“The inner journey is a passionate inquiry into our own soul, our own personal field of experience.”
Spacecruiser Inquiry, p. 398
“I am not a poet, living is the poem.”
Melanie Safka
“The wise and loving marriage of modern invention with the sustaining, nurturing food folkways of our ancestors is the partnership that will transform the 21st c. into the Golden Age...”
Nourishing Traditions, p. xvi
Collage
Collage as a Spiritual Practice
I use collage as a way to connect with a deeper part of myself and to get clear about what's going on in my psycho-emotional-spiritual world. In my life in general, I have valued the intellectual realm too much—the importance of amassing knowledge, figuring things out, and knowing what to do...It has been a real challenge for me to allow other kinds of wisdom to come through and to trust them. Collage has been one way that I can access a deeper knowing that is not only intellectual, but includes my heart and body as well.
My collage process has two forms:
Consciously choosing to explore a certain topic because I know there is gold there—an unresolved issue or something I want to explore and integrate.
Starting from scratch with nothing particularly "up" and allowing whatever is there to arise.
I find both of these processes yield fruit. Even when I know the topic I want to explore, I don't know what will surface. In both cases, I allow the images, words, colors, shapes, and textures to guide me, to draw me in. I don't know how they will fit together or even if they will, but I gather the materials that call to me and then see what takes shape, allowing the process to inform me as it evolves.
The finished collage often holds new insight and meaning that I wasn't aware of going into it. I love how the process unfolds—it's not about my conscious ego mind deciding what I need or want, but more about a deeper knowing and wisdom of wholeness coming through.
The Vision Board Book
My collage work was recently published in The Vision Board by Joyce Schwarz (Harper Collins, 2008). If you're interested in collaging or getting clearer about your own life vision, this is a beautiful book with hundreds of collage and vision board images to inspire you, along with very specific suggestions of how to go about this process yourself.
This is one of the collages included in Joyce's book. To see more collages click here.
