another appointment with my counselor. early in the process, he had me do a collage. he called it a 'burden collage'. he said, you're carrying a lot of stuff around with you. "i want you to just go through magazines, and cut out any picture that makes you pause, or say, 'aha!' or anything that invokes strong feelings. then stick it all on a piece of paper. there are no limitations as to size or color or how things are arranged. you will find what needs to be there, and they will go where they need to go on the page. this isn't a work of art; it's an emotional exercise. don't make it beautiful, don't get too involved in, or attached to the final product."

so i ended up with a full sized sheet of red bristol board covered with bits of glossy paper. there were a lot of photos, but there were even more words. i knew i was supposed to use images. he said images, and not words, but i couldn't leave the words alone. they jumped out at me and demanded to be included. for instance, the word 'home' appeared 14 times. and when i couldn't find the words to make the phrase, i cut images of women into the letters that form the phrase, 'who do you think you are?'

nothing was insignificant to him, as he looked over my collage. even the number of times something occurred was important. so, not only is the word 'home' and its meaning of high importance, but in eastern numerology, a number like 14 (the number of times the word 'home' appeared in my collage) would have its 2 separate numerals added, to make 5. he explained to me that this means that 5 is a very important number to me. then he asked me why 5 was important. i didn't know. he led me through some examination of that, and we found there are many fives in my history.

i am one of 5 children

i have 5 children. this wasn't apparent to me until, after asking how many children i have (4), he then asked "any still births or miscarriages?" yes. one miscarriage early in the second trimester

i have owned or shared ownership of 5 homes

each of my (3) marriages / commonlaw relationships lasted 5 years

i don't seem to be able to maintain a full-time job for more than 5 years unless the job has major scope for evolving / advancement / change. the only thing i've done for longer is teach violin, which has been part time over 30 years - a constantly evolving and changing thing. even my current job, which i love, was entered into from the beginning with a '5 year plan' already begun in my mind. even as i was pulling it all together and getting the job, i was aware, on some level, that i expected to be doing something else in 5 years.

this 'importance of 5' seems a bit weird and hokey to me, as i know nothing about numerology, and it seems completely without any rational connection, but, despite my desire for things to be rational, something about the subject makes the hairs on the back of my neck prickle.

there is, he told me, significance in the location of each image on the page. the sheet of paper all these pictures and words are stuck to is like a map. everyone uses the same place on the page for childhood/developmental concepts, for issues related to personal growth, for past, present and for future. it has to do with the part of our brains that these things are connected to. he said he has tried to consciously make a collage that doesn't do this, and even when he thinks he's placing things contrary to where he thinks they should go, the final result falls in place with the pattern. sometimes a collage will need to be rotated to see this, but it's always there, in the correct position, relative to the rest of the page.

the number of words, of actual text, is also significant. words showing up in a picture collage are not uncommon. what is unusual about my collage is the sheer number of words. each word, i'm told, represents a story. this collage, then is indicative of many, many stories that need to be told. many things that need to be said. journaling is one way to tell them, to say them. so he then asked me to write one story - just free association, no attempt to write great literature - using every word i had pasted on my collage.

then, when i had the collage and the 3 pages of single spaced text it took to include all the collage words in one free-flow monologue, he told me, " now we're going to cut them up. i want you to cut the collage into pieces that show how some are related to each other." we then spent some time discussing the groupings, and how i felt about them.

then he said, now i want you to sort these according to how you feel about them. one pile for good things you want to keep, one pile for things you need to let go, and a third for things that need to be worked on. he kept the things that needed to be let go and the things that needed to be worked on in his office, and told me to take the good things home with me.

at the next session, he had me pick the first (most important) thing to let go of. we talked about it, then he sent me to the beautiful stone fireplace in the room he uses, to burn it. it was terrifying. i began to cry, and had to blow my nose. when i asked for a garbage to throw away the tissues i'd used for this, he said. "we're not going to throw them out. they're not garbage. we're going to burn them too. there's something very powerful about burning your tears along with the things you're letting go. this honors your pain. validates it. it was very hard to get some of those bits to burn. in the course of doing it, the room filled with smoke and i had to re- light some of them numerous times. this too, he told me, was significant. after i left that day, i felt extremely uncomfortable, to the point of nausea - as if i was coated with the smoke from the burning. very unclean. all i could think of was getting home, throwing the clothes i wore in the washing machine, and having a very thorough shower. and i wasn't comfortable until i had done it. this too, he told me the next week, was significant.