I am on to the next Soul Art Certification (The Creation Journey!), going through all of the lessons and Soul Art Journeys and I wanted to share my last one with you while it’s fresh in my mind.
I created a Soul Art piece and for my Spirit Action I also created a poem I’ll share at the end.
Each Certification I go through, I’m experiencing in a very intimate way all of the levels, explorations and deep wisdom on my own journey, so I truly know how expansive and transformative this work is! I have gone on many journeys and I’ve looked at my life from the inside out, from the outside in, from above and below and East and West. I’ve dreamed of my journeys and I’ve taken hem a step further in my work in Akashic Records, Human Design and Shamanism.
Soul Art is about accessing your Inner Wisdom both held in your body, DNA, Muscles, Sinews, Bones, etc … but also The Inner Wisdom of your Soul, Higher Spirit, Highest Aligned Energy. There are so many amazing layers of Soul Art and how it maps out a journey. It is both an intimate journey within your own human experiment and at the same time a larger map that outlines a process.
This was a Soul Art Journey to begin to experience my Inner Family. The ways in which my Inner Family Reacts and Responds in this Human Life.
The Inner Family consists of:
Essence
Inner Child
Wise Sage
Inner Mother
Inner Father
All of these players in my Inner Family can also relate back to my own Family. This journey took a different look through the lens of Conditioning and how all of these parts work together. It was fascinating! It was like having a mirror up to a mirror and seeing all of the sides internally and externally, at the same time working with the energy all around me.
I’ve done a lot of work with de-conditioning through Human Design and working with my developmental stages in Soul Art and Shaman Journeys. This was a bit different.
It was directed and yet not directed at all. Each member of the Inner Family has a role to play and yet they have their own way of expressing within the Inner Family Unit and so there was some definition into each role, but I also could feel the universal definition, if that makes sense.
In this journey I journaled a lot! I journaled around my actual family and their roles in my childhood as well as my Inner Family and how they were entwined, frayed, tight, loose, how they interacted and supported one another an how they mimicked the ‘lessons’ of my youth.
I also had a very fast instinct and impulse to move in certain ways within my journey.
Throughout the entire Creation Journey Certification I’m working with Creating the Essence of Authentic ME - so that was where my Intention started.
and as you know by now, every Soul Art Journey starts with Intention!
Once I journaled and moved into the creative expression. I found myself at the sewing machine, which, if you know me in real life, is hazardous … me at a sewing machine! But I felt called to it and I felt called to certain fabrics and patterns, colors and shapes.
I was tapping into a sense of ancestry, an art long held by women when I was working with the fabrics. I was purposefully choosing the patterns and colors, creating meaning where I had none before. I was building the nest of this Soul Art and framing it into a context of the story I was telling. The presence of my Wise Sage was with me.
Then I painted on the dress with my Inner Mother, The nurturer. As I painted circles after circles with a dry brush on the fabric, I felt comfort in the repetitive action, the depth of brush strokes and the complement of colors. I was getting comfortable with the movement and the shadows I was creating.
Once I finished I felt like I needed to wear the dress! The dress was full of fabrics that I chose to represent all the members of my Inner Family sewed into the train of the skirt and the moment I put it on I could feel the energy moving. I quickly realized I wanted it to be a skirt so I took out a strapless bra and converted the dress into a skirt.
The funny thing is, once I put the dress on, something came over me! I felt a sense of abandon and role play. I felt really alive. The first thing I did was reach for the paints and paint brushes and I began to paint on my body and face. I had a blast! It was my Inner Child that wanted to play. I laughed and felt not only the feelings of play and power but also the brush on my skin, the coolness of the paint, the way it tightened on my skin as it dried. I didn’t worry at all what it looked like or how much paint I was using I just followed wherever my hand decided to go.
When I stopped and looked at myself in the mirror, I saw my warrior, my Inner Father in my eyes. I saw the strength and the integrity and the ‘Dare to mess with me’. I immediately when to the tripod and set up my camera. I moved like a warrior, I felt into my eyes as warrior. I dared myself to move and make sound. I took my camera out and started taking video and pictures of myself.
The last piece of my Soul art was to put it in context in Procreate.
Here’s the finished piece:
and I played a bit with coloration
This journey was an all day experience and I found so much wisdom from each step of it.
My Insights around the Journey were of my own process of creative expression and creative process.
I have to honor the Wise Sage and the Inner Mother for what they bring to the table. They bring the meaning, the inspiration, the context and the comfort.
Once I find the meaning and the pieces I want to work with I need to put it on and let go, to wear it and embody it, to dance with it and find the awe in it. I need to play like my Inner Child played.
And my Inner Warrior needs to direct the action after that.
I learned that my Inner Child and my Inner Father are so very the same and yet so very different. They resonate at the same frequency with a different energy. I learned that they LOVE to play together!
I wrote about how my Father never really had the chance to be a Warrior for me as a child. He was a warrior for his Mother and Siblings when he was younger but then he went to Vietnam and something changed there after he was blown up as a mine sweeper. I don’t think he had the same Warrior energy that he was born with.
But that doesn’t mean that I can’t cultivate it within my own Inner Family!
So my Spirit Action for this journey was to use the same process to write. poem.
To allow for the meaning, inspiration, comfort and thoughtfulness of my Wise Sage and Inner Mother as I read through a story I wrote about my parents deaths.
Then I let it go and played with my Inner Child eventually finding my way back to the page to write a new poem.
When I played with my inner child I worked with ink and Chinese brushes on large paper and mostly worked with my eyes closed. Then I used the images in the ink to direct my poem.
I want to share with you the poem I wrote:
i lived in a forest.
i loved in a forest.
i was loved in a forest.
DNA strands like warrior muscles keeping back the bears
and the birdsong singing me to sleep
wrapped in the comfort of my three.
but my back straightened
my hips came round
the roots tripped me up and
i began to wander.
my forest
it was a tree
one tree
planted so very delicately
to protect me.
head over feet i stumbled splat
into the street
the call of my one tree forest
dwindling
in the clatter and clunk
of becoming.
it was messy
smelled of iron and stink
but also
of freedom.
bruised and skin stiff with dried blood
moon Cycles splattered decades
and I found
a small plot of land
right where I began
and a handful of seeds to plant.
that thick broad trunk still barking away at the world trying to invade.
it’s branches and needles now hung with tire swings and lights put up
and the memories laughing underfoot.
it stayed like this for a while.
til the tree was cut down.
it’s bark whittled into arrows
a barrage of constant reminders
of what once was.
i bent down to pick one up
the only thing I could do was bury it
i went on a long walk with my heart uphill
three hands in mine.
undefined, aimless
dirt into water into rocks stone and snow
seasons of wilderness
nowhere to go.
and I found myself at the top of a mountain
looking out
over treetops, mine fields and potholes
over wings spread on wind, and a congestion of stories told
over fences and playgrounds, love, sadness and fear
over grief
and
i cried an exclamation point
my own voice, echos of iridescence across the sky
little crescent moons,
dealing dreams
of what I had seen
a Curiosity
the light bent itself back to me
turned my head gently to see
the place where I buried a splinter
it’s wood turned into forest
the flowers called me wild
but I could see how they took over with abandon
and somehow it all made sense.
This Soul Art Journey was so amazingly clear, insightful, full of wisdom and play. It was an all day journey and it was wrapped in the energy of my Ancestry, my Family and my Inner Family.
I went deep into the roots of how I was taken care of and how I take care of myself, how all of my parts are moving and working together and I came up with the outline of my process and why it works.
Soul Art is an amazing Journey into the universe of the Human Experience. It holds the Curiosity, the Wisdom, the Play, the Intention, the Transformation, the Connection to who we really are, to who our Soul wants to be and the keys to getting there.
I run Soul Art Workshops as well as one to one and intimate group Soul Art Journeys both online and in-person here in Morristown NJ.
If you’re interested in learning more or experiencing the Power of a Soul At Journey for yourself, message, me or check out my website at: jocelynbates.net
I’ll be posting more this week!
If you are a paid subscriber, I will be running a live Mini Soul Art Session in the next month!
Oh! and in case you missed it:
LOVE.
Jocelyn b.