Today I am preparing for our Swan Blessing Plant Medicine Doll workshop this Sunday by creating a new Spirit Sister medicine doll for a beautiful woman in Colorado who is making a journey back to her spirit after the passing through the tumultuous gateway of Saturn Return. Into her doll I am placing many sacred herbs including the stunning Passion Flower. This beloved plant teacher, Passiflora, can help us to connect to a sense of serenity and calm and reawaken passion, creativity and love. I also feel that Passion Flower encourages us to accept our own wild and strange beauty. We simply have to look at the flower itself to see how magical and strangely beautiful nature can be. Whenever I look at a Passion Flower I often feel that I see one or two beings dancing in the centre.
As I create this new doll, I am drinking Passion Flower tea to move into a dreaming state to receive messages and insight for the doll's spirit sister. This ability to receive helpful messages is very natural to us and comes through the process of art-making itself. As the doll is born and begins to form, in this meditative state, I am consciously connecting to the spirit of the one I am making her for as well as turning into the symbols and messages that appear during creation. Sacred Art is Magic in the Making - I observe every part of the doll-making process and how the doll reacts to it to understand what will help. After the doll is completed I take her outside into nature to sit on the earth and weave together the whole story of the doll. When Her story is known to me, she is ready to travel to her new home and Sister.
We have engaged in the ancient shamanic art of doll-making for thousands of years. We have a deep ancestral memory of this medicine. This Sunday we will sit in circle in Melbourne and hold a Swan Blessing ceremony to clear any ties from the past that bind our ancestral memory of plant lore and medicine and the ability to create sacred art. This gentle workshop will begin with a passion flower tea ceremony to help us feel again our own true and natural state of serenity before we open our hearts to the Dreamer and her magic to create a Medicine Doll filled with spirit, love and intention.
