Distinctions between the SoulCollage® Suits

by Seena Frost (July 2004)

Seena Frost doing a "SoulCollage card reading" with a group

Hi good friends… Whether you are a new person browsing the web or a returning SoulCollager…Welcome. It’s been too long since I updated this column and I will try to do better in the future.

These past months have been exciting for me as more and more people are finding the SoulCollage website, and emailing with their delight and enthusiasm. You wouldn’t believe how many closet ‘collagers’ there are out there, people with files of images they have been collecting for years and keeping for some mysterious future purpose. SoulCollage appears to be that long awaited purpose! Over and over I am hearing how people are using their images to create cards to explore themselves, and also to share with their communities. It seems that these powerful images are proving a valuable way to share soul and, at the same time, touch in with the souls of others. Great! Keep creating and keep experimenting. Many find that creating even a few SoulCollage cards releases a wellspring of creative imagination that transforms stuck places in other parts of life. Let me know if that happens for you.

One person recently asked me to clarify the distinctions between the suits, and particularly the difference between the Committee and the Council. You’ll have to read the book for the basics on the suits, but, for those who have read it, I agree that there is often an overlap in these two suits, and some cards may include images for both. There could be an image for an inner self part, like the inner artist, as well as the archetype that grabs and directs that part, like the Creator. There can be, perhaps, a sense of the hidden and mysterious force of the archetypal Creator present, even if not explicit or developed. A Council card actually created for the archetypal Creator will be more mysterious, the images more mythic or symbolic. There will be a sense of necessity and passion emanating from a cosmic, eternal, and unavoidable energy. Often a person does not know when they are creating a Council card; it simply has to be made. Thinking about it comes later. Usually with Committee cards we are more clear of who it is we are depicting. Some Council cards might have an image for the inner self (Committee) on it as well as the archetype. For example a Warrior card might have on it an image for the ‘political activist self’ who is grabbed by and driven by the passion of the Warrior archetype. The Council member image might be standing behind the Committee member image as if sending it out into the world to do its bidding. I could go on with other examples of this overlap, but I imagine you can fill in for yourselves.

I’m available for questions if the SoulCollage book doesn’t cover something you need help with, and, even more, I’m eager to learn of new ways you discover to adapt the process to fit your needs and that of different populations.

We have a third SoulCollage facilitator training coming up in September, and I will be sure to give you an update after that of the many new things people are bringing to the process from all over the United States, and even the world! Seena Frost