Generosity

Time to begin, I decided...no more procastinating, which I definitely don't do. On the contrary I want to fly into about 6 Neter cards at once, and have to hold myself back and take it easy, one step at a time.

I decided to start with one of my positive inner parts...generosity. I am incredibly generous (to a fault) which has a flip side (for another card and another day).

I became totally absorbed in what I was doing, first looking through all the bits and pieces I had been tearing out of books, magazines, newspapers the past few weeks, then cutting them up (with no real direction) then putting them all on the table in front of me.

My main focus had to be on hands. Don't know why I decided on hands, but -like the book says, these ideas aren't actually conscious ones; certain images 'talk' to you.
I ended up with dozens of images of hands, took the card and started, without any definite path.

What an incredible experience; very liberating, very fascinating and very strange. The card literally 'made' itself.

I know I love telling a good story and even exaggerating, but this is exactly what has just happened to me. Even the one word and the one foot came out of my mind and had to be done.

I am now putting everything away and not going to even try to analyse what I have just done and why!

Mind-blowing....I am sure I will be doing a few more this coming week.

Week two: Committee Suit

Okay, so I read Carla's week 2 (very informative) prompt/ challenge and knew I had to do more in depth reading of the Collage book as I didn't have a clue what she was talking about.

A few hours later:
Aha, that feels better, now I understand more what a Neter is and what a Committe Suit is.

Straight away I find I am interested and intrigued.
There are loadsa little 'mes' inside me. I am going to list some of them, looking at the list in the book, then following on with some of my own. Here goes:

Abused child
Carer for sickly brother
Rescuer
Rebel
Bossy Boots
Artist
Daredevil
Teacher
Mother
Fighter
Moody
Dependable
Reliable
Hurt heart
Empty Soul
Wearer of masks
Attentive
Generous
Inability to say 'No'
Warmth
Unable to fight for my rights
Thoughtful
Supportive
Understanding
People -pleaser
Controlling
Fear Authority
Over critical of myself

My goodness, these alone could keep me busy for a whole year.

Week One: Gather

I cannot resist a challenge.
When Carla invited me to join her soulcollage group this year, using the book: SoulCollage: An Intuitive Collage Process for Individuals and Groups, fear struck me in the centre of my stomach...me? Collage? eeeeeek...I have never done this before, and collage is (I feel) one of my weaknesses.

At first, it seemed like just a fun new challenge for me and I love a challenge, something new to get my 'teeth into', to throw myself into body and 'soul'...like I do with my blog.

Then the book arrived and I suddenly thought 'Hang on a second, you don't actually know what you are doing here!' Did I really want to even attempt this huge commitment, as I now saw it?

I guess the answer was 'yes' because here I am. My intentions now are to:

a.) have fun

b.) maybe learn some new things about myself

c.) learn and practise a new process in art

d.) grow

After a lot of pondering, even worrying, hesitation and dithering, I decided to jump in feet first.
Life has often thrown me many curved balls before, and this looks like it could be a great learning one for me.
I invite any of you who are interested in this to join me, you don't need to be experienced at all, not even artistic, just eager.

This is the space/table I work on in the spare bedroom.On the wall in front of me is some of my own art with lots of the art I have received from my bloggy friends which inspire me and fill me with happiness every day. It is light and airy, has a view of the back garden and the huge sky outside, which looks like this today.

I started a week or more ago, looking, sifting, sorting, finding, tearing, snipping and became completely engrossed in this simple process. Now I drive everyone mad, begging, asking, for and taking newspapers and magazines wherever I find them.
While gathering images, I discovered a few things. Firstly, and mainly, I am mostly attracted to bright images...but then I realised that I am was also looking for more subtle, paler and undertsated images...hence the two sides of my personality. The most important thing I realised at this stage is that certain emages 'talk' to me and that's gotta be a good sign.I now have quite a big plastic container filled with pictures and images of all sorts. I decided to put them into plastic folders in sizes, so that I could just take out a folder at a time to look through, whenever I need it (my attempt at being organised).


Here are a few images randomly thrown together...and viola, here is my header!

Thanks Carla, I am quite excited now. This may be just what I need to get me out of my Winter funk! I have invited lots of my bloggy friends to join us on this new adventure, so I hope some of them respond.