Aileen Gural introduced me to SoulCollage™ through her Collage Your Soul workshops. Collage Your Soul offers workshops using the SoulCollage™ method to explore your inner soul. SoulCollage™ is accessible to whoever has a passion for images and color and is interested in exploring their creative consciousness.

The images I’ve shared in this article are my cards created in Aileen’s Collage Your Soul workshops.

AC: What is SoulCollage™ ?

AG: SoulCollage™ is a creative process that’s designed to be a tool to access different aspects of your personality. It gives life to and integrates different parts of your self through the collage. Using the “I am the one” process you learn what your unconscious is trying to say and wants to express. It’s a tool to just be creative. It’s a tool to access what’s going on inside you. It’s a tool that you can use to focus and to gain access to yourself as a focal point through card reading. And it’s also a community-building tool that brings people together, brings women in to circle to share experience and being creative together.

Can you talk about the “I am the one” process?

The “I am the one” process is a way of understanding the card [that you create through the SoulCollage process] and also understanding yourself. You start by speaking from the point of view as yourself, “I am the one who…” You put yourself into the images on the card. It could be a face or any part of the card or all of the different parts of the card. It’s a way to start getting in to the card, freely speaking but keeping it close to your self and not just talking literally about images. It’s really getting us to own our own voice and our connections to what we see. It just keeps us focused on what our voice is and what’s going on inside of us.

*i am the one who is holding the up the world…*

So one could talk about a picture and then it becomes a metaphor for what it means for you, right?

Yes. So everyone could see a different thing in the picture. People have different reactions to images and it’s a way to have our voice and access what’s going on, what we’re feeling inside, what we want to bring out of ourselves. It’s really a very non-confrontational process. It’s gentle and safe so most people find it non-threatening to just do that.

The first time I attended your Collage Your Soul workshop, I didn’t know that we were going to speak about the images. It was fascinating and revealing when I looked at my pictures and saw how I could relate to them and how they spoke to me.

I think we constantly want and need a voice to express ourselves. There’s so much going on outside, that our feelings gets eclipsed by all the stimulation and all the interesting things we have to do in life. So it’s really interesting to take time and see the real wisdom inside of us. In SoulCollage you choose images that somehow relate to you. You don’t realize it at first but it can be something that’s going on with you that’s trying to express or come through.

*i am the one who is drifting alone, over an expansive unknown…*

Can you talk a little bit about the formal process? Do you need to be artistic to SoulCollage?

Therapist Seena Frost, who was into in Jungian psychology, developed the process. No, you don’t need to be artistic. The great thing is anyone can do SoulCollage because it requires cutting or tearing images and pasting them down on a board (which forms the structure). In SoulCollage the structure is a specific size, which helps to contain everything as well as creating a uniform and equal size. There are no words. Words come from your own dialogue.

So, how were you introduced to SoulCollage™?

A friend of mine invited me to a class. I didn’t know what it was, but for some reason I went and SoulCollage™ really clicked for me. It was an amalgamation of all my studies. I’ve studied a lot of different kinds of spiritual paths and mysticism. I’ve read tarot cards for years and I’m an artist. Everything came together in this amazing process that was really easy, too. In an hour or two, you could do something creative and it feels really good to make something. So it was a serendipitous moment. I really liked it and I wanted to do more of it so I attended workshops in Guatemala and received trainings to teach it.

*i am the one who grows the energy of nature…*

And how has SoulCollage™ helped you in your life?

It has brought me closer to myself. I used to use other tools or read tarot cards, and when I started being able to read my own SoulCollage™ cards, it was a lot more powerful because they were part of me as opposed to broader archetypal things that someone else has created. It feels really personal because I’m reading what has come out of me. It’s really personal and expressive.

by Anjie Cho

Contact Aileen for upcoming Collage Your Soul workshops:

Leave the busy world behind and shift into a world of images, symbols and intuition. SoulCollage™ is an easy non-threatening process for creating your own personal deck of cards that depict different facets of your personality. During this class you will learn the elements of SoulCollage™ and the process of making cards intuitively by collecting magazine images and collaging them onto 5x8 mat boards. Drawing from the archetypal work of Joseph Campbell and Jungian dream analysis we begin to learn the soul’s language through dialoguing and journaling with what we create. The class will be structured to include meditation, circle sharing, collaging, partner work, and card readings to answer solution centered questions. You will leave with the beginnings or additions to a magnificent deck of uniquely personal cards and an inspiring practice that you can continue on your own. SoulCollage™ is a accessible to whoever has a passion for images and color and is interested in exploring their creative consciousness. A great way to slow down and deepen your relationship with yourself and other women.

No artistic experience necessary. Images and supplies will be provided. First session free to newcomers!

40 Worth Street suite 819, New York City - Fee Includes all materials SPACE IS LIMITED to 8 participants Register in advance with: aileengural@gmail.com

Aileen Gural is an artist and mother of two teenaged children, living in New York City. After exploring many artistic mediums, she completed the Jewelry Design Program from FIT in 2004 and have been working with metal and stones ever since. Along the way some of the other studies that have inspired and guided Aileen has been meditation, Qabalah, Feng-Shui, Shamanic work, Core Energetics, Yantra painting, Martial Arts, and Diamond Heart work. Its is now with great pleasure and passion that she is able to incorporate and share her experiences -through the process of SoulCollage™.