I’m a SoulCollage facilitator (see www.soulcollage.com ) and have on occasions run a workshop in which I have used a guided meditation that I wrote based on the Sleeping Beauty story. In a nutshell, the participants visualise themselves as a baby and there are 12 faeries invited to their christening. Each faery comes forward with a special gift for them, for example, that they will be artistic, kind hearted, athletic etc and as they “hear” each gift they write it down (a bit tricky when you are in a light trance, but not impossible!). Just when the last faery is about to step forward the 13th faery (who was not invited) appears in a puff of smoke, and she is NOT HAPPY. So she gives the  baby an “obstacle” something that will hold them back from achieving their best purposes in life. When she disappears, cackling, the twelfth faery steps forward and says that although she cannot undo the 13th faery’s “obstacle” she can give the baby a gift which will help him/her to overcome it. The participants will afterwards go on to make some SoulCollage cards based on some of these gifts.

So this double page is based on that guided meditation. That is a photo of me as a baby, and I have written the gifts that I believe I was given at birth. The obstacle I was given is being too FEARFUL, and the ameliorating gift from the 12th faery is the gift of a “courageous heart”, because Love is always stronger than fear.

A cautionary note: Because I used pastels on this page (on the stage curtains at the top) I sprayed the page with fixative which caused some of the stamps and writing to run (at bottom of page) EVEN THOUGH they were waterproof pens. The writing at the bottom right ran so badly that I ended up printing the words out  (“For love is always stronger than fear”) and sticking them over the top. Turned out OK anyway!