Release from the Vow of Silence

Le Silence - Lucien Levy-Dhurmer

The DJ and the Vow of Silence - Kylie's Swan Blessing story.

The Doll Enchantress - Nicole Ahava

Bridge Between Worlds Medicine Doll - Nicole Ahava

When I think back to where my journey with Spirit Dolls began, I can see that as a child I had many. I made them from all kinds of things and I turned what looked like very mundane items into spirit dolls just by focussing my love into them and speaking to them daily. I had forgotten all about this until last year when I received a Dream Doll as a gift from doll enchantress, Nicole Ahava. Nicole is so much more than doll-maker. Through her work at Dream Empire she imbues sacred objects such as spirit and medicine dolls with healing energy, strong intention and love. Nicole is also a Plant Medicine Woman and has great wisdom and knowing of the sacred plants and often places leaves and flowers of plant medicine from sacred sites around the world inside her creations. 

When I was gifted my doll - Little Girl for Healing the Inner Child, from Nicole I was searching for our new home in the forest and it had not been an easy search. In fact, I was starting to wonder if the messages telling us to move to Sherbrooke Forest had been right - we had seen so many houses over the months but none had ever come up in Sherbrooke itself. When I first picked up this wee doll, I could feel the soft energy of peace radiating from her body. I became attached to her very quickly - keeping her inside my wooden Tarot box with my beloved cards. I was amazed at the affection I felt for her and the support I felt her giving to me. And I remembered this connection with my dolls as a child. Within 2 weeks of working with my Dream Doll, of telling her my woes and my dreams and talking with her daily, we found our home in Sherbrooke. I was so glad to meet Nicole in person this year at Autumn Equinox and thank her in person.

Mother with Child - Custom Doll

Brigid Celtic Goddess of Fire - Nicole Ahava

Nicole was also sharing her medicine at Seven Sisters Festival this year and teaching her Spirit Doll workshops. When I came to the workshop on Saturday morning it was a after a night of deep visioning and no sleep. I was in a very strange state indeed after spending most of my night being visited by the Ancestral Grandmothers. With Nicole's gentle guidance and very little words really, just her energy alone, we all created the most amazing dolls within a short space of time. I made for myself a Grandmother to honour my vision and also to represent the grandmothers I had never met in this life as they had passed before I was born. 

I began to understand the significance of having something real to hold when focussing our love and intention and I could see that many of the spirit dolls were representations of the Dreamer within us all. I also felt the deep shamanic practice of doll-making and how the quiet focus of crafting gave us a clear channel to receive messages for ourself and for others and to imbue sacred objects with power and intention. And so I have asked Nicole to take part in the next Swan Blessing workshop - Enchanting the Dreamer at Winter Solstice. In this workshop not only will we clear Past Life bindings from our Dreaming Self - the magical and intuitive sister or brother who lives in the Otherworld, we will now also be able to hold them in a doll created in their essence to help us create a strong connection with our intuitive self at all times. 

I asked Nicole how did she come to her craft?

"When I was a child I was incredibly empathetic (I still am) it would cause me so much pain to see any person or animal suffering. I would cry for the homeless old man in the park and plead with my family to take him home with us. I would hear of an illness in the family and that night I would lay awake and send them healing. The next day a family member would call and tell my mother that the person was better. I would do little rituals to wash away the pain of starving children in Africa while I washed up the dishes for my mother. Find little stones and feathers and build altars in the playground. I trusted my feelings and I trusted my medicine. But it all stopped as I was walking home from school in grade 5 after I had received my Rubella vaccine. I was thinking my knowing was telling me the vaccine was wrong but all these people were saying it was right so I must be wrong.

A few years ago I was attuned in Reiki and it has all started coming back. I started making dolls for my girls. Intention is very important for me in all aspects of my life especially in creative action. It was very natural for me to put intention into these dolls. A lot of the time as I am making the dolls, other medicine will come up and I allow that to flow into the doll. Putting sacred objects into the dolls intensifies their power.

I have only ever made myself one doll and that was after my Swan Blessing."

I believe it is a beautiful gift and medicine that Nicole holds in her gentle soul. When she came for her Swan Blessing I saw that Nicole is a powerful healer and one of her strongest gifts is creating Medicine Dolls for sick children - beautiful comforting dolls for them to take into hospital when they are feeling afraid and to become dear friends to them in the long weeks of recovery at home. If you are facing such a time with your child I cannot recommend Nicole's healing dolls highly enough. I encourage you to seek her out to create a custom doll for your child and for the inner child within yourself. You will be amazed at the circle of love that you feel.

To join our spirit doll circles you do not need to have any experience - your spirit has gifts beyond time. You Remember This.

Swan Blessing Story - Spirit Doll of the Sacred Artist

Lakota Doll by Rhonda Holy Bear

Tonight I share Katy's Swan Blessing story of a past life remembered as a young Native American girl carrying the wisdom of the sacred artist. When faced with the loss of her tribal lands, she made a Vow to Never Submit to the materialistic ways of the modern world. In this lifetime Katy is an artist again and to carry such a binding from the past into this new time was creating many obstacles. Many of us are carrying vows and laws that still forbid us from creating wealth in our present lifetimes and the reasons for these promises were very valid for the times they were made in but do not serve us now. For Katy it was the release of this vow that gave her understanding that she now had permission to create wealth in her life without guilt.  When we imbue our work with sacred energy, which is simply love and intention with the action of making the art itself,  our creations have great worth in our world. In fact, it is very needed at this time. As artisans we must see our craft as a worthy channel for abundance - just as needed as any other role or service. To create with the intention of healing and service and then to charge accordingly for this work is something that is important for us to learn. At the same time we can be discerning and make sure that our work is not being abused, disrespected or copied. We do not need to sell our services to everyone but we can choose who we wish to worth with and for. To accept our own ability to create sacred art again is important because it helps us to also open our minds and hearts to the sacred art of indigenous artists and give it the great honour it deserves. Our sacred art is not a commodity but a gift that creates a circle of abundance that includes the recipient as well as the artist. We can make our whole life a practice of sacred art.

When I met Katy I felt such a bond of sisterhood with her instantly but I had no idea of the way her story was going to ripple out and flow through my own life and through the lives of the women who have also heard her story. When I retold Katy's Swan Story at a recent workshop it was not shocking to them to hear of a woman who intended to burn a town down for taking away her tribal lands, but a cry moved through the crowd as I told of her spirit doll being thrown onto the fire. As I heard and felt the unrest of the women I realised we all still carried a strong collective memory of carrying our magic in dolls. And that these dolls were not merely toys but living sacred objects, more like little sisters or guardians. I began to remember lifetimes of making Medicine Dolls, Witch Dolls, and Spirit Dolls and how sacred they were to us women in times when we were connected to our ancestral medicine and wise ways.

Amazingly, I had chosen the image of this beautiful and proud doll you see above created by Rhonda Holy Bear because I could feel the sacred essence that it carried and it reminded me of Katy's Vow. Only tonight did I read the story of how Rhonda came to her artisan craft of doll making. If you click on the image you will go to her website and read the story about how her grandmother's spirit doll was given away to wealthy tourists - yet another echo of Katy's story rippling and awakening us to the need to learn to honour sacred craft and indigenous art and a call to us to learn to create our own sacred art and spirit dolls again.

"I didn't know what to expect from the Swan Blessing. I just had a very clear and direct inner impulse to participate. I have funny problems understanding basic societal constructs like money, so the "vow of poverty" idea really rang a bell for me. I fully expected to see in my past life (if I saw anything at all) a medieval nun, living quietly, disengaged from the world, expecting nothing, with nothing expected of her but simple labour and the contemplation of the divine. That's not quite how it worked out. It may be that the life I expected to see is there in my secret soul, but it's certainly not the one that sprang forth and demanded my attention.

A young Native American woman came forward and took my hand. She showed me the ashes of a campfire. In the fire were the remains of a simple handmade doll. The woman with me was now a little girl, and the doll had been made by her, and thrown into the fire by her brother (who was much older, and an important person in her tribe), to teach her a lesson. I felt her child's anger and confusion, and also her brother's deep, wild, implacable rage. As I looked around, I saw that her camp, the home of her people, had been burnt to the ground by white men on horses. There was ruin and destruction everywhere, and everything of value was ash. The lesson her raging brother was teaching her by throwing her doll in the fire is that their life as they knew it was finished, that there would be nothing spare for foolishness. 

The next thing I saw was the woman, no longer a child, but still young, lighting a fire.  

This part of the story unravelled backwards: She was lighting a fire. She was lighting a fire at the back of a building. Oh! She's setting the building on fire. The building is a pub, in a small, still-being-constructed mountain town. She's so angry. So fucking angry. Why is she so angry? They killed her brother. Who did? The same men. They caught him and killed him, shamefully, publicly, because they were trying to build this town, and he kept attacking them and disrupting their work. So. She sets the town on fire. It burns, and her fury burns, she is utterly consumed and immobile with rage. She is arrested and imprisoned for the rest of her brief time on earth. And the burning vow of her whole life is the rageful shriek that she will never, ever submit. 

She comes to me again, calm now, and shows me how I still carry this vow as big heavy rocks in my hands. Together we smash the rocks into pieces and they crumble away. She hands me her gift, and I see it's the little doll that her brother threw into the fire, now unburnt. It represents the power I have to make magical objects, and to make objects magical; to weave together disparate and inanimate things and breathe into them life and intelligence and meaning.  

* * * 

I'm an artist, and I've always had a very fraught relationship with money. It just doesn't make sense to me, particularly in relationship with art-making. When I make artwork, it's always something that can't really be  bought or sold. It's films, or crazy installations that fall apart if you touch them, or giant inflatable whatchamacallits; for me, their very purpose is to be not-of-this-world. If they fit neatly into somebody's everyday life then they're not doing their jobs as other-worldly triggers. They're sacred objects. They don't get turned into a commodity. But then, on the other hand,  when I try to figure out how to make money, it's ALWAYS some kind of making-something-that-is-most-emphatically-NOT-the-sacred-object kinda thing. And I always feel weird about it, and I'm really stingy with my attention. And it always feels unfocused and wrong, and it's always this big inner conflict, and it's always a struggle. And I sort of hate the thing I'm making. And the enterprise usually collapses and I'm secretly relieved. 

At the moment I make these embroidered patches and sell them in my shop, and to other shops. They're definitely NOT art, but people like them and they sell quite well. I've been having my usual funny struggles with it; weird panics at markets, the urge to sabotage the business. The weekend after the Swan Blessing, my husband and I hosted a big party in the forest, for about a hundred people. It started looking like it was going to be really big, and we didn't really know what to expect, and we were a bit nervous. We arrived a day early to set up, so in the morning before people were due to arrive, I put on the poncho I had made out of blankets, made a sign, and set out another blanket on the ground, put all my patches out on display, sat down and waited. 

I suddenly felt very, very, very weird. Like all of this was incredibly familiar. I have never in my whole life experienced Deja Vu until this moment. And then, just to drive the point home, somebody wandered past and said "Wow, you look exactly like an American Indian selling crafts by the side of the road!"  I couldn't even answer them, because everything was just thrumming and humming and glowing and feeling so weird. And it was just like it all fell into place. I know now why money is so uncomfortable for me, and why this is being triggered so hard at this point in my life. I think this conflict is HER conflict. Like, her inborn magic was to make sacred objects, but then her tribe's way of life got destroyed, and then, traumatised, she had to find new ways of living and fitting into the foreign currency structure that had been imposed on her, and her magic got degraded and and turned into crappy commodity-trinket-making. And that felt like submission, and that felt terrible and wrong. 

*** 

The animal companion that was given to me by Tony at the Swan Blessing was the chipmunk. At first this seemed a bit incongruous; this cheeky, busy, funny, lighthearted creature didn't seem to sit comfortably with this giant vision of rage and burning that I'd just experienced. But the next day a couple of things struck me: One, that this was a creature I used to see a lot in my childhood in Colorado. (My vision absolutely and unequivocally occurred in Colorado as well. Funny.) The other thing is that this is a creature who knows how to prepare for winter, but doesn't make a big deal about it, or agonise over it; it just goes about it's cheeky life, and trusts its own ability to take care of its own business... it just follows its instincts, stuffing nuts in its chubby cheeks all summer, and then has a big pile of nuts to sleep on through the winter. Maybe the feeling I keep having in my life, that I don't understand these basic laws about how the material world works, how to make and keep money, how to connect effort with reward, things that everybody else seems to intuitively understand and be able to work with, come from being tied to this past life of chaos and desperation and imprisonment. Maybe some of the fallout in this life has been my feeling like a foreigner when it comes to these basic self-determining and self-care strategies. So maybe it's not as complicated and mysterious as I think, and if I just channel that little stripy guy, the state of Usefulness and Plenty will just happen as a natural side effect of my instinctive life, rather rather than something I try to consciously build through the force of my will."   

Katy 2013

Thank you Katy for opening your heart and sharing your Swan Blessing story. By releasing her Vow to Never Submit, Katy has opened up a channel to abundance and understands that this channel will be of her own making. In this lifetime we are free to share our deepest and most sacred art again without fear and under our own authority. The gift of release teaches us that we are allowed to create and share in abundance and that possessions do not need to be void of sacred energy but instead can be beautiful vessels of magic and love - Art with Soul. With intention, belief and love we turn the mundane into the sacred. I am very excited to see the magical and sacred art that Katy creates now that she has released the bindings of that lifetime.

You can see some of the beautiful community building that Katy is involved in through her shop Desire Books in Manly, Sydney. Just have a look at the creative projects she offers to children, musicians, writers... If you are in Desire's neck of the woods pop in and enjoy!

Thank you Katy for opening up this sacred pathway to the Dreamer for myself and for many, many other women.

Past Lives - only the costumes change...

ca. 1848-54, [daguerreotype portrait of Fulton, an early San Francisco actor]

ca. 1856-1910, [tintype portrait of a smiling and sharply dressed young lady]

I am often struck by the similarities between past and present. We are living in mythic times, we are walking in the histories of our ancestors and at the same time being guided by them into the future. You might want to have a look at the fascinating Historical Indulgences website featuring photographs from America in the mid-1800s. When I look at these faces I see such modern expressions and eyes full of stories looking back at me.

The soul lives forever, only the costumes change... 

ca. 1852, [daguerreotype portrait of an Iroquois man, probably Seneca, with applied hand-gilt detail]

ca. 1870-80’s, [tintype portrait of two women admiring cabinet cards

ca. 1860’s, ambrotype portrait of a Confederate soldier

ca. 1860-80’s, [tintype portrait of a woman in unusual costume, possibly for a Wild West show]

ca. 1860, [tintype portrait of a mother and her child]

ca. 1859, [daguerreotype portrait of a bespectacled gentleman,

Swan Blessing - Retrieval of the Dreamer

Drumming the Moon - Lucy Pierce

This morning I received a most treasured gift - a poem written by artist, Lucy Pierce after her experience journeying with the Swan Blessing at Seven Sisters Festival. I too felt the presence of Horse at the festival and I was so glad to see that this totem of the Spirit had also come to assist Lucy as she journeyed back to Retrieve the Dreamer. Since Seven Sisters Lucy has visited me in the forest to take a personal journey with the Swan again and I am very excited to see the art that births from Lucy and her Dreamer in the coming months ahead.

In past lifetimes, many of us have bound our wisdom of sacred art and her symbols. These esoteric teachings are our birthright and in this lifetime we are free to share them with fearless love again. I am always honoured to assist artists and musicians to clear past life contracts binding free self-expression. It is often the voice of the artist that sings to the world from the crest of the Wave of Change, they are the Seers of the future.

You can see the full beauty of Lucy's creations here and purchase your very own prints and sculptures at her Etsy store.

Thank you dear Lucy for sharing this potent poem - your vision, your purpose, your authority, your love... I could hear the quickening like a drumbeat of Horse Hoof on the Earth as I read it.

She Meets Herself

She - Lucy Pierce

Retrieval

Like an unsung song I have always known,

I have experienced myself to be riddled

with incomplete spaces

and unlived places within.

As though essential clues were still buried,

deep inside the body,

indecipherable codes and locks and holds,

camouflaged and obscure,

deflecting light and attention and love.

And now like an awakened crusade,

I have mounted my stead and bare-breasted I ride,

powerful and fierce and exquisitely soft inside,

into the darkness of my history,

back through the gateways

of my deaths and my births,

eyes piercing the shadows,

anchored within the womb,

my vigilant sentry,

ancient seer, awakened.

The rhythmic stride of my mount unrelenting,

senses strained to their full,

I am retrieving myself piece by piece,

unbinding the vows of my past,

reclaiming the power held captive

beyond the reach of my memory.

I am calling her home to me

She who carries her medicine,

She who hungers to be seen,

She who knows the heart-seed of her purpose,

the unfolding mystery of being home

in the throne-room of her soul.

From between the plump, sticky folds of my motherhood,

my Huntress awakens,

sleek and honed

and dark as the night.

She is retrieving the Dreamer

to the heart of life,

searching for She who sees the vision

and holds within her,

clear and true and easefull

the capacity to respond.

The heavy compass of authority

swinging from the outer to within.

It is time and there is no other path

but this focused reclamation of myself ,

of my vision, my purpose,

my dream, my response,

my authority,

my love.

Lucy Pierce

Swan Blessing Workshop - Winter Solstice in the Forest

Past Life Dreaming Remembered

Union soldier Frances Louisa Clayton, who dressed as a man to enlist

with her husband in 1861 via

Autumn Equinox Past Life Workshop and Ceremony

Are you ready to feel free?

We are all feeling the massive changes of 2013 in our own way. For some the transformations feel exhilarating whilst others are feeling intense fear - what you may be sensing is the restriction of binding beliefs, ideas and experiences from Past Life Vows, Oaths and Sacred Contracts.

Join us as we share the message of how to Shed the Ties that Bind at the auspicious point of balance for the Earth that is the Autumn Equinox.  In this workshop and ceremony we will share ways to help you shed what no longers serves so that you can find expression for your unique gifts in the wave of change.

As places are limited you will need to pre-book.

We look forward to welcoming you in the dreaming x

Autumn Equinox Workshop and Ceremony

Autumn Equinox Workshop and Ceremony: 

The Swan Blessing + Walking With the Dreamer

1-4pm Sunday, 24th March 

Tree of Life, 3 Denmark Street, Kew

Cost: $75   (pre-booking is essential as places are strictly limited)

The Autumn Equinox is the point of equal balance between light and darkness

and at this auspicious weekend on Sunday 24th March we will be holding ceremony in the stunning water gardens at Tree of Life healing centre in Kew. We will also be holding a workshop: The Swan Blessing - understanding the bindings of Past Life Vows, followed by a shamanic ritual and drum journey Walking With the Dreamer with the intention of reclaiming our own personal ancestral dreaming and wisdom.  This will be the first of a series of workshops and personal shamanic healing to be held at the beautiful Tree of Life centre at 3 Denmark Street, Kew. An enormous thank you to our dear friend, Dr. John Hare for this invitation. We look forward to working in the magic of this divine healing space.

As the Autumn Equinox nears you may be coming into a stronger awareness of what is out of balance - what needs to fall away or be embraced to bring symbiosis and flow between your own darkness and light. What is calling to be illuminated? If you feel called we would love to see you at the Autumn Equinox ceremony - looking forward to this Autumnal Dreaming.

Reincarnation of the Soul Group

Family in front of the family home in Merino, Victoria 1875

It is very common to be born into a lifetime with the same Soul Group of previous incarnations, often playing our very different roles and relationships. These groups can often be our biggest teachers. In both The Swan Blessing and Femmina Unbound Past Life sessions we sometimes need to understand and clear past life attachment to certain members. Often we need to release vows made to these members in the past so that we can love freely in this lifetime and make choices that serve us in the present.  

Below is the next section of the article we posted yesterday exploring the work of Dr Ian Stevenson discussing the many Soul Groups and attachments.

Principles of Reincarnation or How Reincarnation Works IISIS
Article by: Walter Semkiw, MD, from Born Again and Return of the Revolutionaries

From independently researched reincarnation cases, which in aggregate provide proof of life after death, the following principles are observed:

People appear to come into life in groups, based on shared karma and emotional attachments. Couples often come back together and entire family units can recur. When an individual reincarnates, other members of that person’s karmic group will be present. Identifying members of the person’s karmic group is another important criterion in establishing a past-life match.

Ian Stevenson did a very important twin study in which the past lives of 31 sets of twins (62 people) were factually validated. In 100 percent of these cases, the twins had significant past life relationships. The most common type of past life relationship was that of siblings, followed by friendships, other family relationships, then being spouses in the past incarnation.

Past Life Relationships of Twins

Siblings: 35%

Friends: 29%

Other family relationships: 19%

Spouses: 16%

Stevenson's twin study represents hard evidence that souls plan lifetimes to be reunited with loved ones through reincarnation. Two cases featured in this study involve the reincarnation cases of a set of Burmese twins, which also demonstrate physical resemblance from one incarnation to another. Image comparisons of these Burmese twins, who were sisters in their past incarnations, are provided above. Phyu reincarnated as San and Saipai reincarnated as her twin, Nyunt.

How do we connect with our karmic groups? The answer, it appears, is destiny. In analyzing past-life cases, it is observed that we all have a predetermined destiny or life itinerary which brings us to the people we are supposed to spend time with.

To better understand how destiny works, let us use the analogy of a journey. Think of your life as an extended vacation that you plan in advance. You decide who you want and need to see, where you want to go, and what activities you would like to participate in.

You coordinate your itinerary with the people you are to rendezvous with. You, your karmic friends, and loved ones all agree to the plan before you are born. Once you come into life, destiny ensures that you meet up with your karmic soul group.

The settings for karmic affiliations can be our families, work life and recreational pursuits. These settings are stages on which we play out the karmic dramas of our lives. This casts a new light on Shakespeare’s phrase, “All of life is but a stage.”

We meet up with different karmic groups at different points in life. When we get the urge to take a new job, travel to a new city, or take up a new recreational pursuit, many times this is a part of our destiny being played out. New venues bring us to karmic groups we need to be with.