Pre-Raphaelite Collage

SoulCollage® Make It Relevant

Someone I loved once gave me a box of darkness.

It took me years to understand that this, too, was a gift.

Mary Oliver

Pain. We all experience it. No one gets away without it in life if we want to evolve spiritually. Pain, and seeing others in pain ripens the heart for lessons in compassionate humility. An outbreak of pain brings us to our knees. We remember what is important. Who is fragile? How we got here. Causing us to feel our true state of being, which is always vulnerable. Forgetting we are at the mercy of grace, pain is our reminder that everything is temporary even the tears.

Mary Oliver’s short poem strikes a cord: Pain at first doesn’t seem like a gift but a curse. And in our society where we don’t like to see anyone suffer, pain is meant to be gotten rid of immediately, even though it’s the body’s alarm, warning us that something is wrong on the inside.

While experiencing pain that erupts with a swollen appendix, I’m not sure which scares me most: the pain from the appendix, or the battery of exploratory hospital tests. I was about to become a human pin cushion to be prodded, poked, and pricked wherever this uniformed-tribe could pierce the skin.

I don’t want to dwell on the infirmity or the conditions of a hospital that’s meant to serve our health needs. Everyone at some point in their life needs the help of allopathic medicine. Yet what cures and heals is left in the hands of, and becomes the responsibility of the individual given the chance to recuperate and start afresh.

Alone in my hospital room, feeling lonely and frightened, I stared at four blank, beige walls. A glaring white light behind this ambulatory bed as my spirits drained from the lifeless environment.

In our rush to get me to Emergency, I had forgotten my SoulCollage® deck. I thought of my cards, yearning for their company; the deck at home on my writing desk.

In my darkest hour, I don’t recall what made me think about my Animal Companions, yet at that moment the entire group surfaced. The hairs at my nape standing at end, a goose-bump-skin profuse with the warmth of a wool blanket.

I smiled: Loneliness forgotten, my friends stirred at my heart and rallied around me. Each Animal Companion making an appearance, uniting me with their presence, reminding me of their purpose, their energetic field manifesting love.

The operation was a success…

I’m back in my own bed now, recuperating, healing, feeling very much loved, taken care of by my husband, and grateful for my Animal Companions, who are always with me.

Honouring My Animal Companions

In Honor of My Animal Companion Suit: We are your Animal Companions. Regard us. We work to maintain and restore your energetic force. For as long as you are here, we are here with you.