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Brief Definitions:

Source: the universe, divine, spirit, however you define faith, spirituality, or connection to the universe. For some this is God in the many terms used to describe this and to others this is nature and the natural world. Typically, a single card is created to represent source.

Soul Essence: your connection to “source.” This card is also a single card most often and is an image that represents your connection or the way you connect to however you identify source/the universe, divine, spirit.

Witness: non-judgmental observer. This card is typically a single card and represents a non-judgmental observer or listener. This may seem insignificant in some ways, having a card to represent a witness to your experiences and stories, yet can be grounding and validating in this work that may surprise us with its depth.

Committee: aspects of personality; character traits; parts of self. These cards relate to Internal Family Systems (IFS) work as this category (suit) encompasses our shadow and light traits and aspects of personality. Examples include our inner critic, our happy child, ourselves as loyal friend, our artist or gardener self, etc.

Community: family, friends, mentors, pets, others important to us. This category represents people and pets in our lives who influence us in some way. These may be not only helpful people but also those who challenge us or are sources of conflict in our lives. We include pets here versus in the companion suit since pets are a close connection and we know their personalities while with companions we often assign specific traits. We can use photographs of these people or animals or also use elements of collage and images from elsewhere to represent these people in our lives.

Companion: connection to animals (traditionally in SoulCollage, one per each chakra that is discovered by guided meditation). This category can include animals to which we feel an affinity and often represent various aspects or traits we typically assign to them. Reading about the views of various cultures of different animals can also add to our understanding of ourselves and our natures. For example, coyotes may seem sinister in some cultures and are viewed as playful “trickster” in others. Spiders may be sources of fear yet represent a creature that connects us in the web of life. There is a lot to explore with animals!

Council: archetypes, stories across cultures. These are the larger stories found in fairy tales, myths, religious stories, and represent archetypes. While we may have a student card we make to represent that learning aspect of self, we may also make a more universal “student” or “scholar” or “learner” card to represent learning overall as an archetype. Council cards are often the big topics, as well, such as death, creation, the dreamer, warrior, peacekeeper, rebel, or wise one.