An Invitation To Create: Freedom Visionary Collage

Bonjour Beautiful Soul Sisters,

My name is Goddess Prosper de Passe. I am a Full spectrum life Doula, which means I support people through all stages of health as a life coach. My services begin with conception, birth, maintaining health, healthy family relationships, and how to die with grace. I am honored to have the best business partner, my mom, who has been a holistic health practitioner for over 30 years where I began my apprenticeship at a very young age. I'm also an actress, and broadcasting radio and TV host.  Together, my mother and I help people to live a well balanced life. Although we offer these amazing services, in our personal lives, we begin many family projects with collaging.

Please allow me to share our family collage method with you.

I started my first collage at 7 years old. Some of the things I collaged about would come true and others wouldn’t. For instance, I got a pretty pink and purple bike, and a Barbie doll. For some reason, though I couldn’t manifest the Barbie doll mansion. I realized later on that all the pictures of little girls with Barbie doll mansions I saw were white, and my skin is brown. I also realize that black Barbie never had a mansion, so I couldn’t see myself ever having a mansion. The magazines never showed black or brown girls playing with Barbie mansions so I began to try very hard to be white. All the dissociation created a trend of disconnecting from anything black or brown as if people would notice my skin. Lol, I could hide. I could only see white girls or fair skin girls getting married. I became present to the trend when collaging my fairytale wedding and it hadn’t come to true, yet!

Let’s face it, I’m a Chocolatey Ethiopian Sephardic Jew and Bangli woman. As beautiful as I may be, my culture was not commonly represented or depicted in bridal magazines when growing up and still isn’t. So I had chosen to focus on magazines with images of actors and broadcasting careers, travel, interior decoration, beaches, horseback riding, fashion, health and fitness. Whatever made my heart happy in the moment and whatever was in my mom’s Salon and beauty spa. Over time, I learned that it was important to put yourself in the image and add movement. I became a visionary and these images have molded me into the woman I am today. I began to find images of white women doing amazing stuff, then I would cut it out and paste the face of a brown woman's body. This was my way of envisioning myself as a future leader.

Can you imagine being an Israelite woman living in Egypt? Would you have faith in God to guide you? Miriam asked if she should summon a Hebrew woman to nurse the child. Being told to do so by Pharaoh’s daughter, “the maiden went and called the child’s mother” (Yochebed), who was thereafter employed to care for Moses until he grew up. ​—Ex 2:5-10.

According to the holy scriptures, Moses was destined from birth, by God, to become the leader that would bring the Israelites out of Egypt from bondage into the promised land. Miriam was one of the people used by God to save Moses from the waters and directed the Egyptian princess to have their mother as a caretaker of baby Moses.

When Moses became an older Egyptian prince, about 40 years before God’s own timetable to free the Israelites, he wanted to free his people, the Israelites, from Egyptian slavery. He killed an Egyptian slave guard who was beating an Israelite slave and the matter came to be known. With his life now in danger, he fled from Egypt to the land of Midian. Moses spent 40 years in Midian where he learned humility, a quality that prepared him for the great mission God prepared for him from birth, along with his brother Aaron by his side as his spokesman. Together, they appeared face-to-face before the Pharaoh of Egypt with God’s request that he let his people go. Pharaoh refused, in spite of many meetings and after ten plagues from God on the Egyptians, Moses was guided by God to liberate the Israelites. They left Egypt walking through the parted Red Sea on dry grounds to God’s victory. Like Moses, we can find ourselves in training and envisioning the leader we were born to be.

Miriam became a prophetess and with her tambourine in hand, she led the Israelite women in songs and dances to declare the great victory of the liberated Israelites.

My adventure also became better and better. I think the biggest lesson I have learned through collaging is that we are creators in conjunction with God. We have to merely pray, draw, speak, or collage what we desire. Ask, and it is given! Collaging has solidified my faith in my creator, and to have a real relationship with him.  Now, if I can see in my mind's eye, and focus of my dream, it will materialize. As a child, my favorite story was the Israelites being delivered from Egypt, taught to me by my mother. Back in Moses’ day, the midwives were ordered to kill baby boys. These midwives had to keep envisioning baby Moses servicing as a faithful servant of The Almighty. They courageously delivered and kept those baby boys alive. How can we build our faith to be like that of the women that saved baby boys?

Today, we may not have to save babies. However, we can view our health as our babies. How can we develop integrity of our health in areas of strengthening our immune system, well functioning digestive system, graceful aging, etc.?

In this activity, we’ll focus on collaging to materialize a reality based on our personal vision of freedom and liberation, in honor of Passover.  

Well Circle Activity: Freedom Visionary Collage

What You’ll Need:

• A group of women you love (sisters, daughters, mothers, and friends)
• Large sheets of paper for each person (the bigger, the better)
• A pair of shares for each woman and girl
• Plenty of glue
• Magazines, or you can print pictures and quotes online
• Glitter and/or dried flowers (totally optional)
• Some great music to dance and start the session, and some nice background music that exudes creativity (I prefer classical music)
• Anything else that you might want to stick to your paper as long as it holds up when you hang it on the wall. Once, I knew a woman who collaged her red panties into the collage, so get creative! Choose whether you’re going to be doing this on the floor or at a table. A protective layer on the floor or the table is recommended to protect your floors and table from glue.

To begin:

Now that you have all your supplies... turn on some good music and get up and move your body for at least 3-6 minutes. Have fun and make each move feel good. Movement supports creativity.

And Miriam the prophetess, Aaron’s sister, proceeded to take a tambourine in her hand; and all the women began going out with her with tambourines and in dances. And Miriam kept responding to the men: “Sing to Jehovah, for he has become highly exalted. The horse and its rider he has pitched into the sea.” —Ex 15: 20, 21.20

The truth is there are no rules to collaging. There are simply preferred actions to get your results faster. The most important thing is to have fun.

Set an intention:

“Do nothing without intention.” Some clever people said this and so do I. - Goddess Prosper

For the month of Nisan, the intention is to focus on freedom and look for places in your body where you feel stuck or not flowing as smoothly as you’d like to.

Nisan 14th, Passover, has always been about freedom and deliverance from slavery in Egypt. As Jews, Passover marks a time of liberation from Egypt and it represents the anniversary of the Mosaic law.

When setting your intention, think of where in your life you feel like you are a slave. Where do you have a Pharaoh in your life? Where do you want to be more free?

In Moses’ time, this day has examples of some visionary women who stepped forward to support having a new reality when things seemed impossible and grim. Can you imagine seeing all the baby boys torn from their mother’s arms? In the face of all that, these women had hope.

Hebrew midwives, women, and pharaoh's daughter were visionaries in their own right. They saw the impossible possible. They put their energy into saving a small baby boy that was declared to be put to death by a pharaoh that would save a nation through collaboration of working with the all mighty creator. May we be so brave to ask for freedom for ourselves and our families like these women. Ask and it is given, by the All Mighty. Set your intentions high and we’ll use these in our collages

Work energetically:

Pick out the magazines that call to you, maybe flip through and see if something speaks to you. If so, put it in your pile.

Talk to each other about the images that you are seeing in your mind's eye. Is it more money, a beach, a wedding dress, a partner to share life with? What do you see? Sharing is caring! Speak up in advance so your sisters can be your eyes and pass you stuff that they may come across.

Once you have your pile of magazines in front of you, flip through them and tear the pages out (carefully) that make you feel your intention alive and real.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Be sure to look on each side of the page before tearing the image out, so as to not tear something you may want on the flip side instead. Avoid pulling out too many quotes; they are not as powerful as images. A few quotes here or there are fine, but we suggest to avoid overdoing it.

Use your shears to shape the images to your liking; cut off and only keep the parts you prefer.

Tips:

Create movement, motion and flow. Tell a story with the images. Be sure to place the images that are representative of you at the forefront. Give the images dimension by overlapping them. Adding movement allows for the image to materialize in the physical faster.

Once you have an  idea of where things will be placed, start gluing. Feel free to change your mind and rearrange midway. Throw out or trade images if you change your mind about them or your feelings have faded.

Once everything is in place, let dry in place on a flat surface. Try not to lift while drying if possible. Allow each woman to go around and share her moving image vision. Be colourful and expressive with your descriptions. From your mouth to G-d’s ears. Each sister gets to listen carefully and hold each sister’s intentions in her heart.

Watch your dreams materialize.

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