this for the next six months? -

Follow my true heart’s path. Fill myself with passion, but remember to create a structure from which to operate. Stay true to my heart, remain loving and kind, and be grateful for all that I have and all that awaits me. Things are fine and moving forward splendidly. I don’t need to doubt or second-guess. I just need to do my work, keep the faith, and remain true to myself.

Engaging Your Inner Wisdom – What rituals do you engage in that support you as you move through your year? Have you ever thought of doing SoulCollage®? Maybe you would be inspired to celebrate the summer solstice by walking a labyrinth. Perhaps you use art making as a ritual. Maybe you rise every morning to pray and meditate? Engaging in rituals helps us to connect more deeply to the activity. I'd love to hear from you about your rituals and encourage you to find meaningful rituals that can enrich and deepen your life!

Another Messy Work Space

I'm a big city girl; always have been; always thought I would be.  Maybe I will, but recently, I discovered a new world and, if you will, a new aspect to me; something that I enjoy almost as much as I enjoy writing or working with Runes, something that makes the big city feel like it is a world away, even though I still live within its borders.

It's my yard!  When we moved into our house a few years ago, there was a lovely garden in the back yard, a lovely garden that didn't suit us at all.

  

After two years of largely letting it go, we are taking it back and making it our own.  We are removing trees and rose bushes and trimming back lots of other vegetation so that we can plant food.

Last month, Chantel shared a picture of her messy workspace as she makes her way through a creative process.  Now, I want to share my messy workspace - my yard/garden - as I make my way through the process of empowering myself to overcome feelings of helplessness and frustration.  We still have a long way to go in this multi-year undertaking, but we're under way and it feels great!

It is messy, but it is also progress.  My husband removed the scraggly cedars that ran along the side of the porch:

Before and after tree removal with the mess in the foreground

I cleared two sections and planted corn in the space along the fence:

Before the flowers (roses removed from along the fence) and after.

And veggies (lettuce, broccoli, onions, beans, and tomatoes) in the other section where roses once stood:

Before (where the roses were in a circular enclosure) and after where the dark soil awaits my veggies.

 It's a trial this summer; a learn as I go process.  If I get some food this year, I will be very happy;  if not, I will be grateful for the experience and continue to prepare the rest of the yard for next year, when I plan to triple the growing area.  I am so excited and driven by this opportunity!

The only experience I've had with purely personal satisfaction like this was writing my novel, my blog about Runes and, well, doing almost any kind of writing.  But gardening, planting and growing my own food, feeds a very different part of my psyche than writing does.

They are both evolved, sophisticated, and educated, but along very different lines.  It's absolutely fascinating to be so enthralled by two such different feats, yet have them strike so many of the same chords from almost opposing sides and give me such a strong feeling of satisfaction, peace of mind, and overall fulfillment.

When I write, I feel like I can go any place and any time in history that I want; create my own world and experience.  When I garden, I feel like I am going back to a world that was simpler, maybe harder, but grounded and full of meaning.  It has truly given me another wondrous path on which to engage my inner wisdom.

Practice Engaging Your Inner Wisdom
Gardening is something I never thought I would like or do.  This week, I challenge you to try something new, something that you never thought you would do or something you have been wanting to try, but haven't.  Then, let me know how it goes and how the experience affected the way that you understand and follow your inner wisdom.

Creative Process Need Processing?

They say, “just begin at the beginning”, unfortunately it’s not always that easy. Frankly, we don’t always know where to begin, and how to move forward. For example, I wasn’t sure what to write about today. I knew I wanted to talk about my experience of being creative and in "process" over the last two weeks, but I struggle with knowing what I want to say about it.

So, let me just start in the middle. I’m in process, my space is a mess, ideas emerge with fits and starts, I find myself elated, frustrated and filled with doubt from moment to moment; each laying of a color or collage takes me through an emotional roller coaster. The sad part is that I’m only working on a piece that’s 2’x3’, and made solely for my own edification and “movement through” a previously turbulent two weeks. WTF?

International Soul Art Day work in progress

It’s amazing to me how connected and committed I can be to “creative expression” and “process” while simultaneously embracing doubt, fear, resistance and an inner struggle. What’s up with that? Does it ever stop? *Sigh… I don’t know.

Sometimes I wonder why creating can feel painful and sad, and yet such tremendous wisdom can be gleaned during and after the process. And then there's the shear joy and elation that comes with a product that pleases – it's the proverbial “cherry” or “icing”.

“Hallalujah!” I shout, triumphant over my creative passage; it’s done – until the next blank canvas, music score, or journal page beckons. “Why do I do this to myself?“ I wonder.

I know the answer, I just don’t want to admit it.

I like the emotion-filled, unpredictable, “getting my hands dirty” feeling that comes from being fully engaged and committed to “playing” and expressing myself creatively – even if it means being deeply moved and impacted in unexpected ways – even if it means experiencing profound feelings that I can’t articulate, and sometimes have trouble sitting with. Does that make me a masochist?

I also struggle with the frivolity of it all – how can I rationalize cutting, pasting, gluing, coloring, and playing with Styrofoam, buttons, glitter, mosaic tiles, affirmations, and whatever else crosses my path? “Seriously? That’s how you spent your day?” my critic roars, incredulous.

Whoa Nelly…

my messy workspace

I find myself repeatedly taking deep breaths, holding onto the armrests of my chair for dear life. "Can I do this?" I ask myself. "I can do this." I tell myself.  I LOVE to do this!  (despite appearances). I feel better when I do this. My life is more meaningful because of doing this.

Ok… (deep breath) now let’s continue, I’m not done. I’m still in the middle of it, scrap papers strewn haphazardly around me, paint brushes floating in dirty water, creative ideas that I haven’t glued down yet, but keep assessing for their “artistic” contribution. My art supplies lie splayed out, scattered in a frenzied whirlwind of possibility. And me, I sit as the eye of the storm, pleased to be in the middle of it!

How about you? What’s your creative process like?

A Colorful Path to Inner Wisdom

Happy May!  No matter where you live, the colors are changing; in the northern hemisphere from the cool shades of winter to the blossoming flowers of spring and, in the southern hemisphere from the heat of summer to the rich reds, oranges, and golds of fall.

These powerful color shifts give us the opportunity to recognize how color affects our lives.  We may not think color impacts us, but look at the colors on the walls in your home or in the artwork you have hanging on your walls.  Consider why some people have to have the red car instead of the navy blue one.  You may not think about it, but color constantly impacts your life.

Color has always been important to me, from my peacock blue trench coat in a sea of black ones in New York City, to my pink spotted rain boots, I need color and I recognize its influence on me, my mood, and my energy.

In fact, color is one of three important tools - Runes, color, and writing - that I use on my path to inner wisdom.  I discussed how I use the Runes in my last post and will cover writing in my next one.  Today, it's color!

The tools that guide and support my path

Color is so important to me that I have created my own color system based entirely on the feelings that certain colors evoke in me.  I have used this system personally and with my wholeness coaching clients with great success for the past few years and it builds on my emotional attachment to color; that is to say that different colors evoke very clear emotions from me.

When I tell people that I use color for guidance and support, one of two things usually enters their minds - chakras or chromotherapy.

Chakras

Although the chakras never spoke to me and do not guide my path, they provide guidance to millions of people around the world, so I would be remiss if I didn't give them a brief mention.  Chakras essentially represent life force energy centers in our bodies.  Wikipedia gives a reasonable overview of each one and I summarize them in the chart below.

Chromotherapy or color therapy is used for healing, focused on the energy a body emits in an effort to balance that energy.  I can use myself to explain this, using an idea I wrote about earlier this year - intuitive listening.  Knowing that I am a very high energy, active, and outgoing person, logic seems to dictate that I should be drawn to vivid, warm colors like red and orange.  But, I prefer dark purple and forest green.  I chose these colors intuitively, because they balance my energy.

My application of color differs from color therapy and chakras as do my color interpretations.  My scale includes roughly fifty different colors and I use them in two ways.  First, my color system is designed to balance or support an individual.  Second, when working with clients, we determine together what colors they need, then I make a totem for them, a Tied Totem.  A Tied Totem is a bracelet made from string, akin to a friendship bracelet, and some of my clients wear them as a reminder of the issues on which they are working, abilities that they have or for empowerment or encouragement.  For example, right now, I am wearing one with two colors to help with strength and focus, though I am feeling like it is time for a change.  Perhaps it's the energy of spring beckoning!

It is important to take many aspect of your world into consideration when deciding what colors will help you at a given time.  This includes everything from your state of mind to the season.  Sometimes the colors come quickly, intuitively, and at other times, they need some reasoning.  The process is important, because color can impact your well-being, profoundly and in very subtle, but important ways.

To help you explore color in you life, I'm giving you a couple of tables.  The first table shows how the three systems - chakras, chromotherapy, and my color totems -  interpret colors, each using them in slightly different ways for slightly different purposes.  The second offers a more nuanced interpretation that my color system uses.  Whichever one speaks to you, make sure you dig deeper into their meaning before applying them.

Color	Chakra	Chromotherapy		Color Totems
	Crown, calm, open	Contemplation and spirituality		Strength
	Third eye, balance, intuition		Devotion, intensity	Protection
	Throat, understanding, communication, expression		Cool, soothing, practical	Openness
	Heart, love, passion, deep emotion	Nature, peace, calm		Focus
	Solar plexus, empowerment, overcoming fear	Energy, communication, curiosity		Energy from different sources
	Sacral, creativity, enthusiasm	Warm, social, freeing		Creativity, passion
	Root, physical pleasure, survival, primal instincts	Passion, energy, assertiveness		Passion from the heart, raw passion, empowerment

Color	Color Totems
	New life, new phase
	Consistency, constant
	Mourning, loss
	Calm, non-confrontational
	Joy, pleasure
	Loyalty
	Patience
	Peace
	Honesty

Practice Engaging Your Inner Wisdom:
Have you thought about color in your life and how if affects you personally?  Using the tables above, which ones resonate with you?  Which ones do you think you could use in your life right now to help you on your path to inner wisdom?

If you're interested in learning more about my color system, please contact me for a complimentary consultation.  Now, get out and enjoy the colors of the seasons!

Walking the Labyrinth to Your Center

Synchronicity abounds in my life these days; I'm connecting in marvelous and mysterious ways. At a spring equinox labyrinth walk that I co-facilitated, I met a woman who shared a wonderful story about engaging with the labyrinth. As it turned out, she is a writer, so I offered her the opportunity to be Engaging Inner Wisdom's first guest writer, and to share her experience with you.

Before I introduce you to our guest writer though, let me offer some background information about labyrinths. As a Veriditas Certified Labyrinth Facilitator I have supported hundreds of people in using the labyrinth as a method to engage their inner wisdom.

Chartres Style Labyrinth
Built by Myra Elaine Ryneheart

Labyrinths are ancient tools that help us hear and listen to the voice inside. Many people think they are mazes, but they aren't. Unlike a maze, a labyrinth has only one path - the same path in, leads to the center, and then leads out again - walking the labyrinth is about taking a journey to your center. Used in a variety of settings like schools, hospitals, churches, parks, prisons, veteran's administrations, spas, and homes, and for many purposes, including contemplation, meditation, problem solving, grief processing, and enhancing creativity, labyrinths provide deeply meaningful experiences. Labyrinths are found throughout the world, and come in a variety of designs; to find a labyrinth near you visit www.labyrinthlocator.com. If you are in the Los Angeles area come walk with me on World Labyrinth Day, May 4th.

I asked today's guest writer, Luella Wagner, to share what engaging inner wisdom means to her and the insights labyrinth walking evoke:

"Inner wisdom is a “knowing” that comes from deep inside; most of the time it is the “still small voice”, but it can be a dream, a thought, or that gut-wrenching feeling telling you that something isn’t right.  Basically, it is a person’s intuition.  It is one of the most valuable tools that one has at their disposal, yet rarely used.  Like any worthwhile endeavor it takes time, effort, and patience to develop.  The first step to tapping into your inner wisdom is to sit in silence.  That’s it.  Sit in silence.  You might not get an answer right away, but if you keep on practicing sitting in silence, the answers will eventually come to you.  It’s that simple"
~Luella Wagner


What’s in a Labyrinth?  Only You Know the Answer.  
by Luella Wagner
I had walked the labyrinth for years.  I had read about them, studied them, researched them, and taught them, but there was something missing. There is a Native American adage that says, “If you want to understand something, stand under it.”  I couldn’t stand under a labyrinth, so I decided to stand on one, by walking it every day until I found the secrets hidden beneath it.  There was a labyrinth close by my house and if I missed a day walking it, I resorted to my finger labyrinth that someone had given me a long time ago.  I started my quest on December 21, the winter solstice.  I purposely did not Google.  I wanted to see what would come from within or what would come to me without any effort.

So many times we wish that we could just concentrate on the spiritual and not have to worry about “paying the bills.”  I just wanted to walk the labyrinth, pray, and meditate, but I had to substitute teach.  The funny thing is, it was there that I found hidden mysteries of the labyrinth.  While teaching a class in Ancient Greek civilization, I came across the double-sided ax, the same design that is part of the turns in the labyrinth.  I discovered that the double ax was a symbol used by Greek priestesses as part of their ceremonies.  I started to see the labyrinth as a source of divine feminine energy.   I quickly discovered that the same design also symbolized the butterfly. 

Butterfly Gift

I knew all the analogies of the butterfly:  new life, resurrection, transformation, and then I came across the “butterfly effect.”   The term was coined by Edward Lorenz while studying for his doctorate at MIT.  In essence he discovered that the motion of the butterfly’s wings could alter the course of a tornado.  I suddenly saw the importance of every little step I took, choosing to use paper instead of plastic, letting someone on the freeway go ahead of me, holding the door open for someone as I left the 7/11 store, or smiling at someone in the elevator. Even saving a penny would make not only a difference, but a huge difference.  All of a sudden I realized that my tiny actions could have a great impact.  

I continued to walk the labyrinth.  I walked in the sun, in the rain, at night and during the day.   My favorite time was nighttime.  It was quiet, soothing.  The day was over and I could reflect. Again, through my substitute teaching, secrets of the labyrinth were revealed to me.  I was in a kindergarten science class.  The students were coloring an outline of the brain.  As I looked at the brain, I was reminded of the labyrinth.  In the center of the brain was the pineal gland, which many believe is the spiritual eye, just like labyrinth’s center is also the point of illumination.  I learned that the symbol of the pineal gland was the pine cone.  As I was walking to school one day, (yes, I do have that luxury every once in awhile) I found myself walking through a park filled with pine trees.  I couldn’t resist.  I caved in and did a little research on the pine tree.  I discovered that the tree has both male and female pine cones.  The male pine cones release their pollen and the wind carries it upward to the female pine cones which open to receive the pollen.  The pollen germinates for a year and then the female pine cone falls to the ground and releases the seed.  This had great symbolism for the labyrinth.  Sitting in the inner circle, like the pine cone, we receive, and then as we leave the inner circle, we release what we have learned to others.  This is the illumination of the labyrinth.

I continue my journey into the labyrinth and I continue to find insights and I look forward to sharing them with you after the next solstice.  But don’t wait for me.  Your personal mysteries of the labyrinth are waiting to be discovered.  

Luella Wagner

Luella Wagner is a teacher, writer, and documentarian.  She is currently writing her memoir which spans twenty years of teaching, including stints in Brazil, Samoa, and most recently an Indian reservation in southeastern Montana.  She lives in Woodland Hills, California with her cat Moo Moo.