This year I am creating dolls for all my loved ones for christmas. If you would like to learn this beautiful and healing art practice, I am holding a workshop in the green of Sherbrooke Forest on Saturday 19th October.
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| Shaman Medicine doll created by a child at Chesapeake Middle School |
This year I have become enchanted by the spirit and medicine doll, this ancient craft and shamanic art is profound and I in the dolls I make for myself and for others I feel such a strong current of healing. It is beautiful to watch others create their own dolls and I am fascinated to observe the birthing of dolls in the workshops that are so much more than dolls - they are creatures so powerful and potent and mysterious. It is a beautiful way to reach the Dreamer birthing the Dream - the Wild Self, the Inner Healer. I have begun to receive guidance that in the future I will be sharing this healing art practice not only adults but with children too. That makes me excited and also extremely happy - how beautiful to witness someone so young birthing their ancestral medicine.
The Shaman medicine doll you see above was made by a child in a program created by artist and art therapist, Christine K Harris in Chesapeake in the U.S to help young students aged 10-13 to cope with acute emotional stress and deep trauma. When their creations were displayed at a nearby gallery, visitors could not believe that the dolls were made by children.
During the sessions, which took place at the school after hours, Harris discussed the concept of shaman dolls and what they symbolize, the concept of the "amulet" and the use of symbols, fabrics, colors and accessories. She brought in baubles, trinkets, fabrics, feathers and textiles which the students affixed to armatures (figurine "skeletons").
"These kids learned quite a bit in that short period of time," Harris said. "And learning is another path to recovery."
During the two days, Harris said she noticed that the nine participants encouraged and supported each other. One youngster "did and un-did" his creation over and over again, until his peers, and a school art teacher, praised the work, which signaled to the young artist that the project had come to a satisfactory completion.
"They enjoyed what they did. It seemed to give them satisfaction in making something on their own, and the process seemed to create a catharsis," she said.
After the two days, the youngsters created dolls they gave various names including "The Unknown," "Beatrice," "Horns," "Alone," "Grandma" and "Lost Love."
"I noticed that some of the students were very protective of their dolls," Harris said. "One didn't even want it to be displayed or photographed."
The results were beyond what was expected. Via
The Medicine Woman and her Doll workshops:
12th October, Grail Haven, Mt Tamborine QLD
19th October, Kumbada Studio, Kalorama VIC
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Look at those faces! I am really loving creating new doll familiars with the medicine of Tawny Frogmouth. Since working with the essence of this beautiful Australian bird I have received so many gifts of friendship. I feel that their medicine is not only of camouflage and shapeshifting as you can see above they blend amazingly with the bark of trees, but also of symbiosis and integration - coming together and yet still holding your own authentic essence.
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| Making new friendships - Tawny Frogmouth and Acorn plant medicine doll |
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| Lilith Tawny Frogmouth and Plant Medicine Doll - Welcoming home all parts of ourselves |
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| Violet - Emily's Spirit Doll |
Dear Julia,
Here is the story of my Violet Medicine Doll...
On the weekend of the Swan Blessing Spirit Doll workshop I had only recently discovered I was pregnant. I had been keeping this delicious, mysterious secret inside. Only my husband and I knew and we were surprised at how deep and dark the knowledge felt...how wrong it would be to talk about yet.
I had been sleeping and dreaming a lot and was just starting to get waves of nausea when I woke or during the day when my mind wandered the dreamworld. A lot of my dreams felt heavy and I was having flashes of past life traumas. I started taking walks in the morning by the river to let these feelings flow through me and away. I was drawn again and again to a patch of violets growing in the shade along my walk. Their delicate smell made me feel better, like the flowers understood the important work I was doing and gently supported the secrets within me. So I came to the workshop with these violets, knowing that the doll I made would be a Violet Medicine Doll, one who could travel the darkness of my dreams with me and remind me of the delicate beauty to be found there.
The journey the Swan Blessing took me on was surprising but perfectly synchronised with the energies I've described...
I gaze into the pool and see the face of my other self. She is tall, slim, queenly. She shifts from being black haired and young to silvery and old. Sunshine and moonlight. Masculine and feminine. She is a desert woman, Bedouin.
She works with the plants of the desert, the ones that bloom in oases in the moonlight, and survive in cracks and crevices and caves. Slow dripping, seeping water underground. Women’s mysteries.
She sings the song of the desert, she calls these plants into life. She tattoos the journeys and knowledge of her people onto her skin. She bathes in underground pools at night. She is strong, powerful, respected and loved.
She binds her wisdom when white men arrive to “study” their nomadic way of life. She puts a halt to the growth cycles. She will never share the songlines, the stories. The plants will die and wither away to dust, unnoticed in their secret places. She has forseen the destruction white man will bring so she will not pass her knowledge on to her daughters. She will not burden them with the secrets.
The binding is tight around my waist, my solar plexus. I cannot be true to myself. I cannot reveal the full extent of my wisdom, or pass it on to the baby in my womb. I am withholding, withering inside. I feel sick to my stomach.The sister of the well hands me a knife to cut the binds and I hear my other self begin to sing the desert heart song again. Her wisdom is free and it flows through her, through the desert sands and winds and the moonlight, through my open centre and into my baby. I feel the unfolding of my mysterious violet baby just as the desert plants unfurl and come to life in the secret dark places.Together we will find the balance again of sunshine and moonlight, masculine and feminine, learning and intuition, spirituality and grounding.
I place seven violets inside my doll for each chakra and a sprinkling of Uluru red earth at her heart and feet to ground us in this land, connect us to our songlines and dreaming tracks. She carries the sacred gum in her medicine pouch. This baby will know the songs of the desert and the ocean, the blinding sun and the darkness. All the polarities.
The doll dances and sways forward. She knows where she is going and where she is from. The strength and fragility of violets drifts from her like a sweet scent that you almost can’t catch except in your memory.
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| Hand-made Sioux doll from Siouxland Museums via |
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| Roamer of the Subterranean Forest by Andy Kehoe |
Over the past 2 weeks there have been many sightings of Deer and Stag in Sherbrooke Forest. It is indeed a magical world here in the green, especially in Winter. Winter is my favourite season and I am opening more and more to the messages and oracular wisdom being shown to us daily here in forest. In the Dark Moon I felt the presence of Deer so close to our home and I began to create a medicine doll that brought such a sense of nourishment to me that I decided that she was for me to keep. At first I thought she was Stag Woman - carrying the energy of both Sacred Masculine and Feminine but as I was making her I began to remember an elderly couple who cared for me when I was child. Their names were Mr & Mrs Elks and they were so incredibly resilient and wise. Brought up in the bush, they lived simply and mended what broke down and and whenever I went to their home I was always excited because I never knew what creature would be in their house. Because of their childhoods spent in the bush, they were used to wild creatures and any time an animal was found hurt or sick by a local, they brought it to 'The Elks' to care for it before it was released into the wild again.
One of my strongest memories is of feeding a baby joey kangaroo with a baby's bottle whilst looking up at a painting of a deep green forest of Redwood trees and deer. I loved that painting. It seemed to calm me instantly when I got home from school and I understand now that I would often become entranced while looking at it and go into deep meditation. I always had a feeling that I remembered this kind of world. Even though I lived in such a hot and dry place, I remembered what it was like. Years later I discovered the exact same print: Serenity by Paul Delefsen, 1969, in an op-shop and felt such a wave of emotion and familiarity. It's kitschy and cute but I still love it and I hung it in our healing space. One day a client pointed out that it looked very similar to a photo that I had on my computer screen that I'd taken on my first walk in Sherbrooke Forest. At that time I was waiting to find our new home and was using the photo to dream it in. I'd had no idea before that of how very similar the two images were. The forest we live and work in is populated with giant Mountain Ash trees, the second tallest hardwood trees in the world after the Redwood. And now I discover that there are also deer nearby... I see now this print from my childhood was perhaps my first vision board. One that my child-self recognised straight away and one, you could say, that worked slowly but very, very well.
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| Serenity - hanging in our healing space today |
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| Photo I took on my first walk in Sherbrooke Forest - 10 mins from what is now our home |
When I remembered all of this, I saw that my wee wise woman was not Stag but Elk Woman. She is a link to the beautiful elderly couple who introduced me to my future home so long ago and taught me how to handle and not fear wild creatures. It was my inner child that made her and brought this memory back to me. This is the power of Spirit and Medicine Dolls - they can be wonderful memory keepers and awakeners.
In this time of such a wave of change it's important for us to move towards not only work that nourishes and inspires us but also to move to land that calls us. To be connected to the Earth is so important. She is the best teacher and she truly is all you need. What Country calls to your Dreamer? Where do you feel most at home? Choose a photograph, a magazine cutting or paint a picture of your Dreamer's Home and put it somewhere you can see every day. No need to strive or stress or feel cut off - give this wish to your Dreaming heart and be patient, don't put any expectation upon it - instead sing to your Dreamer's Home, sing the songs of that Land and Country. Imagine you are there already. Take comfort in the fact that it truly exists and you will find your way back.
Hello and blessings on your wintering,
