Last two Brisbane workshops for 2012: Don't miss out!

'There is a knowledge of the heart that gives deeper insight. The knowledge of the heart is in no book and is not to be found in the mouth of any teacher, but grows out of you like the green seed from the dark earth.' ~~Carl Jung.

Don’t rely on others to find your “deeper insight”. Come and join with like-minded people in a day of creativity, inspiration and self-discovery to learn how you can access your OWN Inner Wisdom. Release your creative Soul/Self! Let it out to play and discover its many aspects by exploring the profound meanings, unique to you, which are hidden within the images you intuitively choose, cut and paste as you create your beautiful cards and then dialogue with them. These cards will be the foundation of your personalised deck which you can build on over your lifetime and consult to gain insight and guidance.  SoulCollage® was developed by U.S. psychotherapist Seena Frost while studying under acclaimed transpersonal psychologist, Jean Houston. It's a powerful transformational process which works with the language of symbols and archetypes, combining image, intuition and synchronicity into a unique creative process that anyone can do. For more information about SoulCollage®, click here.

There's only a week to go until my next workshop in Brisbane next Saturday 16th June, so, with only one more workshop coming up this year (August 4th) don't miss out on your chance to experience this simple, fun, creative and powerful process first-hand! 

Click here for the full workshop details. I'm so looking forward to seeing you there!

My latest card

My newest SoulCollage® card, made as my demonstration card during the recent Inverell workshop. 

Love her, loved finding out what she revealed!

Catch-up

Once again, I'm playing catch-up. I've decided I'm not such a great blogger.  So many other exciting things to do here in Brisbane!

My trip to Cairns in March to co-facilitate the 'Processing Trauma through SoulCollage®' two-day training with Dr. Greta Galloway from Alan Webster Consultancies was a wonderful experience, and my thanks go to Greta and Alan for their great hospitality, and also for giving me the opportunity to present SoulCollage® to professionals working with trauma clients. It was lovely to meet the participants and I hope they enjoyed their SoulCollage® experience and will find it a useful tool in their work. I certainly got a lot out of Greta's very professional presentation on trauma on the first day.

Last weekend I travelled to Inverell in northern NSW to run an introductory SoulCollage® workshop at the Inverell Art Gallery. It was great to be back in the country. I grew up on a property near Bellata, between Narrabri and Moree, so I always love the opportunity to get back to my roots.  Thanks to Jo Williams from the gallery, and to Carolyn McCosker and Lynn Lennon, for helping with publicising the event. Also, to my friend, Lainie Jubb, who travelled down with me, my thanks for your help in setting up, and to all those kind souls, including Lainie and my friend Roie, who stayed back to help pack up at the end of the day.  We had 12 participants, several of whom are counsellors, and it was a lovely group.  A great bonus of being in the art gallery was being surrounded by all that lovely art in the workshop space! I hope everyone enjoyed their day as much as I did. It would be wonderful if someone from the group could take the initiative to start up a card-making group down there. Making cards in community is such a lovely thing to do and provides a great opportunity to have people scribe for us and to share our cards and our experiences of making and dialoguing with them.  

My next introductory workshop is in Brisbane on Saturday June 16th. Go here for more information. 

   

Getting excited for my Cairns visit!

Getting excited for my trip to Cairns next week to co-facilitate, with Dr. Greta Galloway from Alan Webster Consultancies, the two-day training for health/caring professionals, 'Processing Trauma through SoulCollage®'. It's not too late to book in for this one-off event, so if you are a counsellor, therapist/art therapist, social worker, psychologist, mentor, support worker, carer or guidance officer in north Queensland, you have a unique opportunity to benefit from this training.

I'm so looking forward to meeting and sharing SoulCollage® with this group, and also to visiting Cairns again after rather more decades than I care to remember! Then, I was a young, recently-graduated paediatric nurse off on a working holiday around Australia with two other nursing friends. We camped on Trinity Beach, along with three young men who'd recently been working as jackaroos at King Ranch at Tully and whom we'd met in Cooktown - a country boy from Singleton NSW and two American students on holiday from Yale University,  one a law student and the other studying anthropology, majoring in Australian Aboriginal culture. We camped right beside the beach and had long, involved philosophical discussions at night as we toasted marshmallows on a bonfire on the beach. Sadly, I'm told this area is developed as housing now. A delightful postscript to this story is that one of us has been married to the boy from Singleton for over 40 years and they have 4 children and ever-increasing numbers of grandchildren! 

Congratulations to my SoulCollage® students who are now facilitators!

Congratulations to three former students from my SoulCollage® workshops, Malinda, Jodie and John, who have loved their SoulCollage® experience so much that they've gone on to train as SoulCollage® facilitators last weekend in Brisbane with Australia's only SoulCollage® Trainer,  Karen Mann.  I'm excited that more people will now be introduced to the benefits and magic of SoulCollage® in the Brisbane area through them and I welcome them, and the other new facilitators, to the Queensland facilitator network.  Wishing them well in their future journeys with SoulCollage®!

Here's a card that I made at my facilitator training in September 2010:

Soulcollage® in the forest!

We had a great introductory workshop on Saturday at the Quaker House on a beautiful Brisbane summer's day. The energy of the group was wonderful and everyone seemed to enjoy creating their cards, dialoguing with them, and learning more about the process (and themselves, of course!). This is such a lovely venue, nestled amongst the trees on a block of suburban forest only 10 minutes from the city. The calls of the parrots and laughter of the kookaburras really added to the ambience and peaceful atmosphere!  

The following day I received an email from one of the participants in which she said: "Thank you for such a delightful experience of SoulCollage® yesterday, in such a beautiful relaxing environment.......Thanks again for such an inspiring day! I'm so excited to have discovered this process, and look forward to discovering more and more about myself, through the cards I make."


And from another happy participant: "I just wanted to send you an email and thank you for such a wonderful day on Saturday. I really enjoyed the whole process and in such a beautiful location..........I will certainly be recommending SoulCollage® to all my friends."

If you'd like to find out what this "wonderful", "delightful" and "inspiring" SoulCollage® is all about, go here for details of my next Brisbane workshop on 21st April at the same venue (also in June, August & October), or see some of my workshops at venues outside Brisbane at the links at right.  See also the official SoulCollage® website for more general information about SoulCollage®.

Totally absorbed and happily creating in the treetops!

'Introduction to SoulCollage®': Brisbane

 The next  Brisbane 'Introduction to SoulCollage®' workshop will be held on

Saturday 18^th February, 2012  

9.00am to 5.00pm


Places are limited. Book now to reserve your place!


Click here for full details

Cairns change of date & Inverell NSW workshop date

The dates for the CAIRNS TRAINING have been changed to Wednesday 7th & Thursday 8th March (i.e. starting one day later than originally planned). The details are here.

Also, the date for the one-day 'Introduction to SoulCollage®' workshop in INVERELL in northern NSW is Saturday 19th May, 2012.  At this stage, the Inverell Art Gallery is being considered as the venue but I'll update that as the details are finalised. Please contact me if you're interested in this workshop.

Maleny Workshop Date: April 28th

The date for the one-day 'Introduction to SoulCollage®' workshop at Maleny, north of Brisbane in the Sunshine Coast hinterland, has been set as Saturday 28th April. Full details to follow. 

Meanwhile if you think you might be interested in attending this workshop, please contact me to be put on my email list for details to be sent to you when they're available. 


See posts immediately below for details of my other workshops in Brisbane, Cairns and Inverell NSW (date for Inverell yet to be determined). 

Strong, confident woman

Processing Trauma through SoulCollage®: March 2012

Fragmented

Training Event:

Processing Trauma through SoulCollage® 

Wednesday 7th and Thursday 8th March, 2012

Facilitated by Dr. Greta Galloway from Alan Webster Consultancies & Ms. Jo Knights, SoulCollage® Facilitator

If you are a counsellor, therapist, social worker, psychologist, mentor, support worker, carer, or guidance officer then this training is for you.


FULL DETAILS HERE

SoulCollage® in 2012

Pregnant with Possibility. That's 2012!

Hello, and welcome to 2012!  I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and feel rested and ready to start another year.  My Christmas was infinitely different from last year, when I experienced the magic of a snowy white German Christmas in Berlin with all my family together. This year I spent it in a somewhat warmer climate, on the Sunshine Coast, with my amazing 97-year-old mother-in-law, Laura, and some more extended family, but neither of my children or my grandchild, who all live overseas. I know I'm repeating this, but I'm so thankful that I live in the age of Skype! 

Most of us are making resolutions and plans for the year ahead at this time, and SoulCollage® is a great tool to assist in that. We can do readings from our cards asking for insight on what we need to focus on for the coming year. Formulate an open-ended question around that, draw a card, or a number of cards, and then dialogue with them, writing down what comes. You could use all the dialoguing questions, or just the first "Who are you?" question.  With your original question in mind, you then finish your dialoguing with a question something like, "What wisdom do you have for me as I set about this new year? Or "......about this issue", etc. Don't forget to date it so you can refer back to it later. 

After a short break over the holiday period, I’m now gearing up for the year ahead, with some exciting things happening. 

Here are the dates for planned SoulCollage® workshops and Studio sessions for this year (so far!):

CAIRNS, North Qld

6th & 7^th March, 2012: 

‘PROCESSING TRAUMA THROUGH SOULCOLLAGE®’

A one-day SoulCollage® workshop will be a component of this two-day training on trauma for health professionals, co-facilitated with Dr. Greta Galloway from Alan Webster Consultancies. If you are a counsellor, therapist, social worker, psychologist, mentor, support worker, carer, or guidance officer, then this training is for you. For more information, please contact me by clicking on my profile link at right to access my email.

The Cairns workshop resulted from a serendipitous meeting with Greta, whom I’d never met before, on a broken down council bus in Brisbane last year. I just love the way SoulCollage® works so synchronistically in my life. One never knows what amazing and interesting things might ensue from such a simple act as chatting to the person next to you on the bus!

BRISBANE

PLANNED ONE-DAY WORKSHOPS:

SATURDAYS from 9am to 5pm, on:

18th February

7th April

16th June

4th August

20th October

STUDIO CARD MAKING SESSIONS 

(for people who are already making cards). First Monday evening of the month.

MONDAYS:

6^th February

March: No Studio session

2nd April

7th May

4th June

2nd July

6th August

3rd September

1st October

5th November

Workshops are also planned for INVERELL NSW and MALENY QLD some time this year. 

GROUPS

I am available to give complimentary short talks to groups about SoulCollage®. This is not training but to give people who may not previously have heard of SoulCollage® an idea of what it's about. 

DISCOUNTS FOR ORGANISING YOUR OWN GROUP FOR A WORKSHOP

Organise your own group for a workshop and save. Ask me how!

INTERESTED IN SOULCOLLAGE® BUT UNABLE TO ATTEND THESE EVENTS?

If you're unable to attend these events because of the timing, or because you don't live in the area, please contact me and I will endeavour to assist you with a facilitator in your area, or in any other way I can. I am available to travel out of SE Qld to run workshops.


BRISBANE SOULCOLLAGE® FACILITATOR TRAINING
This is happening in Brisbane on 24-26 February 2012, run by our fearless Australian SoulCollage® leader, Karen Mann from Melbourne, and there's still plenty of time to book in if you think that you'd like to do this training, which would qualify you to teach SoulCollage®, or you might simply want to learn more about this wonderful tool of self-development. I'm very pleased that one of my former workshop participants will be taking the training. For more information, visit the Australian SoulCollage® website.


Please contact me if you're interested in any of these events, and I'd be very grateful if you could pass on this information to any of your contacts who might be interested, too.

May 2012 bring you transformation, joy and success, and hours of creativity and deep insight and guidance from your SoulCollage® cards.

Jo  xxoo

Now is a very good time to revisit my 'Stepping into my Power' card!

SoulCollage® Studio Monday November 7th

Hello dear SoulCollagers,

I've been a little distracted for the past few weeks, with my daughter and little granddaughter visiting from Berlin.  It's so delightful to spend time with a 2½ year-old and experience how joyously creative and spontaneously in-the-moment they are.  Perfect inspiration for SoulCollage®!  I'm totally besotted with The Divine Miss Zizi Matilda and thankful that we live in the age of Skype where I can still talk to my family face-to-face and sing along with Zizi online and share in her life, even though they're so far away. 

Although it's been difficult to focus back on my day-to-day life here after such a delicious interlude,  the next Studio session IS coming up next Monday 7th November from 6pm to 9pm,  so I need to get hopping. 

This session will be purely for making cards and enjoying the company of other SoulCollagers, although if you have any questions about your SoulCollage® practice, please bring them along. 

All other relevant details are the same as for the previous Studio session so you can find them on my August 31st post below.

If you're in the Brisbane area and have been making some cards, you're welcome to come along and meet other SoulCollagers.

Don't forget you must book with me if you're coming. 

So looking forward to catching up with you on Monday.

SoulCollage® Studio session Monday 5th September

"Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast!"   ~~The Queen to Alice in Wonderland.

Hello dear SoulCollagers,

I hope you're enjoying the experience of making and dialoguing with your cards. If you'd like to get together with some like-minded people, the next SoulCollage® Studio session is coming up next Monday 5th.

These Studio sessions are for people who are already making and dialoguing with their SoulCollage® cards, not for people new to the process.

Here are the details:

WHEN: Monday 5th September, 2011, 6pm to 9pm   
WHERE:
Downstairs Room 
Brisbane Quaker Meeting House
10 Hampson St
Kelvin Grove Go down the path beside the house and then continue on down the stairs. 
There's a small carpark inside the grounds, or you can park in the street. 

COST: $10 (to cover room hire, materials, and coffee, tea and nibbles)

NB: If you attended the workshop at Brookfield on 13th August, you can come to this session for free.

WHAT TO BRING: 

Please bring any cards you've made. I'll supply magazines, scissors, glue etc but it's nice if everyone brings one or two magazines to add to the variety of images. (NB: I provide Glue Sticks, but if you prefer to use your own particular glue, please bring it with you.)

I'll have for sale:

Packs of blank cards: $9 for 10 cards

Seena Frost's latest book, 'SoulCollage® Evolving': $33 ($30 for anyone who's previously attended one of my workshops).    

Packs of 25 card sleeves to protect your cards: $5 (or .20c each sleeve).

SoulCollage® & Art Therapy CDs: $15 

This session I'll be going over the questions that you use to dialogue with your cards, and the rest of the session will be for card-making.                                                                             

**PLEASE BOOK:  Due to considerations of space and materials, it's important that you  book with me by phone or email. Thanks

These regular monthly evenings are for meeting other SoulCollagers, for card-making and for sharing our cards and SoulCollage® experiences among friends.  Seena Frost, the creator of SoulCollage®  believes that community is a very important component of SoulCollage®.  If you have any questions about SoulCollage® this is the time to ask me (you are, of course, welcome to phone me at any time with questions which might come up for you with your SoulCollage® practice).  Note that if you don't want to share any of your insights from your cards with another person or the group, that's perfectly OK.  Please still come along and enjoy making some cards.

NB: If you've been making and dialoguing with your cards but haven't been to a workshop, you're still really welcome to come along to these sessions and meet others doing SoulCollage®, be inspired, and have fun!

If at any time you have suggestions on what you'd like me to cover during one of the studio sessions, please let me know. 

If you're enjoying your SoulCollage®, please tell your friends about it. Although I don't have any workshops scheduled at present, I'll be continuing to run the introductory workshops, and later, more in-depth workshops on  some particular aspects of the process. Also, if you know of a group (church, women's/mens group/quilting or art group/therapists' organisation etc) I'm happy to come along and give a free talk about SoulCollage® to the group.  I can offer participants a tempting taste of the process in about 30 minutes to an hour.

I found this quote by Alan Alda (the actor from the 'Mash' TV series) which seems to me to relate to major aspects of SoulCollage®, i.e. the need to make the cards intuitively, it's sometimes 'uncomfortable', but the reward is discovering yourself (your 'Self') in the process: 

"The creative is the place where no-one else has ever been. You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you'll discover will be wonderful. What you'll discover is yourself." 

Hope to see you next Monday.

Happy SoulCollaging!

Jo

The Unknown Self

The Unknown Self

So much of what delights and troubles you

Happens on a surface

You take for ground,

Your mind thinks your life alone,

Your eyes consider air your nearest neighbour,

Yet it seems that a little below your heart

There houses in you an unknown self

Who prefers the patterns of the dark

And is not persuaded by the eye’s affection

Or caught by the flash of thought.

Excerpt only: John O’Donohue, from Benedictus – A Book of Blessings

SoulCollage® Studio session Monday 1st August

"I’ve never liked housework. I get by doing little chores when I feel like them, in between paintings. Who wants to chase dust all their life? You can spend your whole lifetime cleaning the house. I like watching the patina grow. If the house looks dirty, buy another bunch of flowers, is my advice."  ~~The much-loved Australian artist Margaret Olley, who died at the age of 88 this week.  I like her style!


These Studio sessions are for people who are already making SoulCollage® cards, not for people new to the process.

Here are the details:

WHEN: Monday 1st August, 2011, 6pm to 9pm   
WHERE:
Downstairs Room 
Brisbane Quaker Meeting House
10 Hampson St
Kelvin Grove 
Go down the path beside the house and then continue on down the stairs.
COST: $10 (to cover room hire, food and materials)
WHAT TO BRING: 
Please bring any cards you've made. I'll supply magazines, scissors, glue etc but it's nice if everyone brings one or two magazines to add to the variety of images.
 I'll have packs of blank cards for sale ($9 for 10 cards) and copies of Seena Frost's latest book, 'SoulCollage® Evolving' ($33)                                                                                        

**PLEASE BOOK:  Due to considerations of space and materials, it's important that you  book with me by phone or email. Thanks

FREE TALKS TO GROUPS:

If you belong to , or know of, any groups that might be interested in SoulCollage®, I'm very happy to give a free introductory talk and demonstration of the SoulCollage® process. SoulCollage® is a wonderful activity to do as a group once people know how it works.  It's great for team-building and community.

I love any opportunity to talk about SoulCollage® so if you have any questions about these events, or anything at all to do with SoulCollage®,  please contact me.

Drama Queen!

No surprises for me as to what this card is about:
Jo, you're such a Drama Queen!

I couldn't quite believe that I found that classic image at the bottom.
Of course, it miraculously appeared just when I needed it!
Amazingly relevant images will materialise for you in the same way once you start on your SoulCollage® journey.

See my post for July 5 for full information about the next 'Introduction to SoulCollage®' workshop on Saturday August 13th.
Hope to see you there!

Oh, and I'll try not to be TOO dramatic at the workshop!

SoulCollage® Studio sessions

Work is not always required. There is such a thing as sacred idleness. 

~~ George MacDonald

On Monday evening, some of us met up for our first SoulCollage® Studio session at the Quaker House. We started by going over the basics of doing readings with our cards and everyone seemed to find something valuable from these. As most of the attendees had made only a few cards of their own, some of them drew a card from my deck and found themselves amazed at some of the insights they received from THEIR readings of MY cards. It's perfectly OK for others to read from your cards as long as you don't read the card for them or discuss YOUR interpretation with them before they read it. They will most likely have quite a different interpretation from what you had. After all, they will see a part of THEIR soul reflected in the card, while you would see reflected a part of YOURS.

For the remainder of the session, we had fun making cards.

Following the success of this first Studio session, they will now be held monthly, on the first Monday of the month, at the Brisbane Quaker Meeting House at Kelvin Grove, from 6pm to 9pm.

These sessions are not for tuition, although from time to time I will add some kind of learning experience which is not covered in my introductory workshops, or I will have a guest presenter.  Rather, they are for people who have previously attended a workshop or who have otherwise been making cards for a while, and they are designed as a forum to make cards together, to meet others who are working with the process, to share our ideas and experiences of using SoulCollage®, and to have fun! If you have a friend who's interested in finding out what SoulCollage® is about, please ask me first if it's OK for them to come along and I will make the decision as to whether that particular session is appropriate for them.  I have this rule as I don't want the sessions to become tutorials for beginners as that may interfere with the dynamics of the group.

Because of considerations of space and materials, it's essential to book with me for these sessions.

In keeping with the spirit of fun at our SoulCollage® Studio, here's my 'Goddess of Neglected Paintbrushes', a mixed media piece which I had great fun making in 2008. She hangs in my studio to remind me to take care of my equipment, and also that I don't have to be perfect.  She's also a good reminder for me about being playful and lighthearted while I'm working.

August SoulCollage® workshop at Brookfield

Discover your Self with SoulCollage®

Do heart work on the pictures within you. ~~Rainer Maria Rilke

What is SoulCollage®?

 *An intuitive collage process to access your own Inner Wisdom.

*Make a personalised set of beautiful cards 

to assist you on life's journey.

*Fun to do.      

*No art experience needed. 

We are each the perfect artist of our own Soul!

 *A powerful tool for use with clients in counselling,

 and many other applications.

SoulCollage® was developed by U.S. psychotherapist Seena Frost. It's a powerful transformational process for accessing our inner wisdom by creating a deck of collaged cards with deep personal meaning that is a reflection of our own inner and outer worlds, and which can help us with life's questions and transitions.

Using found images in magazines and from other sources, we intuitively create a beautiful deck of cards and then dialogue with the cards to access our own insight and inner wisdom. 

In addition to personal use, SoulCollage® is being used in many other areas, including in many aspects of counselling, with church groups, women's, men's and children's groups, coaching, creative problem solving, team building, conflict resolution, dream work, money issues, cancer support, life transitions, & more.

Introduction to SoulCollage® Workshop

Saturday 13th August, 2011

9.00am to 5.00pm

At the Brookfield Centre for Spirituality

139 Brookfield Rd, Kenmore Hills (Brisbane)

Cost: $130
Concession card (Student/Senior etc ): $90

$15 discount if you book by Mon 8th August

plus $15 discount if you bring a friend (for both you and your friend)
**PLUS: Go into the draw to win a copy of Seena Frost's first book, 'SoulCollage®' if you book early AND bring a friend.
A deposit of $50 is required to reserve your place.
Full workshop fee to be paid by Friday 12th August.

This lovely venue includes a labyrinth which we will incorporate into the workshop.

Places are limited, so reserve your place now!


In this workshop, you will learn about:
>How to make SoulCollage® cards
>The 4 suits of the SoulCollage® deck
>The transpersonal cards
>How to dialogue with your cards
>How to access the wisdom of your animal guides
>How SoulCollage® can help you with your life's 
journey and transitions
>Some of the applications for which SoulCollage® 
can be used by professionals

  

To book in, or for more information about this,

 and future workshops, please contact me, Jo. 

Click on 'View my complete profile' under 'About me' at top right to find my email address.

If you live outside Brisbane, please contact me to discuss organising a workshop for you, or to put you in touch with a workshop facilitator in your area.

Please contact me if you'd like me to present a free introductory talk 
about SoulCollage® to your group. 

Go to the website of the creator of SoulCollage®, 

Seena Frost, www.soulcollage.com 

to find out more about SoulCollage®

There is a knowledge of the heart that gives deeper insight. The knowledge of the heart is in no book and is not to be found in the mouth of any teacher, but grows out of you like the green seed from the dark earth. ~~Carl Jung. The Red Book