Inspired by the Spirit of the Child

This beautiful wax doll was created by 11 year old Tilda after being inspired by our medicine dolls. Tilda and her mum sent me an email this week titled : inspired by you. The thought that I had made something that could inspire a child to create gave me the best and happiest feeling in my heart all weekend. Thank you Tilda! I am being inspired by YOU!

The spirit of the inner child has been something that has been on my mind for the last month especially after the full moon when I began feeling such a strong sense of fear and exhaustion that it lead me to create a Tarot spread called 'shining a light on the scary'. Through having a deep and honest look at the beliefs that were creating my fears and the practices I was engaged in that were making me so tired, I came to see that the wisest part of myself was being ignored - my inner child. When I asked her what she wanted it was a simple answer: to create and create and create! And so I have decided to have a long break from teaching and working with groups to focus only on dollmaking and working in one-on-one healing sessions. This decision feels incredibly freeing and full of creative possibilities.

When I began to make dolls for what I thought was the first time last year (67 weeks ago exactly) I had no idea of the door I would be opening to my own ancestral medicine. I didn't know that dollmaking would be become such an important practice for me, yes, almost an obsession. But a happy obsession! Since I began last year I have a doll almost every single day and yet I am still just as excited to be creating dolls for others. It is a way for my inner child to speak to the inner children of others and a bridge to share friendship, comfort and the healing herbs, plants & stones of the earth. The full moon this month was in Aquarius, my own sun sign and on that night I made a dedication to my inner child to let her play. I dedicated myself to the craft of dollmaking and to creating the very best vessels of healing and love that I could. This commitment to do only what I love feels like a whole new chapter of my life.

Tilda's letter came to me not long after I had made this dedication to my own inner child. It was just the confirmation I needed. Tilda told me that she has been saving up to buy her own medicine doll and this week I get the pleasure and honour to dream and weave her in. When I asked Tilda what intention she would like her doll to hold she told me,

'The real main reason I want one of your dolls is because I want her to be my friend.'

Thank you Tilda for speaking so beautifully and truthfully for every child inside of us all. Thank you for inviting me to play and create this special new friend just for you.

Over the last year I've had a few requests for medicine dolls for children, boys and girls, and they have a special sparkle about them. A twinkle. Here are some of the dolls that are now best friends to those wise little beings.

Seeds of Change

The spirit dolls are cunning folk - they have strong intuition of their own.

Recently I gave a doll called Seeds of Change away free to the first person to claim her at the end of our Doll Market day. She was one of the last remaining dolls and I felt her spirit telling me that she was to be a gift. Within minutes, a woman named Gillian contacted me letting me know that she was interested in Seeds of Change and I told her congratulations. The next day Gillian got in touch to say that she had gone to our website to show her children their new doll and found out that the doll had been a free gift. She had thought that she was bidding for the doll and the fact that there was no charge was a total surprise.

A few days ago I received a longer message from Gillian telling me that her family had received Seeds of Change & that she had already begun giving them new hope. She then told me that they had been one of the families that had lost their home & everything they owned in the Victorian bush fires last February. It had tested them severely but they did not feel unlucky, instead, they felt extremely blessed that they had all survived unharmed. But their hearts were missing their land and it was very hard not being able to return. With the doll's arrival they received the sign they were waiting for to finally move back to their land & begin to build their new home and lives again.

I remember creating the Seeds of Change doll purely for my own enjoyment one night. I had received some very fine and luminous silks and dressed the doll in her glittering but fragile golden threads. I then lay a large piece of Red Bellied Black snakeskin over most of her torso to balance the sense of fragility and surrounded it with leaves and branches. She has a carnelian stone over her heart, amethyst over her solar plexus and wears Kookaburra and Crow feathers in her hair. When I look at this doll now I see that she was already being made for Gillian and her family. I see that so much of her was linked to their story of courage and rebirth.

So much love to you & your family Gillian as you begin to plan the seeds to birth this new life. 

Seeds of Change Plant Spirit doll

DeerHeart and the Wait for Snow

Tonight we are waiting for snow in the Dandenongs, my fingers and toes are crossed. It only snows very rarely in Sherbrooke Forest and I would love to see what this magic forest looks like in a veil of snow. While I am waiting I've been working on a doll called DeerHeart. She is a huge doll, tall and robust. I keep sensing there is something more to be added or to find out about this doll.  I get the feeling she's got some big medicine to share and I am curious to see what the night brings. Sweet snowy dreams weavers x

a walk with us in Sherbrooke Forest

This week felt so light after two weeks of wild storms and heavy rains. I couldn't help but feel the invitation from the trees to leave everything behind and walk, look and gather. Here are some photos taken on our foraging journeys, gathering plant medicines to place in our dolls and medicine bundles for healing. Wherever you are I hope this helps you to feel the green and nourishing love of the earth.

A Doll for Alice Savage

I have just finished weaving a medicine doll for Alice Savage. Alice is an Italian illustrator and spirit sister and she has been creating illustrations inspired by my dolls. The illustration above is of the doll, Heart of Fox - with a little Vali Myers inspired moustache no less! I am so excited and honoured by this collaboration and I couldn't wait to create for Alice a doll to hold her very own personal medicine. Alice and I have spoken about the intention and healing wishes she would like her doll to hold and I came to feel that it was important for Alice's doll to be both strong and soft together. As I began I kept envisioning deep blue oceans and the creatures that journey to the deepest depths. When I looked into my medicine box, which is actually a very old hat-box, the first beauty to catch my eye was a cuttlefish bone.

I found the cuttlefish a few months ago on a foraging trip to Phillip Island in part of Cat Bay. That's a lovely weaving already as I know that the Cat is sacred to Alice and are her dear familiars. What I didn't foresee was that the doll would ask for a chestnut to be placed with the cuttlefish and at first I questioned the paring in my mind. Yesterday Alice told me a story of beautiful chestnut grove that she used to love to visit and hopes to return to it again. I love that the doll knew what medicine was needed. This information cannot come from the mind as it is unknown but by listening to the doll with your own childlike heart, you get a strong urge or pull towards what is needed. Alice's medicine is also linked to crystals and stones and she felt complete with the placement of a seed pearl in the centre of her heart. She is a beauty! Just like you Alice. Blessings on your journeys to the deep blue together.

And here is one of the latest medicine doll illustrations by Alice: Heart of Fox - complete with her own Vali Myers inspired spirit moustache! LOVE HER xx

Meeting My Spirit Dolls through Alice Savage

Stag Woman Sacred Familiar doll drawn by Alice Savage

'I believe in beauty.

I love animals and think they are the best part of us.'  

Alice Savage

I find it very hard to explain to people the full magic of the spirit dolls because they are so personal. Each doll has her own personality and medicine and it is so unique and authentic to the doll herself that it will be felt by everyone differently. Just like meeting someone new - we aren't all going to get along in the same way. If I have to put it in a nutshell or acorn shell! I would say that they are magical friends. They are magical companions, women and men who come to walk beside you for a little while in your life when you need a friend. It sounds simplistic and it is but it is also essentially very true. What I didn't know when I began opening this ancestral folk magic 12 months ago was how many new friends the dolls were going to bring to me.

Last month I was contacted by Italian artist, Alice Savage, who told me she was inspired by the dolls and asked me if she could make a drawing based on one. I was so honoured that an artist as skilled and talented as Alice would be inspired to do this. And I was excited to see through Alice's eyes the spirit of my own dolls. I see the personality and spirit of the dolls clearly as I am making them but I do not put a deep or outlined expression into their faces because I want the new keeper to see her as she needs to see her. The faces are there but they are more etheric, ephemeral - as if behind a veil.

When Alice began to send her drawings through to me by email I was astonished because they had the faces that I had already seen but were also interpreted through Alice's own spirit and because of this they had become a new being at the same time. I don't see them as separate from my dolls but as seen from a different realm and sometimes it's very helpful to me to understand their medicine even more. This happened particularly when Alice drew the Death Doula as a figure in a madonna-like pose. I was touched that she could feel the grace and compassion that this doll carried in her sacred medicine as midwife to the dying. Alice told me that the dolls were doing their healing on her own spirit as she drew them. They are speaking to her and I love that because they speak to me as I weave them too.

'This one so far speaks to me of the circle of time. It's like if she told me that she is very ancient, that she saw all the ages, and knows everything - she is fierce, not scared, not worried, because she saw all the seasons happening. I put a symbolized moon with the rays of the sun on the corners of the drawing to depict it. There are also some drop shapes (something I use often) to express the tears, but she is no more touched by them. She is sweet, and with the power of survival'. Alice's conversation with Moss Witch

As the drawings have grown, I have fallen more and more in love with this collaboration with Alice. We have had lovely chats about Vali Myers, our love of animals - especially foxes!

Dear Alice, thank you. It's such a delight to be weaving together across the oceans.

MossWitch medicine doll

MossWitch by Alice Savage

Stag Woman spirit doll by Sacred Familiar

Death Doula - midwifing the dying

Spirit Dolls for the HomeBirth Medicine Tree

Last week I sent two beautiful mamma dolls to be with the Birthkeeper Medicine Tribes gathering this weekend at the Homebirth Australia Conference. I was so happy to weave dolls for the midwives, doulas, healers and educators who together are bringing back the Ancestral Medicine of holding sacred space to birth without fear in our own homes and communities again. 

I felt grateful to have the opportunity to provide dolls for this birthing tribe and it was a small way that I could thank the many midwives and doulas who have visited me in the forest for Ancestral Medicine sessions. It was in fact, the plight of a midwife being treated unfairly in regards to a homebirth that inspired me to become more public with Ancestral Medicine work 3 years ago. A homebirth may not be for everyone but the fact that there are groups who want this ancient and natural practice eradicated and heavily controlled by outside authorities, spurred me on to step out of the shadows and approach the midwifery community. And so Swan Blessing actually began as a service to clear past life trauma of being persecuted as a witch, healer, herbalist, teacher of plant medicines for midwives and doulas so that they would not feel fear in their sacred work of holding space for birth. And now I see people from all works of life - artisans, teachers, mothers and fathers - all coming to reclaim their memory of Ancestral Medicine again. I call it simply Grandmother Medicine because up until just 2 generations ago, these knowings and wisdoms of Birth and Death and everything in between was passed in the family and taught with great love and trust. 

It has been my honour to come to know so many birthkeepers over the last 3 years particularly my sisters at the School of Shamanic Midwifery. These women and men who are brave, honest and funny and so very very wise. How lucky we are that these guardians are back to hold space for our birthing again. 

Paying homage to the sacred birth process I am showing here, for the first time, some of the ways the dolls begin their lives. Here are photos of the dolls birthing themselves with gumnut hearts filled with mountain ash resin in full flow. The wee baby in the papoose was made from an oak acorn. They have a mandala of herbs and plant medicine in their tummies including: Motherwort (known as Lion's Tail), Myrrh, Moss, Wattle and Mapacho Tobacco for protection. 

Love to all who gather this weekend at the Homebirth Australia Conference, blessings on the connection back to your Ancestral Medicine trees and the new fruit waiting to blossom. Thank you for all you do for us and our children and their children to come. 

Womb medicine - Gumnuts filled with Mountain Ash resin

Oak Acorn and pure Merino Wool

Plant Medicine Mandala to go inside the dolls

HawkWoman Medicine Doll Snakeskin over her pregnant belly and Hawk Feather wand

Guided Medicine Doll for New Mamma and Baby

Feathered Blessings

The peach coloured feathers you see above were sent to me this week from our friend and animal communicator, Kye Wunjo Crow from her Camel Sanctuary in NSW - Major Mitchell Cockatoo feathers. I have only ever seen photographs of these beautiful birds, they are not visitors to Sherbrooke Forest. As I was opening Kye's package, I looked down and to my right I saw a flash of yellow. It was a feather from a the comb of a White Cockatoo - a beautiful quiff! Another feather I have never found before now. Rare and beautiful treasures waiting for the right medicine doll.

The package from Kye also contained a beautiful rainbow wrap hand-dyed and created by Kye. Have a look at the rest of her rainbow treasures here. Blessings and graceful journeys Kye x

Rainbow Love - new plant spirit dolls

I am Love, You are Love St John's Wort medicine doll

These are some of the plant spirit dolls that have been birthing here in the forest in the month of February - lots of pink and red hair/hare I see! I am particularly enjoying creating the dolls made personally for their keepers. I loved making the Oak and Moss Avalon Mysteries doll you see below. She has a lot of style! The beauty of birthing dolls is that I do not choose the way they look, they come through with their own personality and talismans required for their new keepers. Some are elaborate and some are beautifully simple like Pelican Womb Healer. She carries Pelican smudging fan created and gifted to us by Nature's Art Melbourne. Thank you!

Blessings and love to all the new doll keepers x

Custom doll for Louise - Oak and Moss Avalon Mysteries Pelican Womb Healer Spirit Doll carrying sacred women's herbs blessed in ceremony - overcoming obstacles with ease Rain Spirit Doll completed on the day the rain fell over the burnt lands 15th Feb, 2014

Full Moon Passionflower Medicine Doll created on full moon 15th February, 2014

RedHare Elemental Shapeshifter Doll Holding Mountain Ash Resin staff

Tree Lover, Hive Mother - Bee Pollen and Beeswax Doll

medicine dolls for koalas

I'm over the moon to say that the Southern Ash Wildlife Shelter 'koala dolls' were chosen by their new keepers within 24 hours! Thank you Cherie and Lori all the way in British Columbia your money will be donated in full to the koalas. I can't wait to tell Colleen Wood and her staff of volunteers how quickly they sold and how quickly we will get those funds to the koalas that need it. Colleen is one of the most knowledgeable people on koala care and preservation in the world and she runs Southern Ash without any government funding or assistance.  Anything you can contribute to help these gorgeous creatures stay healthy and WILD is always gratefully received. Here are some photos from the last trip Tony and I made to see these wee cuties - really looking forward to receiving some koala love again soon.