2018 Workshops
Subscribe to our monthly Newsletter
to receive first announcements of circles and WORKSHOPS
Spirit Doll & Swan Blessing Circle
A Vessel for the Ancestor
Plant Spirit Doll Making Circle
Swan Blessing Ancestral Ceremony Spirit of the Deer - Transforming anxiety into creativity and intuition
Learn how to create a plant spirit doll through the craft of needle felting and wool working with plant fibres such as nettle and natural plant dyes. A textile pilgrimage to connect with ancestral ways of our own lineage and family.
THIS WORKSHOP IS FULL
Saturday 10am - 4pm, 28th July 2018
Top Floor at Wellington, 3 /21-25 Wellington Street, Chippendale
Swan Blessing Ceremony - the Deer as Ally & Teacher
A Swan Blessing ceremony will be held before we begin working with our hands to create a spirit doll. The aim of this ceremony is to clear and unbind ourselves from the very old fear that to be sensitive or intuitive was a kind of 'madness'. The Deer as ally will show us how to channel our sensitivity and natural healing ability into the daily practice of making with our hands again to ground and centre energy and open up a clear channel for intuition to be shared with love.
Artwork: Deer Animal Spirit by Patricia Ariel
“In the act of making slowly and by hand, you begin to step into a liminal space between time and hear the voice of your own spirit
the dreamer within the dream”
Medicine and Spirit Doll Workshop
In this course you will:
Learn the craft of needle felting wool into 3D figures and create 2D embellishments.
Discover the many different types of wool and plant fibres such as fibres made from nettle, bamboo, seaweed and wild roses.
Work with wool and fibre hand dyed with traditional and natural plant dyes such as woad, indigo, walnuts and rose madder.
Prepare a medicine or prayer bundle to go inside your doll filled with plant medicines, talismans and the power of intention
Understand more about your own personal plant allies, herbal folklore and healing
Create a textile sigil that symbolises the gifts and traits of your lineage and weave it into the design of your doll
Learn how to develop a greater sense of rest and ease as we slow down to work with our hands
Additional Areas to be Covered in this Class
In this extended and full day long doll making workshop we will have extra time for 2 new areas of doll making:
Facial Features: creating a face, learning about features and how to express emotion in a needle felted figure
Antlers: learn to create antlers or horned headdresses for your doll
2D woollen embellishments and 3D forms
The Medicine of the Spirit Doll and Making by Hand
The medicine and spirit doll is an ancient being, familiar and beloved to many cultures around the world. I believe in the ancestral art of healing and enchantment – to weave life and love into a creation by making something solely by hand with materials from nature and pure intention. This act of creation is not something outside of us but a natural gift to birth and weave a bridge to the source, to our own ancestors and the centuries of wool and textile workers.
In the act of making slowly and by hand, you begin to step into a liminal space between time and hear the voice of your own spirit – the dreamer within the dream. In our doll making circle we will create medicine and prayer bundles from herbs and flowers from the forest floor and place them with special talismans, stones and wishes to be placed in the belly of your doll. Made purely from woollen fleece and plant fibres such as nettle and bamboo your doll will be created with one of women’s most ancient and magical of tools, the needle.
And finally when you hold your doll made by your own two hands you will feel a sense of deep connection to your lineage through this ancestral and ancient craft. In that moment you have been welcomed by your grannies into the oldest crafts in the world, that of the healer and doll maker.
Spirit Weavers Gathering 2018 Oregon, USA
Sun Session and Moon Session
I'm very happy to be returning to Spirit Weavers Gathering in Oregon to teach classes at both Sun and Moon Sessions.
I will be sharing:
Previous Workshops
MAY 2017
SURVIVING THE MAGDALENE LAUNDRIES
Talk and book signing with Sandi Gamble
survivor of the Magdalene Laundry and Author of 'Broken'
Free Talk with Julia Inglis - Medicine Dolls for the Outcast
7-8.30pm Thursday, 4th May 2017 10am - 4.30pm
Tree of Life, 3 Denmarket Street, Kew, Melbourne
Free Entry (places are limited)
JUNE 2017
WINTER SOLSTICE 2017
Crystal Dream Sound and Vision Circle
Crystal Sound Bath Immersion with special guest Kylie Bower
Journey and sound meditation at the Winter Solstice portal
JUNE 2017
WINTER SOLSTICE 2017
Medicine and Spirit Doll Workshop
The Animal Wife
Creating a needlefelted medicine doll to carry the spirit of your Animal Soul-kin
The Studio, Tree of Life, 3 Denmark Street, Kew
Saturday 24th June 2017 1pm - 4pm
AUGUST 2017
ENCAUSTIC WAX ORACLE
AND SCRYING WORKSHOP
I'll Be Your Mirror - Creating your own Encaustic Oracle Deck
Saturday 12th August 9.30am - 4.00pm Selby Community House, 2/1 Minak Rd., Selby
I'll be your Mirror - Encaustic Oracle and Scrying workshop in the forest. I'm very excited to offer this work again in a workshop. This is a practice that I've used for over 10 years to develop the ability to scry and read movement and language in nature as well as connect to a deeper love for colour. In this one day workshop you will create your own encaustic oracle deck and develop your ability to create a story and narrative from the symbols and images that appear in the wax.
In this one day workshop you will create your own oracle deck through the ancient art of encaustic - painting with hot wax. We will be working with the ancestral folk magic of the seer and scrying in the wax to receive messages and symbol so that you can create a personal oracle deck for yourself to take home.
NOVEMBER 2017
KEENING CIRCLE
DARK MOTHERS
Lineage Grieving Ceremony
For our Outcast Ancestors & the Ghosted Parts of Ourselves
With Julia Inglis, Bec Walker & Kaggi Valentine
Beltane, Saturday 4th November 10 - 4.30pm
Tree of Life, 3 Denmarket Street, Melbourne
We invite you to sing the ancestral song of the Keener with us, to be held in community as you grieve and release and to send this love to the forgotten members of your own lineage. In releasing our grief we become stronger and more compassionate. We then become strong anchors for our families and communities in times of grief and suffering. We open our hearts to compassion in the unending cycle of birth, death and rebirth.
By removing the mask over death and grief we see the beauty in compassion and emotion. In this full day workshop and ceremony, I will be joined by my sisters Bec Walker of Wayfaring Death, a death worker of over 20 years who will guide and invite the Death Mysteries and Kaggi Valentine, medicine woman of 13 Moons Blood Mysteries a doula and shamanic birth worker who will guide and invite the Birth Mysteries. Through this portal we will all cross together holding space for the forgotten women and men and children and the outcast stories of our own lineages to be sung back into the family tree.
Singing Home the Ghosted - turning our tears to crystals. A birth-death-rebirth grieving ceremony for the outcast ancestors, the ghosted stories or our lineage and ritual keening circle. In these turbulent times there is a need now to find ways to experience and release grief. Not too long ago a Keening ceremony was a natural and healthy way to release and heal and mourn in community together. This full day Swan Blessing will be a ceremony for the forgotten, the shamed and the orphaned ancestors or our lineage and the orphaned parts of ourselves. A Keening Circle is a sacred crying ritual to release grief and pain and to use the voice to sing back the light and create emotional balance.
JUNE 2016
Melbourne Medicine Doll Workshop
Winter Solstice - Dreaming Trees
Mother and Daughter Doll Lineage Circle
open to girls from 8 years upwards
and to 'aunties' who would like to come on their own
Saturday, 25th June 1- 4.30pm
Tree of Life, 3 Denmark Street, Kew
(includes all doll making and 9 healing trees materials)
In this circle you are welcome to bring your mother or daughter above the age of 8 years due to the sharp felting tools used. And of course we may have mothers bringing their mothers - Grandmothers! And any aunties wanting to come on their own to share their wisdom and stories and learn how to create a personal medicine doll in this ancestral circle.
AUGUST 2016
Sydney Medicine Doll Circle
Swan Blessing Ancestral Medicine Ceremony
Medicine doll workshop - Imbolc in Sydney!
This workshop will be held in Sydney at the same time as the Frida Kahlo exhibit and will be held with swan blessing ceremony to honour the wild spirit of the artist. We will also share stories and memories of Australian artist, Vali Myers.
This circle will be held in Mosman
Saturday, 6th August 12.30 - 4.30pm
Singing Home the Ghosted Sister
Swan Blessing Lineage & Death Mysteries
Magdalene Keening Ceremony
for our Outcast Ancestors
With Julia Inglis, Bec Walker & Kaggi Valentine
Saturday 10am - 5pm 27th August
Tree of Life, 3 Denmarket Street, Melbourne
Singing Home the Ghosted Sister - Turning our tears to crystals. A Magdalene ceremony for the Outcast Ancestors and ritual Keening Circle. Full day Swan Blessing ceremony for the forgotten, the shamed and the orphaned ancestors or our lineage and the orphaned parts of ourselves. Singing back the Rebel, the Misfit, the Outspoken Ones. It is a 3 year anniversary of our ceremony at the site of the Magdalene Laundry in Melbourne. Keening Circle - a sacred crying ritual to release grief and voice to sing back the light and emotional balance. By removing the mask over grief we see the beauty in compassion and emotion. In this full day workshop and ceremony, I will be joined by my sister Bec Walker of Wild and Sacred, a death worker of over 20 years who will guide and invite the Death Mysteries and Kaggi Valentine, medicine woman of 13 Moons Blood Mysteries and doula and birth worker who will guide and invite the Birth Mysteries. Through this portal we will all cross together holding space for the women and children of the Magdalene Laundries, the outcast sisters of our own lineages to be sung back into our family trees and finally through releasing our own keening song we will open up the ancestral memory, alchemy and magic of this ancient crying ritual.
crossbones
OCTOBER 2016
England, Scotland and Ireland
Saturday, 8th October at 11am
Cross Bones Graveyard - London
Gifting of Spirit Dolls for the Outcast Dead
Talk with founding member Jacqui Woodward-Smith
Saturday 15th October - Dublin Workshop
A Circle of Swans - Heaven Meets Earth
Weaving of Black and White Swan Magic
Ancestral Medicine Circle
with Karen Ward of Sli An Chroi in Dublin, Ireland
Scottish Circle - healing the witch wound, A Gifting of a Companion Doll for Janet Cornfoot
known as the Witch of Pittenweem
Honouring of the women persecuted and punished as witches in Scotland
Gathering and Talk at the Tour and Witches Corner, Pittenweem
4pm Wednesday, 19th October
ghosted sister
AUSTRALIA - NOVEMBER 2016
NOVEMBER 2016
Spirit Doll Workshop in Queensland!
Swan Blessing for the Spirit of the Artist
Water Blessing Ceremony
With Julia Inglis
Grail Haven, Natural Spring Sanctuary
Mt Tamborine, QLD
Saturday, 12th November 12.30-4.30pm
This workshop will be held on Mt Tamborine at the site of the natural spring at Grail Haven and will be held with swan blessing ceremony to honour the wild spirit of the artist. We will also share stories and memories of Australian artist, Vali Myers.
The spirit doll is an ancient being familiar and beloved to many cultures around the world. When we create a spirit doll we reconnect to the ancestral medicine of healing and enchantment – to sing life and love into creation. This act of creation is not something outside of us but a natural gift as women to birth and weave a bridge to the source, to the ancestors and to our own spirit – the dreamer within the dream.
In our doll enchantment ceremony we will learn how to craft a medicine doll from felt and wool and plant medicines found on the land. In circle we will birth our dolls and share stories of our lineage, offering our voices to the ancestral doll makers, the wise grandmothers who will assist you to create a doll that will become a sacred vessel to hold your medicine and dreams for all that you love.
