A SoulCollage® neter has come into your deck and its imagery is strange and unfamiliar and unsettling. You don't know why it came or what its witness means. You're not sure you want to either. The instinctual reponse it brings up in you is strong.

There are difficult energies at play in the world and of course they will sometimes appear in our SoulCollage® images too.

I have a handful of cards in my SoulCollage® deck that I experience like this. And like it can be with difficult or disturbing people, the ordinary terms of engagement don't work.

So what do do when a card like this comes along?

It's my view that these are important cards. They have an archetypal presence about them. And its their very archetypalness here that is indicating that, although aspects of their energy may have a manifestion in human personality or experience, archetypal cards point towards universal laws, and come from somewhere either much more expansive, or much more dense than a human can hold on their own. In this case we are probably talking about the denser place. The more expansive kind are already sitting more comfortably in our council suit and offering us their wisdom and guidence. But these other cards are also part of the spectrum of possibilities of SoulCollage® cards that emerge, and finding ways of witnessing such cards can take some discernment

Here are my suggestions for working with these kinds of cards:

Finding a Map

A map can be stabilising when you are in unknown territory so if you are in this place in your SoulCollage journey, its wise get to know the territory a little deeper. You may already be familiar with SoulCollage® evolving by Seena Frost. Reading some Carl Jung or some Cynthia Bourgeault additionally, may help you to feel out this bigger map of the imaginal, as other have visited this territory before and have wisdom to share. These texts will not 'explain away' these cards, like a google search on dream meanings, but rather they will point towards a cosmological frame that includes their energetic domain.

When your difficult archetypal card comes to the fore, have your Source card in view too to remind you of its primacy. Your source card is an imaginal portal to your knowledge of the indivisibility of the absolute. Of its oneness. One of your transpersonal cards might also work here. One with an energy strong and big enough to match the difficult card

Council card allies

Now go to your deck and intentionally choose the council cards that offer you support on a human level. These cards will have themes like safety, protection and peace. Surround the difficult card with these other energies.

Naming the card

Give the difficult card an intentional descriptive name which is tolerable to you - not one that will scare you. But don't euphemise the card. By this I mean dont pretend its not a difficult card. That would be a form of gaslighting your own experience of it . I am calling the neter I have shared here 'Struggle for Life’.

Trust your gut response

Thinking you can easily understand this neter with your human mind, or love it with your human heart, would be folly. This is not going to be a card that is for digesting or integrating, but for witnessing in its otherness. This means that your our 'gut sensing' is likely to be a much better guide here when it comes to where you are with it personally. put simply, if you already understood this card, it would not be a difficult card for you. your discomfort is part of its meaning. its not supposed to be easy.

Get to know the rest of the card

Notice the rest of the card too, and in particular the parts of the card that are not difficult. you may be able to see contrasts in the card that were not at first apparent . for example in my card the ground and the grass offer a known counterpoint of safety and ordinariness to the intnesity of the struggle that is taking place on the card. The sun shines on the face of the sheep winessing the scene.

Somatic enquiry

Breathe deeply and purposefully into the felt sense you have in your body when you are with this card, and offer that felt sense the compassion and acceptence that more innocent parts of you might have been considering offering to this archetype. Your tender humanness is what is important here. Knowing that something unsettles you is a very good reason to know where your felt boundary is in relationship to it. Draw on your compassionate inner witness to see what you need. Know what you dont need too, and when witnessing the card is not in your best interests. if thats the case, leave it alone for a while. You can always come back to it. Think titration, rather than adopting a heroic task completion mindset.

Respect the silence

Dont expect a verbal 'message' from this card. It may very well be silent and unlike your other cards, have no words for you personally. This means that any that emerge are likely to be your own projections. If these kinds of projections do come up then ask another neter from your deck to help you with those. "How can you help me with these projections?" The council suit is a wise place to look to for orientation here.

A decision to part ways

Very important caveat: If the difficult card you have made actually feels malign in intent, rather than simply a difficult energy, then you may discern that it is best offered up to elemental forces. By this i mean that you might want to creat a ritual and offer it to the sea, or to chop it up, or to bury it, or burn it along with a blessing and a clear 'goodbye'. This in itself can be a very powerful action and a strong declaration of your intent to use your discernment externally too, and to clean your own life up.

If you have a difficult card you would like to work with in a one to one session, then please do be in touch. Such a session could include exploring the suggestions here in real time, and making any missing cards from your transpersonal suit, or a deeply re-sourcing council suit card. We can plan this to suit your needs. Feel free to set up an exploratory call here.

If on the other hand, you have not experienced SoulCollage® yet, and are curious about what this incredible intuitive creative process might have to offer you, then you might like to look at this offering.

I look forward to creating with you soon.

8 ways to Meet a ‘Difficult’ SoulCollage® card.

9 Ways Intuitive Creativity is Self-Care

A place of wonder under your nose....