Dear Friends,

Remember that tomorrow, August 23, is Open Mic night at the Owl Acoustic Lounge from 7 – 9 p.m. in Lethbridge.  I’ll be debuting 2 new poems, and anyone who would like to may read their own original poetry (up to 5 minutes’ worth).

See you there!

Cat

August 11, 2018

Dear Friends,

Here are my Fall/Winter Offerings in Soulwork:  Small group and individual sessions using simple art processes and writing prompts to OPEN TO MYSTERY, EXPLORE LIFE’S DEPTH DIMENSIONS, and DEEPEN OUR FREEDOM.

Much thinking, contemplation, scholarship, and love have gone into the planning, and  I consider it an honor to be able to do my life’s work, and welcome you to join me. Also, if there is anyone you know who you think might be interested in these sorts of circles,  please forward this email to them. Due to my health challenges, I really don’t have extra energy to get the word out so rely on word of mouth to find the people who would love this work.  Please contact me with any questions.

STORY CIRCLES STARTING IN SEPTEMBER:  What is a Story Circle?   After the listings below I explain the intentions and format of this work.  Keep scrolling!

A Poet’s Words:  Falling in love with poetry.  We will each choose a poet or a selection of poetry we love and each have an evening to share them with the others, along with 3 or 4 writing prompts to help us more deeply appreciate the poetry.  Second Wednesdays of the month, Sept. 12 to June 12, 7-9:30 p.m. $150 or PWYC (pay what you can or barter).

Making Meaning, Making Soul:  Depth Dimension (i.e., spiritual) Practices of Word, Image, Dream (Narrative), and Silence to embrace independent thinking and spiritual deepening.  Last Wednesdays of the month, September 26 to June 26, 7-9:30 p.m. $200 or PWYC.

Untie the Strong Woman:  Exploring the archetype of unconditional love in this book by Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Ph.D.  She tells her personal stories of encountering Holy Mother in the most unlikely of life situations, inviting us to identify moments of illumination in our own lives.  First Fridays of the month, September 7 to June 7, 1:30-4 p.m. $200 or PWYC.

Wonderings about Dreams:  Exploring our night dreams and/or our daydreams for meaning, insight, and guidance.  We don’t pronounce on what our dreams are “telling us to do”, but invite intuition and creativity through an “If this were my dream. . . “ approach using modified Jungian and shamanic methods. Third Wednesdays of the month, Sept. 19 to June 19, 7-9:30 p.m.  $150 or PWYC.

The D&R (Deep and Real) Life: Apprenticing to the Sacred  Exploring our ways of knowing the Sacred through examining some of the Christian Mystics and laying our lives down alongside this wisdom.  From “the dark night of the soul” through “after the ecstacy, the laundry”. First Sundays of the month, Oct. 7 to July 7, 1:30-4:30 p.m. $300 or PWYC.

Open Studio:  Simple Art Explorations  Various accessible projects in artistic expression, journalling, or card/book making.  No previous art experience needed. You are welcome to join in the projects, simply play with the art supplies available, or just join in conversation and tea.  Last Saturdays of the month, Sept. 29 to June 29, 1:30 to 4:30. Come when you can; no commitment to the full year. By donation.

What is a Story Circle?  We are a small group of 4 to 8 who meet monthly (usually September through June) for 2 ½ to 3 hours in order to delve deeply into a particular topic or practice, sharing insights and personal applications.  I facilitate as sensitively as possible, creating an environment of hospitality and depth where we can articulate what we didn’t know that we knew, as well as to learn new ways to bring soul into our everyday lives.  There are usually assigned readings (though optional), and I prepare writing or simple art prompts that help us reflect on and incorporate different aspects of the Story Circle’s topic. The goal is to lay our lives down alongside the life stories of others (both those of the authors we’re reading as well as each others’) in order to find and/or create meaning, understanding and richness in our inner lives.  This richness radiates out into whatever we do in the world to bring wholeness and positive change whether in our families or our organizations. No one is encouraged to share more than they are comfortable with, and the meetings are designed so that each participant has several choice points regarding how much they want to share. After we respond to the prompts in writing or with image or color, we share what we wish in our “go-arounds”.   Each of us having a written record of our topics, prompts, and responses adds layers of life documentation and reminders of new areas to explore. I come from an interspiritual stance where spiritual wisdom from all traditions is respected and encouraged, while also appreciating the legacy of my Catholic Christian history. I stand for personal sovereignty, critical and independent thinking, and building authentic community. The groups are educational, not therapy, though participants have found them helpful in examining and healing their suffering.  I have trained in counselling and crisis intervention, especially regarding sexual violence, but am not a licensed therapist.

Past participants have given outstanding feedback regarding the depth, quality, and community-building aspects of the Story Circles.  You are welcome to come to the first two meetings of the Circle to see if it is a match for you. If it is, then I ask for a commitment (within normal life demands!) to attend all meetings of the Circle, as much of the benefit comes from the accumulation of reflection and sharing throughout the year.  No new participants are invited after the 3rd meeting of the year. (This does not apply to the OPEN STUDIO afternoons. Each one is open to new participants; space permitting. RSVP for each month.)

I also offer individual sessions for counsel/planning, intentional creativity, and simple ceremony to mark life transitions.  Between 1.5 – 2 hours, by appointment.

About me:  I am  a contemplative educator, counsellor, and artist, helping women and men navigate the Depth Dimensions of their lives through image, word, silence, and dream.  I believe that the most important work each of us can do is to live out our gifted selves fully, creatively, and freely, to make a home for all  of us, in a world which too often wounds our bodies and souls and colonizes our minds with distractions, commercialization, and other people’s agenda.  

I live in the liminal places, between the worlds where spiritual reality meets ordinary life, where word (poetry, prose) meets image (paintings, journals), where wild adventure meets chronic pain, and where prairie meets mountains in western Canada.

A student of the wisdom traditions of the world, I have a Masters in Education, 4 years’ graduate study and a B.A. in Theology, plus more than 30 years’ experience in service and education, including as counsellor and Executive Director of a sexual assault center.  Trained in post-trauma counselling and a certified Intentional Creativity Teacher and Coach, I have taught in university, high school, professional development, and privately. I stand on the shoulders of my beloved teacher Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes, author of more than 30 works including the bestselling Women Who Run with the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype.   I have studied with her for the past 8 summers in 11 week-long intensives..  I work out of my home studio in traditional Blackfoot territory in Lethbridge, Alberta, and on the internet through video calls.  A 60 page chapbook of my paintings and poetry entitled Open to Mystery is now available.

With much love and many blessings,

Cat

catcharissage@gmail.com

—“Prayer”, acrylic on canvas, (c) Cat Charissage, 2018, a/r/r

Dear Friends,

Prayer is good thought, focused.  In this painting I wanted to show how our ideas (hair, here in small spirals) go out into the world (the unravelled spirals, enlarging in the background around the woman) to influence for good or ill.  The red triangles are the thoughts focused, prayer.  The ideas and the focused thought can help organize the matter and the spirit of our often chaotic lives.

Here in the northern hemisphere we’re at the zenith of the sun’s light in our days.  What has come to a zenith in your life these days?   Where and how do you turn toward the light?  (I’m thinking right now of my beloved sunflowers!)

I’m just back from attending a week-long intensive with Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes in her series “Heart of the Wounded Healer”, held at Sunrise Ranch outside of Denver, Colorado.

I’m so grateful to have been able to go, to learn so much from her and my fellow participants about psychological and spiritual healing, which of course influences our bodies’ experience of wholeness and health, and to have the chance to work through whatever is left in my own life to resolve and heal, as well.  Travelling is very difficult for me, and I’m still so tired out that I’m saying I’m the best looking zombie in Lethbridge right now!

So a short post today to share my painting, and to offer perhaps a new way to think about praying —- and how it may be effective.

May you use your good ideas and your powers of focus to bring Light, love, and decency into our needful world.

Much love and many blessings,

Cat

Hello dear friends,

Happy New Moon!  What new ideas, projects, or adventures are growing in your life these days?

The poetry reading on the 28th went very well.  I’m so appreciative that so many of “my people” came to hear and support me, and I had a really good time.  I also took along three of my paintings that go along with some of my poetry.  A real blessing that came out of the experience is that it did a lot for the “imposter syndrome” that so many of us struggle with:  I feel more confident in claiming that yes, I am a poet and artist.

One of the newer poems that I read was “Wildness has Visited”, dubbed “The Deer Poem” by a friend:

It snowed.  Again.

It’s been a helluva spring, this year.

Yet the white blanket sparkling in the sunshine IS pretty. . .

Underneath the crabapple tree, though,

The snow is trampled

and chocolate droppings are now

fertilizing the lawn.

What a mess!

The deer have visited in the night!

Hungry, they’re cleaning up the last of the crabapples.

I don’t know where they come from —

those deer had to walk through a lot of city neighborhoods

to get to my house.

It thrills me, thinking of their presence,

blessing my neighborhood of little boxes all in a row.

Wildness has visited, anointing my front yard.

Invisible, persistent,

the wild is surviving,

finding what is needed

to keep on going.

Long, long time ago

Holy people would wear headdresses of deer antlers.

The antlers, branching toward the heavens,

become a tree of life to ascent to the spirits.

The antlers reach out to pick up new ideas on the wind.

The antlers plow through deep snow

making way for others to go on on their way,

creating paths to food and survival.

My dear crabapple eating deer,

show me how to climb the tree of life,

teach me to pick up new ideas floating round my head,

remind me to make way

to find soul food and survival

and to leave paths for others to find their way, too.

Dear wild, wild deer,

come find us in our little boxes, all in a row.

Show me how to, like you,  spark hope

with the mess made while you clean up, use up,

all the leftover abundance.

All the leftover abundance, all around us,

right in front of our noses.

Thank you for reading my work!

With much love and many blessings,

Cat

photo by Teri Petz, http://www.worksofbeauty.ca

Dear Friends,

Welcome to my world this April!  I’ve just finished two university classes that I’ve been auditing this semester at the University of Lethbridge:  God on Trial, a philosophy course that dealt with theodicy — the question of how to reconcile a good God with the presence of evil and suffering, and Comparative Mysticism, a religious studies course.   Both were great, but together, just about killed me off —- I reluctantly have to admit that going out every day (or 4 days a week) is just not sustainable for me, health and energy wise.  I had thought that since I was very excited about the courses and that the logistics were manageable, that I would be able to add them to my days.  But no, getting to the courses took almost all my energy, and other projects suffered.

It was really delightful, though,  to relate to the profs and other students in lively intellectual discussions, something I’ve missed for many years.  I’m a life-long learner, and am always taking courses on-line or in person, but the intellectual banter of the academic courses was stimulating and fun.

Art-wise, I’m experimenting in new styles.  I’m painting in rhythm with the new moon, including simple ceremony and a monthly intention. Here’s what I just finished an hour ago:

There are about 5 layers of paint in here.  Here’s an image in progress:

The words in the background are “feel, think, remember”.  They are cues for associating to images from dreams or stories:  “When I think of  x , what do I think, feel, or remember about this image?”  Associating to personal images, especially in dreams or in experiences of synchronicity, is one of my prime ways of accessing inner knowledge, and in this painting I was pouring a whole set of my current concerns.  A new medication I’m trying suppresses the remembering of my dreams, and that’s a big issue for me!  I’m re-teaching myself all my tricks to remember dreams, and appreciating the fragments and stray images that still manage to come through.

The cauldron is reminiscent of Ceridwen’s cauldron with the magical elixer — where even just three drops are enough to grant full wisdom and knowledge.  The decorations on the cauldron are two intertwined snakes, visually associated both with healing (the caduseus) and with the shape of our DNA molecules,  a tripartite intertwined shape reminding us of the movement in groupings of threes (thesis, antithesis, synthesis; Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; Maiden, Mother, Crone; the phases of the moon; etc.), and a row of frogs.  The frogs are imaged in the shape of a woman giving birth.  For me, frogs are symbols of irrepressible energy and new possibility.  In a dream I had many years ago, I was carrying a bucket that was lidded, but it was filled with a few frogs that kept leaping out of the bucket no matter how I tried to tighten the lid.  The rose is a symbol of so many ideas for me, also associated with so much mythology, especially the European mythology of my ancestors.  Here, the rose reminds me of the unfolding mystery of life, which never fails to pull me in.

My intention for this New Moon is to develop a new habit:  I will check email and the internet no more than three times daily.  I don’t have a problem with internet addiction, but I’m certainly not immune to the dopamine hits of an email here, a FB message there.  And I want more of my time to be invested in exploring the mysteries that call to me, rather than finding that I’ve unintentionally spent an hour, for the 3rd or 4th time today, lost on the internet highways.  So!  We’ll see how it goes.   If only three drops of the magical elixer are enough for all wisdom and knowledge, then I figure that three check-in’s per day on the internet is enough for what I might need, too.

Thank you for reading this far, and thank you for the many wonderful comments so many of you share with me about my artwork and blog.  May your Spring blossom beautifully!

With much love and many blessings,

Cat

White car in a snowstorm,  (c) Cat Charissage 2018

Dear friends,

Just a few days before the Spring Equinox, just before today’s New Moon, after a wonderful thaw that was melting the mountains of shovelled snow —– we got a snowstorm!  It looked just like my photo above!

We got our car stuck in the snowy alley.  Then dear spouse went to his sister’s home here in town to use their car (the sister is in sunny, warm Mexico at the moment!).  He got IT stuck, though fortunately it’s stuck in front of their house out of traffic.  Lots of activity has ensued, involving shovels and frustration.   Both cars are still stuck.

Here is my fine literary response:

Please, summer, come!

I want warmth and some

security in walking without slipping,

in moving forward without flipping.

This isn’t our first dance with snow and ice this winter.  Two weeks ago, dear spouse sent this to some friends to chronicle this past-midnight adventure:

Thought you all might like to know what wonderful adventures you can have if you’re stupid.   So Cat and I were out late last night and got home at about midnight. There’s been a fair bit of new snow but I felt pretty sure that I could drive the car through our alley, so I dropped Cat off at the front, and drove around to the back. I was right. I could drive the car down the alley. But I was inches away from getting it into the garage, and I got stuck. With lots of manouvering I managed to get it at perfect right angles to the lane, and then it wouldn’t budge. Dug for awhile. Called the AMA. Was going to suggest maybe they should wait till tomorrow morning to get me out, but got an auto-responder, and ended up with the choice to cancel or wait, but no chance to discuss it. Decided to wait. After an hour or so a tow truck showed up. It was a two-wheel drive tow truck. It got stuck in the alley, and had to call another tow truck. So I had a great conversation with the driver while we waited – we have mutual friends in Lethbridge, lots to talk about, etc. The second tow truck showed up. It got stuck too. By 3:00 am I wasn’t being any help, so I left the two tow trucks and their drivers and went to bed. They were still stuck when I left – I don’t know how they got out.\

I was wakened at 7:30 am by a third tow truck driver who said he was coming over. I told him what happened to the other two trucks, but he said he was coming anyway. So I went out, and dug for awhile. Somewhere in there while I was going in and out of he house he took a look at the situation and called Liberty, who told me, and I called the tow truck driver back. He said I should call the city and ask them to plow the alley before he went in. I called the city. The woman said “We don’t do alleys.” I said “How is the garbage truck going to get down the alley with my car blocking it?” The woman said “I don’t know” and hung up. I went in the house to get breakfast, planning to catch the bus over to Joan and Wolf’s to take care of the cats. While I was having breakfast the fourth tow truck driver called. “I have a four wheel drive” he said. “This truck is like a mountain goat. I’ll get you out.” So the fourth truck showed up. With a lot of manouvering we got my car unstuck, and I drove down the alley to the corner, but got stuck again. So we did a lot more manouvering, and he got stuck too. After about an hour of innovating in some very strange ways – putting a metal plate under the hoist, and using the hoist to push the tow truck along – kind of like a dog on ice propelling himself forward by sticking his tail in a hole in the ice and forcing himself forward a few inches instead of using his legs –  the fourth tow truck got unstuck, and then got me unstuck too. So by noon I got to Joan and Wolf’s. 

Before this is all over, the CAA/AMA will know us by first name. . . .

And too many of my friends are wearing casts as a result of the ice hidden under the snow!

Happy spring!

With much love, many blessings, and lots of smiles,

Cat

  Cat Charissage, (c) 2018

Dear Friends,

A new moon, Valentine’s Day, the first day of Lent, Chinese New Year — all in these three days of Feb. 14 to 16

Ever notice how people around the world celebrate the New Year on different dates?  Lots of ways to proclaim something new.  Day One.

I’ve taken on a gentle practice of noting and doing simple ceremony on each month’s new and full moons.  Noticing the moon, feeling the passage of time, feeling the circle moving round again yet one more time, extends my mindfulness outside of my own psyche.  It’s a challenge to be aware of what is outside of and around myself without also getting caught up in the daily new cycles, overwhelmed by the same old same old of  “if it bleeds, it leads”.  There is plenty of bleeding.

Yet this, too, is true:  as our earth moves through space, we each day can see a different face of the moon.  Things change, and things return, again and again.  There are rhythmic points of newness (first sliver of moonlight after the dark of the moon) every month, and any of us can call any day our “new year”.  Day One.

What new cycle are you moving into?  What kinds of rhythms are you paying attention to these days?

This painting, acrylic on watercolor paper, is one I did two weeks ago on the Full Moon.  I was thinking of fire and passions (not necessarily romantic), of the difference between bonfires and hot coals.   Fire contained and directed can cook up the next alchemical transformation. . .

What’s being cooked up in your life?  Something new?  Something tried and true?

With much love and many blessings,

Cat

—Cat Charissage, 2018, collage.

owl artwork from Judith Shaw; antlered woman, artist unknown

Dear Friends,

For this first New Moon in January, here is my latest piece of artwork, a collage for the new year, incorporating my word (phrase) of the year, “Driven?  or Drawn?”.  It’s to remind myself that what I LOVE, what I’m drawn to, is what I “ought” to do and to be.

For too much of my life I’ve done what I’ve thought I ought to do.  Which on its face is actually a very good plan.  Yet, as a good Catholic girl I was thoroughly indoctrinated that the very best thing that one could do is to “offer up” what you love most, to God, for the good of . . . whatever/whoever.  That is, to give up and to deny ourselves what we most want is the greatest sacrifice of all.  You know:  if you aren’t dead yet, you haven’t given enough.

I could write a book or three deconstructing that terrible, false, limiting belief.  Actually, it’s social/religious brainwashing.  Where were the ideas that we “ought” to do exactly the good that we are inspired to do?  That we are uniquely gifted with attributes where we can joyfully offer who we truly are for the betterment of ourselves AND the world as well?

Yet old ideas, especially when inculcated young, and when they have to do with being good, or are about survival, or pleasing “God”, sometimes are rooted so deeply that it seems they’ve become part of our DNA.  These are old beliefs that have harassed me for a long time.  In early December I constructed a simple ceremony, with intention, the elements, using all the senses, and also including image and writing.  It has really helped to release these final remnants.  This collage is another way to reinforce this release.

On the collage, you can just barely see a man whipping a figure (me) to “do more, do more” — it’s on the left, on top of the honeycomb, where the upside down “U” is the curled whip.  Then there’s the present figure of me (just above my photo) walking arms out toward what I love, represented by the golden sun.  The owl and the antlered (shaman) woman are the companions I choose to help me with this, based on their ancient symbolisms.  And the quote is from Rumi, the 13th century Islamic mystic who radiated love and joy.

Creating these types of simple ceremonies is also part of the work I do with others.  Feel free to contact me for more information.

May you move into the year with joy, spaciousness, and “enough”.

With much love and blessing,

Cat