OwlKeeper's Daughter
Owls feel like such creatures of enchantment and there is something so gentle in the heart-shaped face of the Barn Owl. I found a barn owl feather in the forest and it was one of the softest feathers I have ever held. Late at night when I’m often in my studio creating, an owl calls in the blackwood tree just near my window. I can’t see the owl but it is my constant night craft companion. I called this doll the Owl Keeper’s Daughter.
Stag Woman by Alice Savage
This week I received the finished drawing of my Stag Woman spirit doll by my friend Italian artist, Alice Savage. And of course she came at a time when I really needed it. She is magnificent and this photo doesn't do her full justice - she is drawn with diamond ink and shimmers in the light. The Stag Woman was a personal spirit doll that I created for myself last year when I first moved to the forest and now she lives with Alice and is working her magic across the oceans. I feel this doll helped me to grow stronger and more resilient in the forest - I wonder what she is sharing now?
I'm so happy to be involved in this collaboration with Alice!
Sometimes people ask me what to do with their spirit dolls once they receive them and that's a hard question to answer because the relationship you have with your own doll is so personal and really the way of working with your doll is limited only by your imagination. So today I thought I would share a story of a particular doll that I called Wild Girl and how she helped me to let go of fear.
Over my time of making dolls I have made just a few dolls for my own personal use. It only happens rarely and I'm often surprised when they make themselves known. I created Wild Girl at a dollmaking workshop that I held at Winter Solstice last year in the forest. When I teach I begin a doll to show the early steps to creating her head and her body, really very basic. I then leave everyone to weave their dolls in their own way. Wild Girl was this 'example' doll. When I got home I was unhappy with Wild Girl because she just didn't seem to be looking 'right'. Right? She didn't look the way I wanted her to look and strangely she rarely wanted to be seen. I kept her in a basket with my dolls that I was making for others and forgot about her.
One of my oldest childhood friends, Chris, came to visit and he looked at my dolls and noticed Wild Girl and asked who's this? He was fascinated. I told him that I didn't know what to do with her. She just didn't seem to work somehow. As I held her in my hands and turned her around Chris said stop! She had her back to us and he said that's how she wants to be seen from behind. And he was right. She was much happier not showing her face, she was wild and didn't like to be looked at. That helped me to connect and feel more understanding of her spirit and I kept her with my personal dolls and didn't think too much about it.
A couple of months later I was preparing to hold a ceremony at the site of the Magdalene Laundries at the Abbotsford Convent in Melbourne and I was feeling a lot of deep emotions not only about the spirits of the women and children who had been held there but also about my own ability to be able to help them with our ceremony. The Magdalene Laundries were terrible places set up to house and incarcerate young women and girls who were deemed to be too wild, who were orphans, or sometimes simply unwanted. They were wrongfully called 'fallen girls' and I had been feeling the stories and spirits of these women for years. I knew that if I had lived in those times, I could have easily ended up in one of these places. In fact, many of us would have been doomed to the same plight simply by having a strong spirit, different spiritual views or simply for being regarded as a 'temptation'. Hard to believe, isn't it? And so last year I realised that I couldn't ignore these voices any longer and in a small way, I wanted to us to gather as a group to have a bigger voice to somehow let the women know that they we remembered them. That they had never done anything wrong, that they were loved and that there was a home for them in the spirit world.
I booked The Linen Room in the Convent for the first day of Spring for this ceremony and as the day approached I felt more and more fear - was I actually allowed to do this? Could I hold this kind of energy and process of grieving that would come? It shows just how deep the control of authority has been experienced in this lifetime and the past doesn't it, that deep unconscious fear of being stopped or even arrested for speaking out and finding our own way of healing history?
Six weeks before the ceremony I decided that I didn't want to be controlled by my fear and that to organise this gathering for the other women I needed to be as strong as I could. I thought about how I had felt afraid of the forest when I'd moved here three months before. When I arrived in the forest I would look at the enormous Mountain Ash trees whose branches alone could crush a house and at night I would listen to the noises of the forest at my bedroom window and I felt embarrassed but I was afraid - could the forest kill me? I'm glad to say that I soon realised that this was a programmed fear after living in the city for too long and not my own. And within months of moving to the forest I came to realise that it was the opposite and I now feel like the huge Mountain Ash trees are like forest guardians and protectors. Learning this helped me to create a spirit doll ritual to deal with my fear of authority.
I chose Wild Girl to be this doll to help me face my fears of the unknown and to speak out for women who had not been allowed to speak in their own lifetimes. When the women and children entered the Magdalene Laundries that were even stripped of their own names. I took Wild Girl to a part of the forest that was most sacred and magical to me. It’s by Sassafrass Creek and I call it the faerie dell. It is filled with a strange light that is often very hard to photograph. Here I took photos of Wild Girl and you can see that her face was very hard to capture. I took her to an old tree that had naturally fallen years ago and in its exposed roots, I buried the spirit doll deep inside. I prayed to the spirit of the tree and to the forest to take care of Wild Girl and me. I asked to be taught how to be more wild in my life and particularly to have strength and trust speaking out. I was asking the trees to heal me through the doll.
I visited Wild Girl often over the next 6 weeks and every time I saw her she would look more and more feral! She began to gather sticks and mud and leaves and each time I took her out of the tree she looked happier and more and more beautiful. On the morning of the ceremony I went into the forest with a dear friend and dancer, Talulah, who had travelled from Sydney to support me and our ceremony. I took WildGirl out of her tree home for the last time. At the base of the tree I found a Rosella feather, a bird that reminds me of friendship and when I looked at the doll she now had 2 black eyes made from mud! She looked straight at me - she looked happy to not only see but to be seen!
Wild Girl joined us in our ceremony at site of the Magdalene Laundries, she carried with her the spirit of the forest and the ancient land that still lay beneath the buildings and had been there forever. And that is what our ceremony for the Magdalenes became - a remembering or re-embering as my friend Kaggi Valentine of 13 Moons Blood Mysteries, calls it. Kaggi sang her own chant for the Magdalenes in the actual laundry itself that day leading us to sing and dance for those that couldn't in the place that had been their prison. We remembered the First Nations girls and babies who had also been incarcerated in the laundries and the traditional Wurrundjeri people of Birrarung (Yarra River). This convent and it’s laws and judgements sits on Aboriginal land. My friend and magical singer, Lisa Mitchell, shared new songs inspired by the stories of the Magdalene Laundries and my my best friend, Rebecca Walker, palliative care nurse and death worker who is always walking beside me in this work - I know how much her spirit anchored the whole process.
Friends. That's what helped the ceremony to be as powerful as it was. Friendship helped me to speak when I was afraid. I saw that we truly can do anything, face any fear when we do it together. And that is the gift of the spirit doll. She is a Friend. She will be beside you.
Wild Girl is still by my side, were are great friends now. I see her in all her strange and wild beauty and she sees me.
I had the best time creating this medicine doll for Tilda who is 11 and a budding young artist. She is the OrchidDreamer friendship doll and filled with orchids grown in Tony's mother's garden and lots of forest flowers that I picked close to our home. While I was making her one of favourite people came to visit and I'm sure all of that laughter and storytelling has been woven into her dress.
Tilda's request for a friendship doll came in the same week that I received 3 more invitations to create dolls for children. This is the CrystalReader doll for Emma who is 12 receiving a sun blessing on her crystal ball.
I have been inspired so much by the spirit of the child whilst making these dolls that I began to make some big changes in my life, creating space for my own cosmic child to play. I created a tarot spread to understand what the cosmic child needs and I will share this spread with our subscribers very soon on the 1st September - the first day of Spring here in Australia.
I believe that whenever we give we receive and this week I had a sudden compulsion to go to our local opshop. And look who I found - my own doll! Isn't she beautiful. I don't know anything about her except that she looks completely handmade right down to her woolly jumper. She reminds me of my ancestors from Scotland and Ireland. Perhaps she is Fox's grandmother and has travelled from the Shetland Islands to take care of us all. Thanks Tilda! I definitely believe you and the OrchidDreamer had a hand in this doll exchange x
A couple of days ago I chose these crystal treasures for new spirit dolls. I am in awe of the dolls and their ways of teaching - I am learning more about the mineral world with each doll. This week we have been foraging and gathering plant medicine for dolls in Sherbrooke Forest, Mt Donna Buang and in the Redwood Forest in East Warburton. Inspiration everywhere x
This beautiful wax doll was created by 11 year old Tilda after being inspired by my spirit dolls. Tilda and her mum sent me an email this week entitled : inspired by you. The thought that I had made something that could inspire a child to create gave me the best feeling 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 to shine a light on what I feared. 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 doll making for a long while. 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 memory. 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 made a doll almost every single day and yet I am still just as excited to be creating dolls for others. 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 also told me that she would like for me to make her a spirit doll and this week I’ll begin to work with Tilda’s favourite plants and begin.
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 spirit dolls for children and they have a special sparkle about them. A twinkle. Here are some of the dolls that are now friends to those wise little people.
Cosmic Cat & Butterfly Doll
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. 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 naturally shed 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 has 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 plant the seeds to birth a new life.
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 Deer Heart. 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 something big to share and I am curious to find out.
I have just finished weaving a spirit doll for Alice Savage. Alice is an Italian illustrator and dear friend 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 gifts.
Alice and I have spoken about the intention and healing wishes she would like her doll to hold and I felt 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 treasure 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 Alice.
Stag Woman Sacred Familiar doll drawn by 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
