Would you like to explore a tool that helps you
access your own reserves of wisdom?

One Day SoulCollage® Introductory Workshop

SoulCollage® is an easy, fun tool for exploration and expression of the many parts of the Self. This is a creative process accessible to everyone–even those people who believe they have no artistic ability. Using imagination and intuition, each participant creates his or her own deck of collaged cards from simple materials: magazine images, photographs, scissors, glue, and heavy card. Each card represents some aspect of the Self; this practice honors the personal journey of each individual, and promotes personal growth and self-acceptance.

Once an individual SoulCollage® card has been created, participants are invited to step deeper into each card through dialoguing and journaling.

This one-day workshop is being offered near Picton, Ontario
Bloomfield United Church, 272 Main Street, Bloomfield

Saturday, January 28, 2012
10:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Registration fee: $70
SoulCollage facilitator: Sue Reynolds

All materials are provided. Coffee, tea, water and light snacks will be available throughout the day. Please bring your own lunch.
Please use the form below to register. When you hit the submit button you will be taken to a page where you can pay by PayPal account or your credit card through PayPal.

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SoulCollage® is a creative, fun tool for easy, intuitive, artful Self-exploration and Self-expression developed by Seena B. Frost, M. Div., M.A. It is an artistic, creative process that is accessible to everyone, even those people who believe they have no artistic ability.

Using imagination and intuition, each participant creates his or her own deck of collaged cards from simple materials: magazine images, photographs, scissors, glue, and heavy card.
Each card represents some aspect of the Self; this practice honors the personal journey of each individual, while promoting personal growth and self-acceptance.

Once an individual SoulCollage® card has been created, participants are invited to step deeper into each card through journaling, visualization and other activities. Once a participant has enough cards, doing “readings” with a personal SoulCollage® deckis possible – readings that can help illuminate the answers to life questions for each seeker.

Teachers, therapists, and people all over the world use this powerful process in workshops and psychotherapy, classrooms, retreats, and coaching sessions (to name a few). There are more than 800 trained SoulCollage® Facilitators worldwide.

To read more about Soul Collage you can visit www.soulcollage.com, Seena Frost’s home website, or www.kaleidosoul.com, the website of the dynamic Anne Marie Bennett.

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Sally’s Message:

Hello Ladies! Terri and I have become very interested in vision boards and soul cards recently, and have decided to put a workshop together at Tranquil Garden.

Sue Reynolds is a board member of the writing group I belong to, and she has certification as a Soul Collage Instructor and training in psychology. She is a wonderful person, warm, loving, and she radiates positive energy. You will love her. She normally holds full day workshops on Soul Collage, but she has agreed to hold an evening session for us.

The concept is that you visualize the areas of your life, the people, the issues, your hopes, your dreams, and you make collages of them on large cards, which are then laminated and made into sets of cards. Eventually, when you have created enough cards to represent different areas of your life, you will be taught to read them, similar to Tarot cards, only personalized to the things in your life that truly matter. This will help you visualize your hopes and dreams, work through issues, and give you affirmations.

I have seen the cards, and they are truly amazing. You can feel the person’s personal energy in them.

Here are the details of the session Terri and I are holding with Sue:

When: Friday, June 10, 6:30 pm to 9:00 pm
Where: Tranquil Garden, 1053 Ritson Road http://www.tranquilgardenretreat.ca/
Cost: $25, all materials supplied (we may have to kick in a bit extra to pay for the room, depending on arrangements with Sue, but this will be minimal, say $5)

I think it will be a wonderful, soulful evening for Yogalicious Ladies and beyond! So ask your friends if they would like to come, too! Once I have numbers, I will reserve the room and confirm with Sue. And we can do a potluck of cookies and coffee etc for the event.

Each one has a specific focus for making cards intentionally, but of course intuitive card making is always welcomed and celebrated.

Dates: Sundays, January 30th – Animal Totems and the Companion Suit
March 27th – Working with the Shadow,
May 22nd – Archetypes and the Council Suit

SoulCollage® is a creative, fun tool for easy, intuitive, artful Self-exploration and Self-expression developed by Seena B. Frost, M. Div., M.A. It is an artistic, creative process that is accessible to everyone, even those people who believe they have no artistic ability.

Using imagination and intuition, each participant creates his or her own deck of collaged cards from simple materials: magazine images, photographs, scissors, glue, and heavy card.
Each card represents some aspect of the Self; this practice honors the personal journey of each individual, while promoting personal growth and self-acceptance.

Once an individual SoulCollage® card has been created, participants are invited to step deeper into each card through journaling, visualization and other activities. Once a participant has enough cards, doing “readings” with a personal SoulCollage® deckis possible – readings that can help illuminate the answers to life questions for each seeker.

Teachers, therapists, and people all over the world use this powerful process in workshops and psychotherapy, classrooms, retreats, and coaching sessions (to name a few). There are more than 800 trained SoulCollage® Facilitators worldwide.

To read more about Soul Collage you can visit www.soulcollage.com, Seena Frost’s home website, or www.kaleidosoul.com, the website of the dynamic Anne Marie Bennett.

There are 3 Soul Collage days booked for Winter/Spring 2011:

Dates: Sundays, January 30th – Animal Totems and the Companion Suit
March 27th – Working with the Shadow,
May 22nd – Archetypes and the Council Suit

Time: 10 – 5:00
Place: Uplands, 13240 Mast Road (halfway between Uxbridge and Port Perry)
Cost: $75.00 – materials supplied

$75.00 Payment for SoulCollage Sunday

Use this Form to Register

1. Your Name(required)
2. Email(valid email required)
3. Workshop for which you'd like to register(required)
4. Message

 

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As a mother of a young child I used to dream of having a place I could go to periodically to write. Not for too long – there was too much going on at home. But a day now and then – a few hours to devote to my poor book that so often got shunted to one side because of all the other demands of my life.

And then, as it has a habit of doing, my life changed. I moved into this cozy space in the woods full of bookshelves, a fireplace, a kitchen where the coffee pot is always ready to pour a cup or two, and a yard where the wildlife parades past the windows and serenades day and night (everything from blue jays and chickadees, juncos and nuthatches, to wild turkeys, deer, a weasel, raccoons, skunks, coyotes, wolves, and – just a couple of times in the spring – a black bear).

It’s a magical space and I realized I could share it with other writers and make those creative days I had once dreamed of happen, for myself and for other members of the writing tribe.

And so, Writers’ Sanctuary Sundays were born.

At a Sanctuary Sunday, we begin at 10:00 a.m. Writers are welcome to arrive a few minutes early to settle in, grab a coffee or tea, and muffin or some fruit and chat with the others.

The morning is spent doing a series of on-the-spot timed writing exercises to stretch those stiff writing muscles and get the creative writer in you feeling more relaxed, focused and perhaps even a little experimental.

After the delicious lunch (provided) the afternoons are spent in silent communion with other writers, working either on a computer or by hand on whatever project is preoccupying you as a writer these days. If you don’t have a laptop but want to work on a keyboard, you will be provided with a computer. Your Word file can be emailed to you at the end of the day.

Uplands is in a peaceful rural location, so you are also welcome to go out for a walk on quiet country lanes if you need a break. There’s even a couch or two if you need your afternoon nap for half an hour to wake up refreshed and ready to write some more!

Writing is over at 4:45 p.m. for those who need to get home, but if you wish to stay, there will be an opportunity to sit a while longer, to share some of what you’ve been working on and to debrief, discuss issues of craft, etc.

Space is limited to 7 guest writers each Sunday.

Place: Uplands – 10 km west of Port Perry, 10 km southeast of Uxbridge.
Dates for Winter/Spring 2011:
January 16, February 13, March 6, April 3, May 8, June 5th

Please note: In October 2010 Sue was certified as a SoulCollage® facilitator Click here to read more.

To read what one participant wrote about the Sanctuary experience, please click here.

Cost: $50. per Sunday, lunch included.
.

$50.00 Payment for Sanctuary Sunday

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I have been working with Deepam as a writing colleague for the last year and I have taken a yoga class with Esana (the most amazing yoga class of my life).

COSTA RICA IN WINTER – FEBRUARY 15th TO 22nd, 2011

- a week to remember: to write your heart, open your body, dance your soul, or do nothing at all… Whatever you need to restore you to yourself.

With Evelyn Lofty, Deepam Wadds, Susan Lynn Reynolds

• Journalling as a Contemplative Practice
• Restorative Kripalu Yoga
• Guided Dance Meditation
• Fabulous, delicious meals prepared from local ingredients (dietary needs are honoured).
• Expansive, non-commercial Pacific Ocean beach
• Salt Water Pool
• Open sided yoga/movement cabana
• Private, gated estate, exclusively for our retreat (maximum 16 participants) – personal, attentive, delightful service

The estate is located just north of Dominical on the Pacific Coast of Costa Rica.

Deepam organized and facilitated the retreat last year and will be doing so again this year. Since she’s been there before, and since she’s a beautiful writer, I thought I’d let her words speak for themselves. This is what she has written about this year’s event (the pictures are from last year):

February. The winter has gone on too long. Summer seems a thousand days away. The body is heavy with winter’s weight, and it longs to stretch and move in a warm and friendly place. To let fall the coat and kick off the boots, and run through the surf on an endless beach.

Yoga in the jungle. Freefall writing to tap into the magic of words. Endless days on the beach. Dance meditation before dinner. New and old friends to chat and laugh with. Delicious meals made from local produce. The music of cicadas. Salt-water pool. Costa Rica. The Rich Coast.

A dear friend has been urging me for a few years to take a group on retreat to Cabinas Alma, near Dominical, in Costa Rica. When she went there on a yoga retreat, it was a “the rest is history” sort of story. She fell in love with the land and the sea there, made fast friends with Sabina, the owner of the estate, and bought herself a piece of paradise close by.

Since 1998, Esana and I have hosted retreats that feature Kripalu Yoga, moving meditations, and awareness exercises. In the past few years, we have offered them twice a year, usually for a weekend. The idea of taking a group far from home at first was daunting, but when I offered the suggestion to Esana, her instant, yes! made the possibility a reality.

We took our first group of seventeen to this oasis on the Pacific coast last February(2010). To say that it was a wonderful experience would be an understatement. We had a perfect mix of couples, singles and even a mother and son. The grounds are lush, filled with nourishing and healing plants and trees – from cashew and starfruit, to pineapples, guanabana, avocado, mango, banana, papaya, a full herb garden, flowering trees and flowering bushes, toucans in the trees, cicadas layering the air with their hypnotic sound. The warmth of the place wraps you in its arms and inspires your muscles to let go into deep relaxation. The yoga palapa sits across a small arched bridge from the dining room. It’s an open-air space tucked into the jungle. Here, we also danced, overhead fans blazing away the heat from our bodies.

And then there is the beach. What was so stunning about this beach is the space – it stretches wide and magnificent as far as the eye can see, in both directions. Bordered by palm and shrubbery for picnics and refuge from the sun, it is a vast playground of unblemished sand and sea. Some participants spent hours combing the beach for sand dollars, shells, and bits of treasure. Others, like me, jumped and played in the waves, until the sun set.

And then there is the food. Almost exclusively organic, the food was simply prepared, local, delicious and satisfying. Fresh fish and a wonderful array of vegetables and grains. Every meal a delight as well as an opportunity to meet and chat with participants in a gorgeous setting.

And then there is the pool. Just up a stone step path and through an archway waits a perfect blue salt-water pool, surrounded by a wooden and tile deck. There we lounge or swim or hang out, arms slung over the edge as our legs slowly slide back and forth through the silky water, chatting and laughing , or with our heads back, drinking in the fragrance of the flowering trees.

In the morning, before breakfast, we practice a gentle, flowing yoga, our senses ignited amidst the sounds of roosters and cicadas, huge brilliant blue butterflies drifting by. We learned this trip, about when to dance and when to sit, so that for our next trip, we have put each meditation in a place that suits the pace of the place. After breakfast, we have the honour of having my own writing teacher, Susan Lynn Reynolds, facilitating an hour or so of “freefall” writing practice. This is an opportunity to let your pens do the writing, to get out of the critic’s way, and let the magic happen.

During the day, we can go to the beach, take a trip to Dominical, hire a horse, go to the nearby eco-reserve and take a zipline excursion through the jungle. You can even spend the day on horseback, taking a trip to a magnificent waterfall.

Before dinner, I offer a moving meditation, an exploration of rhythm as we tap into the wellspring of the body’s expression. After dinner, a quiet meditation and optional reading from the day’s writing. Doesn’t that sound like fun?

Participants are free to pick and choose which activities they wish to join. No pressure. No hurry. No worries.

This year, we are offering the retreat for the week of February 15 to 22, 2011. In our costs, we have included flight, accommodation, meals, facilitation and taxes. You just have to show up!

Testimonials from last year’s participants:

“Wow – Yes. A perfect combination of luxury and simplicity, rest and activity, hospitality and respite, people and place. Count me in!” E.L.

“Personally, I liked everything… I enjoyed: the food, the atmosphere, the yoga and dance, the special activities: zipline, kayaking the mangrove, walking the beach, riding the surf, browsing and shopping, horsebacking to the waterfalls, splashing in the pool… Oh – the facilitation was great! Returning… someday. Finally, experiencing the here and now!” S.S.

“I would do it again next year and I would not change anything. Yoga, movement, activities, food, location all superb! You did a magnificent job!” T.R.
“Fabulous food every meal, lovely garden, wonderful accommodating hostess (Sabina is the best), great rooms, great pool, wonderful flower arrangements in the dining room, program both dance and yoga excellent, wonderful staff…” C.Y.

“What I liked: fresh fruit YUM!!!, tour of grounds, eating healthy, using the pool anytime, yoga and dancing, the camaraderie of everyone, the slower pace of just being able to read and relax…” D.B.

“The accommodations were wonderful. I very much appreciated the ease of saying, yes – and the retreat was booked. I liked that I didn’t have to think about the travel, accommodations or meals (less stress and can focus on relaxation). The food was spectacular! Very wholesome and delicious. A1!! The exercises were great…” “It is hard to say exactly what experience each individual had in Costa Rica, I can say it was magical and restorative. (and I knew when I walked into work on Monday morning…I wasn’t there anymore.”J.B.

Thanks so much for arranging this trip. What a great experience! I actually enjoyed the lack of scheduling and the spontaneity of unplanned trips and other adventures. My life can be much too structured. My only suggestion is that perhaps we could incorporate more meditation into the evenings. The one Esana facilitated was an eye-opening experience (no pun intended). M.G.

“…Would definitely repeat… I really liked starting the day with yoga and doing so early. One and a half hours was perfect. Esana was great as ever (expect no less). I also enjoyed the meditative dance in the evenings. I liked the amount of free time. This gave me what I valued most – the chance to slow right down and live from moment to moment without worrying about time and racing. The setting was perfect. The food and Sabina’s presence added immensely. Felt well held by Deepam – like you were looking out for everyone’s welfare and managing the zillion details with great care and patience. Thank you all so much.” J.O.

“We did so much in eight days it will take me as much time to review and settle the memories in place. The waterfall trip does stand out. The jungle, the meals, the monkeys, the pride of the family owners and the climb to dive. I think about once every 55 years is about right for that experience of diving free…I’m mindfully washing the sand and salt from my possessions but not my spirit. I had plenty of personal private time by the pool at sunrise and at 10:00pm, solo trips to town and simple prayer before each meal… as I prepare tonight’s meal I reflect that everything served to me was fresh and freshly prepared. Many thanks for your hard work preparing and dealing with unforeseen events. As an adherent of chaos and order I too went with the flow. G.T.

The Details:

ALL-INCLUSIVE (FLIGHT, PROGRAM, ACCOMMODATION, MEALS, TRANSFERS & TAXES) $2200. PER PERSON, BASED ON DOUBLE OCCUPANCY.

Registration is done on the Balanced Body Studio website:

http://www.balancedbodystudio.ca/costa-rica-retreat.html

A $500.00 deposit is required to hold your spot for this. (Limited to 16 participants).

Time: 10:00 to 4:00
Place: Utica Memory Hall (map below)
Cost: $85
$75 for WCDR, WEN, WHEN, PWAC members

Many people keep a journal. For some it’s a diary of day to day events. For others it’s a place where they can express feelings that they are afraid to share elsewhere. Other writers use it as a record of creative projects, or memoirs, or family events. Some use it as a place to record dreams, whether they occur in wakefulness or while sleeping.

No matter what the reason for keeping a journal, those who do so acknowledge the profound effect it has on their lives. The journal is a place for solace and revelation. Time spent journalling allows space for reflection. Journal writing connects the dots and helps us to see the larger picture.
But those who journal often confess that they feel that they’re not “doing it right” or that they’re embarrassed by the nature of the entries that they make – too negative or too whiny. And what should they do with this very personal writing later on?

Join Sue Reynolds for a day of investigation into the art and science of journal writing. Participants will explore exercises that can take their writings beyond everyday entries. Writers will leave the workshop having experienced number of different techniques that can allow them access to their own inner wisdom.

This is a wonderful gentle way to begin with one of the best writing teachers I have taken a workshop with. She provides such a gentle supportive environment and creates a safe space to express yourself. It really helped me to incorporate journal writing into my daily life. - Clare Bolton

Susan Lynn Reynolds has been journalling for over 20 years and has studied with some of the leaders in the field of writing as a spiritual practice and for
therapeutic benefit. She is a published author and poet and leads many workshops in various forms of writing.

To register, pay through credit card or PayPal below, or call Sue: 905-243-4836

$85.00

$75.00 Member Price for Journalling workshop

Map to the Utica Memory Hall here

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$75.00 May 2nd payment for photo shoot with Greg Tjepkema

$75.00 May 17th payment for photo shoot with Greg Tjepkema

$350.00 April payment for A Novel Approach.

Get it Down to Give it Up –
Expressive Journaling Techniques

Many of us head to our journals instinctively in times of trouble. Sometimes we get sick of writing about the same old situation over and over again, wondering if we’re ever going to get beyond our negative obsessions.

Twenty years of research has proven time and time again that writing down “what disturbs and dismays you” is good for you both physically and mentally. People who express themselves by writing in a journal have stronger immune systems, fewer illnesses, and lowered blood pressure. Writing in a journal also reduces symptoms of many chronic illnesses such as arthritis, asthma, etc.

Expressive writing can also signifcantly, positively improve mood states including depression and anxiety, as well as ameliorating the symptoms of many other “mental disorders.”

This workshop will provide techniques and exercises to be engaged with in class as well as taken home for future use, to use our journals to best effect for expression, insight and resolution. For those of us who are writers, our problems tend to rise over and over again in our poetry and our fiction as well as our journaling – this workshop will also touch on how to mine our journals for material that can be transformed into powerful fiction and poetry.

Certified in the AWA method of leading creative writing workshops, Susan Lynn Reynolds, BSc. Psych, has taught creative writing for 12 years. Writing for therapeutic benefit is both the subject of her award-winning undergrad thesis and her current program of study for her Masters degree.

Sue leads writing groups for criminalized women both in jail and in the community, a program that earned her the 2007 June Callwood Award for Outstanding Volunteerism.

Date: Saturday, March 15
Location: Uxbridge Public Library
(Downstairs Meeting Room – Handicapped accessible from the parking lot).

Time: 10:00 to 4:00
Cost: $90.00
$80.00 for WCDR/HWEN members

Light snacks provided
- break for lunch

To register, please email: susanreynolds@trentu.ca

Please feel free to share this information with anyone you feel might be interested – the benefit of this method comes from engaging authentically with the process of writing, not the document produced.

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