Council Suit: Menopausal Woman

I am one who transforms. I am one who closes one chapter and opens another. I am one who brings the heat, who rides the waves of emotion, whose body gives into gravity to create a new landscape. I am the gatekeeper of wisdom. I have often paddled through treacherous waters, but sometimes the wisdom is in putting away the oar.

My gift to you is in the ability to plan without offspring to consume you. My gift to you is in connecting you with other women, moving you toward the wisdom of this life cycle. My gift to you is in a life lived and the gathering of information. My gift to you is freedom!

I want you to enjoy this newest chapter. I want you to tap into the wisdom of menopause and see the journey from the vantage point of having journeyed. I want you to lighted up - breathe when you feel the rise of irritability. Turn the temperature down - you can't get more nekkid than nekkid. Let go of the fear of falling over the precipice, of falling within the waterfall, and roll with this new "stage of age". Honor your own wisdom that only comes with the later stages.

Community Suit: Autumn

I am one who brings mystery and magical moments. I am one who brings laughter and joy. I am comedian. I am imp. I am drama. I am fey. I am superhero . I am innocense. I am the present.

My gift to you is in the purity of the moment. At any given time I enjoy the now. My gift to you is acceptance and love where you are and how you are. My gift is in the smiles I bring.

I want you to strike a pose for the camera, be a chameleon and change depending upon what brings you pleasure. Be a superhero, a princess or a black-belt. The importance is the journey. It is not the broken board that is fulfilling - it is in the journey towards the breaking. Enjoy the journey.

Council Suit: Death

I am the Winter, the resting place and the stillness. I am the one who interrupts and gives you pause to reflect and remember. I am the one who brings fear and mystery. I am the gate between the worlds. I am the one with whom you can count on and one whom is not often welcomed. I am the one who walks the path of transformation and change.

I bring the gift of endings and transformation; of dying to self and renewing regeneration. I bring change to the world you walk and the world within. I give the gift of closings and open new possibilities. I bring butterfly wings for the caterpillar has fulfilled its destiny. Without me, new chapters cannot be written.

I want you to embrace my presence rather an push me into the corner of your mind. I will visit you and interrupt your life, of that I am certain. I want you to make ready a place for me. I want you to lean into the pain and fear and longing I will bring with me, for I have gifts when that is done. I want you to find the gratitude after the horror. Know that with death comes life and an opportunity for treasured memories and renewed possibilities. Walk with me and know that where I tread I bring rememberances and restrospection and from that comes wisdom from lessons learned. I want you rest in the warmth and security of the cocoon and then spread your wings to fly to the next desitnation.

Council Suit: Crone Celebration

I am one who celebrates the stepping over the threshold into cronehood to welcome aging. I am one who is rising and taking flight from the drowning state you were in. I am the one who ages with silent wisdom and who has seen more than I would have wished for. I look behind me and notice a sea of history and look ahead and see the time shortening. I move beyond the past longing into celebrating each day.

My gift for you is in honoring the aging process as well as the wisewoman within you. I bring the gift of losing the need to conform in order to fit in. I give you the strength to draw on your wisdom to pull yourself out of the flood and take flight. I give you the gift of retrospection and wisdom to live in the now.

I want you to have the freedom to bounce from black and grey to color. I want you to peel away restraints as you age and paint your toes red. I want you to embrace the mourning and sadness when there is need and then celebrate life and the strength that comes from the seasoning of experience. I want you to pass on the wisdom to the maidens that come after you, to share the gift of your insight that comes from experience. I want you to revel in your sageness as crone woman

THE WATCHER - Transpersonal Card

I am one who sees all that transpires. I am one who sees you in all your moments of humanness. I witness with innocence. I witness with wisdom. I witness from a primal place. I watch with quiet stillness, never judging, never responding. I merely am a record of what is.

THE SOURCE - Transpersonal Card

Some call me God, but that is too limited. I am the Beginning - the Source of all there is. I am pure conciousness, Creator, Big Mind and Big Heart. I am within and without. I am. And I am not. I am breath and I am that which is drawn within.

Committee Suit: My Body, My Temple

I am one who represents a beautiful working machine, pulsing with regenerative qualities, oxygen flowing through every cell. I breathe in the world, I breathe out the world. I am one who carries the spirit and houses the soul. I am one who gave life to daughters and am capable of amazing feats.

I bring to you the gift of possibilities. I am a shape shifter. No matter what shape I'm in, I can always re-shape myself. I may grow old and begin to wear, but as I do so, I fill with wisdom and stories and experiences.

I want you to honor me as a temple, a place where you would enter with sacredness. I want you to care for me as you would anything sacred in your life. I want you to give me your time.

Committee Suit: The Masked Self

I am the one who protects you. I am the one with stilted face, showing a careful persona created for the world. I am one of many colors and shapes, the yin and the yang, both soft features and chiseled ones, the face of refinement and yet primal and raw. I am one of many masks, each one created with love and born of experience to shield the vulnerable you.

My gift to you is adaptability. When sudden changes take place, I help you to forge ahead and handle them. I give you the chameleon's gift, one that enables you to travel in many circles. I also give you protection when your wounded center is being attacked for with me draped around you, your attacker is confused and they only harm the outer shell.

I want you to build your strength while I protect you, but also view what is behind the mask. Delve deeply and understand the center and know the masks remain at your disposal when you next need them. but I want you to need them less often with each healing.

Community Suit: Alyssa

I am the first born daughter of the first born daughter of the first born daughter of the first born daughter. I am the gift. I am one who changed you deep from within your soul. I am one who was unexpected but much needed. I am the interruptor, I took your life on a new course. I am the rays of sunshine that explodes through the dark clouds. I am one who loves you without question. I am one who yearns for your time.

My gift to you is in the simplest of forms. My gift is the warmth I give by a smile, a warmth that begins deep in your center and spreads throughout. I am a sassy toss of the head and the purety of all that is good. I bring a gentle breeze and soft touch. I bring the beauty of a dance and a radiant smile. My gift to you is in mirroring back the lessons you taught in mothering.

I want you to recognize the value you passed down from mother to mother and see the harvest which sprang from small seeds you planted. I want you to be freer in your choices and not hold back because of me. I want you to be spontaneous and dance across the room. I want you to hold sacred "family" and be the safety net.

Committee Suit: The Perfect Hostess

I am one who sets a stage by thinking of the details. I serve the guests in my home and create space for pampering. I am one who needs for everything to fall in place. I am one who hopes for my peers to see me as skillful and gracious.


I bring with me the ability to create a beautiful space so others feel special and important. I also bring the ability to make a comfortable home so that my guests think of my home as theirs.

I want you to do the same for yourself by creating your own space to pamper you within. I want you to take the extra time to set the china for yourself, arrange flowers for your table, and cook yourself a special meal. You don't always need guests as an excuse to pamper.

Committee Suit: The Creative Child Within

I am the Creative Child once hidden, who is now bursting forth in color and form. I am the one who sees the world through different eyes. I am the one who needs to take what is within me and express it outside of me. I can become lost within my many avenues of expression. I create with a child's freedom.

My gift to you is to teach you how to emmerse yourself in the process of creating, no matter what the end result is. It is in the process and application that changes you. My gift to you is to believe anything is possible, to birth these new possibilities with abandon. My gift is in exploring color and form and shape, to breathe life into clay, to capture the elements of pigment and water and to express the self with a visual component.

I want you to always create something from nothing - to take what is inside of you and bring it into the light for others to view. I want you to honor the "process" rather than the end result. I want you to learn more of the inner self through self expression and explore the non traditional that you feel pulled to explore. I don't want you to play it safe any more. I want you to write again and dance again and know that the visual form is not the only creation you can do. I want you to hold sacred all your creations and your ability for creativity rather than putting a value on it which may be determined merely by a sale. Know that in creating, you are also the Creator.

Committee Suit: The Balanced Self

I am one who balances time so that I am not overwhelmed with too much of one thing. I am one who balances what is needed for mental and spiritual health. I am one who is centered and grounded and veers from overextension. I am one who has time for the self and time for community, time for quiet and family, time for friends and work - all these without being over committed. I am one who has mastered a life of balance.


I give you the ability to discern when too much is too much. I give you the desire to add elements into your life that is needed for a healthy balance. I give you the wisdom to notice when balance needs to be checked and the knowledge in how to adjust your life. My gift to you is in the serenity that balance creates.

I want you to find ways to manage your time so that you are not overwhelmed and overcommitted. I want you to take time to quiet the self and feed the inner harmony that is needed for balance. I want you to step back and learn to say no when too much is asked from you. I want you to know how to cull out your calendar for the sake of the time you need for your spiritual health.

Community Suit: Fernando

I am one who loves you without restriction. I am one who is accepting of your faults and shortcomings. I am one with whom you can rely on to support you. I am one who wants all your dreams to come true. I have waited for you from time's beginning and will be with you until its end.


My gift to you is to show you that you can be completely real and I will not leave you. In fact, I encourage you to be more of who you are. My gift to you is to support you and stand by you as you strive for your dreams and fulfill your desires. My gift to you is in bringing humor and laughter and acceptance into your life. I will reflect back to you all the best parts of yourself and support you as you discover your shadow. My gift is my love to my love.

I want you to adore yourself as much as I adore you. I want you to grasp happiness and to continue to use your ability to to create. I want you to discover your own goodness and embrace your shadow self.

Companion Suit: 3rd Eye Chakra - Snow Owl

I am one who peers into the darkness but knows the way. I am one who hears that small voice within you, even when you do not have the courage to speak. I am one who flies silently into the shadows and emerges without harm. I sense the dawn before it begins.

My gift to you is in the heightened senses of hearing and seeing and stillness. I will help you sit with your shadow self until you gain knowledge and personal power. And from that knowledge you will be able to see life with clarity.

I want you to be still and watch those around you and learn. Embrace your shadow self and understand it. Gather the wisdom you carry within, the wisdom that the shadow teaches you and use it to help give others something to ponder. Refine your listening and your seeing. I want you to learn to see behind the masks people wear, particularly those you struggle with.

Committee Suit: Nonna Grandmother

I am Nonna - Grandmother Energy. I am the one who peers into the spirit of the generations tht come after me. I am one who pours out love with open arms to the children of my children. I am one who loves color and revels in my differences. I am one who passes the acceptance of those differences down to the children. I have seen much and have learned from life. I live without rules and push the boundaries.

The gift I bring to you is in the freedom of fewer constraints. One does not always need to follow rules and be who society says one needs to be at any given age. I give you the gift of taking risks and exploring out of the box. I give you gifts of wisdom to know when to let go and enough pure love to give away.

I want you to pass on those spirit-ful and soul-ful important nuances that need to be passed to the generations to come. At times it is good to eat chocolate before dinner and talk to fairies after hours. There is a place for dancing with bare toes in the field grasses and for drumming around bonfires. I want you to sidestep the old constraints of what society says that age should bring. You decide what fits you at any age.

Council Suit: The Mirror

I am one who reflects all. Within me you see within you. I am one who either stands as truth, or I can be a mirage hinting at what is real. At times the reflection is merely a distortion influenced by the state of your spirit. At times I am the one who reflects the simplicity of black and white thinking. I can only reflect what you are willing to see.

My gift to you is the opportunity to explore within. I expose you to multiple choices and give you insight based on what you see internally. I reflect back to you what you present to the world and the truth that lies within. My gift is awareness.

I want you to delve within the many faces reflected back to you. I want you to see the distorted views and how they are connected to the self. I want you beware of the images others drape over you and uncover the false images to see the accuracy of your own truth within. I want you to have compassion for those who live with their own distorted images and know the mirror visits all.

The Process of SoulCollage®

When I first discovered the process of SoulCollage® , I was attending an annual women's retreat in Arizona. As a professional artist, the workshop description of a creative collage experience really piqued my interest, particularly as it was focused on exploring the self - something very familiar to me. I had never heard of SoulCollage® but within the few hours of the workshop, I knew it touched me deep within my soul and spoke to me in a way that was a natural, creative companion to my journaling, writing, and self-discovery work. Working with these small creations, I leave the behind the world of the rational mind, concrete logic and the need to strive for perfection and I step into imagination, poetry and imagery as the process takes wings.

SoulCollage® is a unique process developed by therapist Seena Frost over twenty-five years ago which takes symbols, images, spiritual practices and reflection on archetypes to create small artistic collages that illustrates one's story. Each card is very personal and represents portions of one's journey, yet is also creative and fun to do as a group with others. Quiet reflection combined with the intuitive process of creating these collages opens up yet another world of expression as one taps into an inner knowing and journal the words, prayers and inspiration that arise from this process.

With this process, a deck of artistic cards is created - small collages that represent your personal mythology and the many aspects of your very self, your soul, and all the guides and companions that walk your journey with you. Each "suit" represents one of the following facets of your life: a part of your personality, people who support you, an animal that has special significance to you or a mythical or religious figure which guides you. Anyone can make these cards and there is no artistic skill needed. By "paying attention" to your life, the images from various ordinary magazines and other published works will almost choose you.

This blog was created in order to share my collages with students, family and friends that are interested and eager in begining this collage and journalling process.

- Debbie Cannatella