Inspiration Avenue Challenge : Butterfly

This past week it was my turn to host the weekly challenge at Inspiration Avenue Team.  Inspired by the many pairs of butterflies fluttering in my garden, I chose the theme as butterflies.  And what an amazing response I had.  Please make your way over to Inspiration Avenue tomorrow and see the gallery of entries.  How I am ever going to choose a winner for our Red Carpet I do not know.

My entry is a bit different from my usual.  It is not pretty at all, but it is such a powerful image for me.  I have recently discovered SoulCollage and what a wonderful therapeutic art form of self-discovery and creativity it is!  There are some excellent websites if you are interested.  Merely search Soul Collage and Seena B Frost and you will find your way.

This is a card that I made for the many changes that have been taking place in my own life and also in those around me.  It is also a very visual expression of leaving the old year and going into the new.  SoulCollage is an intuitive process that does not use the rational mind.  I therefore, did not set out to use the butterfly images.  The image comes together from a place deep within oneself;  from that all-seeing eye within which sees and records and stores deep into the sub-conscious self.  One uses images from your collection of old magazines, photographs or any images at hand.  I made this one from magazine clippings.

The elephant (one of my all time favourite animals in the wild and in their natural habitat) represents the dinosaur in myself.  Those outdated ideas and beliefs that no longer serve but which swims against the current.  The butterflies, with their tiny and delicate wings, are lifting this big old elephant up and turning him into a graceful flying being.  With a little bit of Grace anyone can fly!

Please join me at The Path of Divine Love in Soul Songs

Soul Songs

Songs of the Soul

Collage of feeling,

vision,

intuition.

Open the door,

make the Unseen

Seen

enter the Sacred,

sing the Soul's Song.

Please come and play along.

Through the work of Seena Frost's SoulCollage I have discovered a wonderful medium of playing, creating and uncovering!  SoulCollage is a structured technique with certain ground rules.  It is ideal for self-reflection and group work.  I started playing with soul collages, based on her book.  I then entered one for Rebecca's Haiku my Heart and I saw some more possibilities.  Then they started appearing in my dreams and in my art.

And now I invite you to play along with myself in Soul Songs every Sunday here on The Path of Divine Love.

I invite you to create a collage card making the invisible in yourself visible.  You create the card from the soft focus of your right brain and you set the intent that that which is hidden, be unveiled through its coming together.  I use an A5 board card to glue the images onto.  I mainly use magazine clippings and paper images from my folder of collected images. I find many old magazines at local charity stores.  Old magazines, especially the old National Geographics, have wonderful 'new' images. Digital artists probably have a digital folder filled with images - this will work wonderfully! You can continue to add to your image collection over time and allow your intuitive self to lead you.  Do not plan too much.  Maybe at times of change or insight, you may want to create a specific collage card honouring that stage in your life, or facilitating the change or transformation or to support a new resolution.  Decide on the subject only and allow your eye to guide you to the images.  Play around for a while with the images, but do not apply your art rules to the collage - there are no rules - that is the fun of it!  You will be amazed to discover how your Inner Artist puts together a powerful and evocative image;  one that gives you a deeper look into the sacred.  

Once you have collated the card, you want to find the Song of your Soul that is held in the inner chamber of this card.  We are part of the infinite and we have many many songs just waiting to be heard!

For the Soul Song I chose the lyrical style of poetry - it is simple and powerful.  I quote :  The term lyric is now used to mean any short poem expressing a poet's thoughts or feelings. Originally it referred to poems which were sung to the accompaniment of a musical instrument, the lyre. A lyric poem has been defined as "the expression by the poet of his own feelings"(John Ruskin). This definition points to the personal quality of lyrical poetry. It is characterised by the presence of emotion. The emotions and moods are directly expressed by a single speaker who wants to share them with the reader. 

A creative week to you

blessings

Hettienne