What You'll Find Here
The Path: A Symbolic Journey
Explore a soul-centered pathway through five symbolic portals grounded in the Jungian process of Individuation.
The Mirror, The Thread, The Fire, The Exile, and The Guide
Each portal opens into a curated and crafted experience of stories, reflections, meaningful steps, image-based prompts, and art journaling invitations.
Subscribe to the Journeys
Begin Your Journey with a Gift:
A Thoughtful Message with Guidance Card & Reflections
Free Download
A Guidance Deck of symbols and insights to support self-reflection.
From visual poetry to archetypal illustrations, Awaken Arts offers symbolic artworks that serve as meditative mirrors. These images appear throughout the journey portals and card experiences, and are designed to speak directly to the soul.
Selected images are available as downloadable cards and PDFs.
The Library
Special Selections, Authors' insights & quotations.
Community & Connection
Includes member-only sharing and discussion.
Meet the Archetypes
There's Adventure in Every Archetype!
Symbols Speak
The Soul Listens
Welcome to Awaken Arts
A Symbolic & Archetypal Journey
The Hidden Language in Poetry Art
Awaken Arts exists to guide a quiet return to the self—through imagery, story, symbol, and holistic awareness.
Here, you’ll find meaningful experiences crafted to help you reflect, awaken inner knowing, and walk the path of wholeness.
These offerings are designed not as answers, but as invitations.
Awaken Arts is a Journey and an experience of the awakening process, which Carl Jung referred to as, the Process of Individuation, and "a process in and of images."
It is a journey to meet the unconscious self, where dreams, archetypes and "fantasy images" appear to guide and enlighten.
Individuation involves a dialogue with the unconscious self, lead by a language of symbols, where dreams, archetypes, and "fantasy images" manifest to guide and enlighten.
A transformative journey surrounds with a certain chaos as part of the process --
Consider Oz and Wonderland. It's a universal, happenstance process, an undeniable path toward wholeness.
My Art
My Journey
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Our Projects
The "Paths & Portals"
Symbolic Journey of Awareness
You are invited to Enter "In"
The World of Symbols and Archetypes
The Paths and Portals
Journey is thoughtfully
crafted to provide
meaningful experiences.
Journeys
Embracing the Path of Awareness
Awaken Arts is a journey.
It is an experience of the awakening process which Carl Jung referred to as, the Process of Individuation, and "a process in
and of images."
Individuation involves a dialogue with the unconscious self, lead by a poetic language of symbols, where dreams, archetypes, and "fantasy images" manifest to guide and enlighten.
As expected, a transformative journey surrounds with a certain chaos as part of the process -- Consider Oz and Wonderland. It's
a universal, happenstance process, an undeniable urge toward healing and wholeness.
A transformative journey surrounds with a certain chaos as part of the process --Oz and Wonderland are metaphors for the experience. The process is universal, happenstance, an undeniable urge toward wholeness and healing. The process leads to awareness of the conflicts between inner and outer natures, light and dark, to uncover what hides within, or has been forgotten.the divide between inner and outer life, the light and the darkness within, o uncover what hides within, or has been forgotten.
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Not broken, wholeness divinely within, on the way to becoming-- it's a paradox, as the duplicitous and polar universe is a paradox. It's all part of the process. "Know thyself," echoes in our ears as an instinctual aim to self-betterment. We can relax into presence, and leave the past behind, not striving forward for validation, toward higher awareness, growth, and fulfillment.
✝️
Faith & Symbol: A Christian Perspective
While AwakenArts embraces archetypes, symbols, and mythic images, the foundation of this work is grounded in a Christian worldview. The symbols I explore are not abstract—they are born from a lived spiritual path informed by Scripture, prayer, and personal experience with Christ.
The language of symbols is not foreign to Christianity. In fact, Jesus spoke in parables—symbolic stories—because the mysteries of the Kingdom require the soul’s deeper understanding. The cross, the dove, the wilderness, the seed, the fish, the lamb, the pearl of great price… these are all sacred symbols that carry both psychological and spiritual meaning.
I honor the teachings of Christ as I explore the symbolic life. The portals, paths, and reflections found on this site are not separate from Christian thought—they emerge from it. This is a space for those who want to deepen their self-understanding without abandoning their faith. Here, you’ll find a Christian imagination at work: not dogmatic, but richly rooted and spiritually alive.
You are welcome here—whether you come from a strong tradition or are returning to the language of spirit through symbol.
Quotes
"The unconscious really is unconscious; in other words, it is unknown. And how can you assimilate something unknown."
Carl Jung, The Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious
The
Library
Books
Short Stories
Articles
Awaken Arts has been a long time project. My work with images aligns with Carl Jung’s concept of the Process of Individuation—a path inward toward wholeness unfolding through symbols and archetypes.
images lead me into deeper study. They open a connection to the unconscious, where symbols and archetypes manifest and communicate in visual form. The process isn’t clear or linear. It's mysterious and unpredictable, so my art has become a form of inquiry—an explorative and insightful journey into the process and art of individuation.
There is a healing modality attached to the Jungian process of wholeness and integration. Awaken Arts supports the healing path, but does not take a clinical approach, allowing awareness to define the path.
About Me
I have found that there is an intelligence in Art
which becomes apparent through the creation process.
Susan Ann Shepler, MA
Counseling Psychology
Certified Transformative Language Artist
Art Journal Instructor
"This rounding out of the personality into a whole may well be the goal of any psychotherapy that claims to be more than a mere cure of symptoms."
Carl Jung
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Kitchen Renovations
Modernize your culinary space with stylish and functional upgrades
Modernize your culinary space with stylish and functional upgrades
Kitchen Renovations
Modernize your culinary space with stylish and functional upgrades
Modernize your culinary space with stylish and functional upgrades
Kitchen Renovations
Modernize your culinary space with stylish and functional upgrades
Modernize your culinary space with stylish and functional upgrades
Kitchen Renovations
Modernize your culinary space with stylish and functional upgrades
Modernize your culinary space with stylish and functional upgrades
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There's Adventure in Every Archetype
While we are making our way in a physical world, with physical realities that is
I guess you could call Awaken Arts my "passion project." It seems to have a life of its own, similar to archetypes. I have done this work for many years, from Images and Archetypes, a Website, to Centering Arts, another website, and AwakenArts.com through all its transformations.
A quick overview of archetypes -- they are universal themes and roles found in people and situations. They exist as complexes of energy, needing an exact form for expression, like a friendly mermaid, or a fire-breathing dragon. You will find both as artifacts from my individuation art journey.
Archetypes show up consistently the same, yet illusively different. It's what accounts for all the "gods" in the universe. Each go is an archetype, of a god, and further of the evil or good they represent. All archetypes are for projection, choosing sides from both sides, dark and light, according to their duplicitous or polar nature. According to Jung, "it is not a matter of working from a list of types that someone has made." That's important since my images, my dreams, materialized with
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