The Beauty of the Process

 If you saw my last blogpost, you’ll recall seeing this SoulCollage® card:

 

To recap, I made this card to help me overcome my fear of the statistics around my cancer diagnosis.  I have struggled to come to terms with the methods and nature of the western medical establishment in which the disease is treated rather than the person.  But this is just backstory, as you’ll see.

 

Here’s one of the beauties of SoulCollage® - while the process of making these collaged cards is very simple and a lot of fun, whether done alone or in community, it also can generate far greater insight than you might expect. There are basically two ways of making cards: have an idea of something you want to make, something you’d like to include in your deck, and look for images to capture that; or just pull images that you’re drawn to and see what evolves.  I always thought that the second method yields the most surprises.  Often, you don’t understand the import of what you have made until after (sometimes long after) you’ve made it.  But with this most recent collage, which was clearly created with a specific intention, the same kind of surprised awareness arose well after the fact.

 

Let me explain. The young woman’s image at the top of the card was cut off a photograph of her rock climbing.  I wanted a picture of a woman overcoming some difficulty, and this picture seemed ideal.  And so, I placed her practically climbing over the doctors who formed the lower background. On one level, this clearly achieved what I intended.  Mission accomplished. 

 

I selected the photo of the field of sunflowers for the lower background because it was full of life and new growth. As the sunflower is the chosen image of life and hope for sarcoma patients, it embodies even deeper symbolism. (And this was before the invasion of Ukraine and all the resulting sunflower images, but another synchronicity, for sure.)

 

The doctors are in their operating room, peering down at the little figure on the bottom left – me: small, bald, and fatigued from their ministrations.  April was the month I was diagnosed, and so I included the calendar page along with numbers representing the awful statistics concerning this disease. 

 

I will say I did feel some strength and resolve after completing the card.  But it didn’t end there.

 

A few days later, I sat with the card again, and another realization leaped into my mind and practically bowled me over.  Truly, the woman is no longer a rock climber.  I succeeded, as SoulCollage® inspires us to do, in giving the image an entirely new context.  She is now picking flowers in a field.  She is leaning over to pluck one.  Oh. My. God.  She is Persephone!  Of course she is!  And the medical establishment sits in the underworld beneath her.  Well, I have obviously been on an underworld journey.  And yet, the little me in the corner holds a big bouquet of sunflowers.  She will arise.  I have.

 

But is Persephone about to be pulled down like when she first picked the flower?  Or is She in this field during one of her subsequent annual ascents?  The card does not say, but in SoulCollage® we let the image speak.  What the woman said when I first made the card and before I understood Her significance was, “I am one who has been at the will of the medical system, for good and for ill.  I am one who has climbed out of the mindset that I have to be one of their statistics. I am one who chooses life and who refuses to be intimidated by their statistics.”  So, knowing this, I can be assured that we are viewing one of Persephone’s returns in the Spring.  She and I have already been down there.  There will be other descents.  But not now. 

 

And what about the central doctor?  Is he then Hades?  That’s a tricky question.  We can never approve of Hades’ actions in abducting Her, but is He evil?  What a terrible job He was assigned!  I can’t blame Him for not wanting to bear it alone.  Sadly, in the ancient times of the myth’s origins, Greek marriages were often conducted in this manner, or at least without the women being consulted, yet alone giving consent.  I do not condone his methods, even so.  But it is also true that through this awful act, Hades made Her a powerful queen. Her life and purpose drastically changed, and who can say whether this was a good thing or bad?

 

But back to the doctor – he did save my life (and I truly love my surgeon who called me “my miracle patient” and who, interestingly, was born in Greece). He, unlike Hades for Persephone, was not the cause of my troubles.  But he did drastically change my life.  Then he, they, western medicine, left me in this place.  My surgeon gave me the chance. If I want to be truly healed, I must use what they can offer but also take it into my own hands. I’m the one who can harvest the sunflower.

 

I have always tried to imagine Persephone’s story forward, beyond what we’re told in the myth.  It is up to Her to choose how to proceed.  Hades offers Her tremendous power in all the realms. I like to believe She took it on.

 

What the card does not show, and so perhaps I need to make another one, is that there is community.  I may often feel alone, and in many ways my suffering and path are all my own, but as the sunflowers grow together, connected, in the field, I am not alone.