SoulCollage® has four suits that you can assign to your cards, Community, Committee, Council and Companion. I’ll talk a little bit about each in four separate posts. This one is about Community which are people, animals, souls, or energy that are worldly, or “real.” It could even be a place or an event that is meaningful to you, but it is an actual something, as opposed to inner people or fairies which are not (usually) visible.

Your Community is full of mostly souls, probably, who made an impact on you, not toxic people or anything that would cause trauma (always avoid those on SoulCollage® cards), but it could be someone that taught you a life lesson. Maybe it was difficult, but it ended up being a healthy experience. Or maybe it’s someone who has always been a bright spot for you and fills you with feelings of self-worth all the time. When you create or draw one of these cards from your deck, listen to the voice of that particular person. They want to tell you something. My first dog, Milo, appears in many of my cards. He has a lot to say.

These examples don’t include Milo, but do introduce you to my childhood orchestra director from 6th to 12th grade, Mr. Van, who instilled confidence in me, trusted me, and liked me as a person and leader (I was always first stand, first violin). I loved orchestra and I loved Mr. Van. The other example is a former co-worker, Chris, an army veteran, Ranger, and inspirational person. When I put the kid in the water on the card, I didn’t even notice he was wearing camouflage until after it was done. That’s what I call SoulCollage® magic.
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You have a Community around you. Let them talk to you, help you, guide you. Even if they aren’t part of your everyday life, they can live on your SoulCollage® cards forever.

​I started pre-cutting images because I was bothered by the extra space when laying out my cards. I was also bored. Then I kept doing it because they store better that way (taped to scrap paper), and it’s a good thing to do when I’m too tired to think through a whole collage, but I feel like doing something crafty and mindful. I don’t use all of the ones I cut, but it’s still worth it. I love being able to go to my folder and be able to create my cards without the extra time of cutting. I can automatically see what it will look like when glued down without squishing together a bunch of larger pieces of paper, and they are easy to peruse all taped to scrap paper.

Most of the time I do SoulCollage® it’s because I feel the need to do it, or it’s workshop time, but sometimes I do it just for fun. The “fun” cards are just as meaningful as the “serious” ones, but they have a lighter, more joyful energy about them. Sometimes I get to demonstrate my sense of humor, sometimes funny images find me, and probably more often than not, it’s my inner child wanting to play. 

I even laugh at the alarm clock card – I really dislike getting up with an alarm in the morning, but this still makes me giggle inside, as if funny me is trying to wake up crabby me. I’ve also made several mate-manifestation cards, but the Batman and Rose walking dinosaur bones card remains one of my favorites. I would love that to be me someday. And the alien-cat-Joshua Tree card is a combination of several fun things I like, and this card connects me to them.
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It’s important to keep these around in your deck, because even if you’re like me and you feel like you’re not growing if you’re not meditating, studying, or doing something mindful, they do provide growth. Sometimes it’s a reverse growth, like being an adult who finds that healthy inner child that has been pushed into the dark for too long. With all the fun killers out there, like work, bills, traffic, news, fun has to hold its own space, so make fun cards, let the silly flow, let the happy joker dance across your cards, and then smile at what you’ve done.