Tarot Spread - GrandMother's Gift to the Cosmic Child

This year my biggest teacher has been the inner child, thanks in no small part to the craft of dollmaking. I soon realised that when I moved beyond intellect, the wisest part of me was a child - I call her the Cosmic Child. The Cosmic Child is the part of us that knows what we love to do naturally and well and wants us to create more space to do it in. This is why connecting to her or him is so important when we want to recover our gifts, talents, or understand our calling. In essence - our medicine.

Recently I created a Tarot spread to work with clients to explore and integrate the Shadow called Shining a Light on the Scary. The scariest part of these sessions was not the truth, the shadow issues or the session itself - it was the fear that keeps us from wanting to know the truth - it was the lead up to the session when our minds create the worst outcomes. In almost every session, the treasure that was waiting behind the fear was often their greatest gift - held in the hands of the inner child. More often than not, the fear was in letting that beautiful and innocent part of us out into the world and share our gifts with trust - trusting ourselves to be open completely and share our love. And so once we understood what the shadow behaviour was that kept this treasure hidden, these sessions became more about getting to know the Cosmic Child!

Very often there is work to do to find the Cosmic Child especially when we are carrying wounds from our own childhood. But I'm not comfortable with calling that child the Wounded Child, I feel like we can get stuck in the past sometimes in those old wounds and the most powerful way of letting go of the past is to be present. No one is more present than a child. She helps me to remember that the soul is ancient and that the not too distant past is just one story in her cosmic journey. I like the image of the StarChild - ageless, ancient and futuristic and when I remember that she is the one that lives inside me, it helps me to expand beyond my old limitations and remember my medicine and to feel excited about trying new things. She is my connection to the stars, the cosmos and limitless potential.

So now I know the Cosmic Child how do I take care of her? I wanted grounded practical advice to help me not only co-create a life with her but also how to nourish and protect her. Who would know this better than anyone? Her GrandMother of course! And so this is the next step in this Tarot cycle - GrandMother's Gift to the Cosmic Child. I imagined visiting her ancient grandmother and drinking tea while she told me in no uncertain terms how I must tend and care for this child now that I had released her from the cave and brought her out into the sunlight.

My wish and intention is that this tarot spread gives you solid and practical advice on how to help your Cosmic Child THRIVE!

GrandMother's Gift to the Cosmic Child tarot spread with The Wild Unknown Tarot deck.

Tarot Spread Positions :

1. What Is

2. What the Cosmic Child Wants

3. What the Cosmic Child Needs

4. How you are currently mothering the Cosmic Child - is this connected to your own childhood

5. Behaviours & Beliefs to be Released

6. Behaviours & Beliefs to Embrace

7. GrandMother's Gift for the Cosmic Child

8. Your new journey with the Cosmic Child

Sometimes when we are emotionally overwhelmed or feeling blocked it can be hard to navigate and interpret our own readings, if you would like assistance you can book a reading with Julia here 

The Dream, the Eye and The Dark Crystal

Recently I remembered a dream that I had about 7 years ago where I was walking along a dirt road in a forest carrying a doll that looked like a wizard or Merlin. I kept staring into the doll's amazing blue eyes that were incredibly ALIVE! I came to a little shop in the forest and a woman asked me if I would like to sell this rare doll. Even though I loved it I was also comfortable in parting with it and gave the doll to her. When I remembered this dream I was blown away.  When I dreamt it I was living in a tiny flat in the inner city of Melbourne, in a job I hated and even though I felt the dream was important for some reason, I thought the messages was merely symbolic. Thank goodness I write so many of my dreams down because I have proof now of their prophetic nature and that helps me to keep trusting and following my intuition.

When I recalled the dream, I was brought again and again back to the eyes of the doll and then I journeyed right back to being a small child and remembered that I loved to stare into the glass eyes of my dolls for hours and hours. I began to think about dolls and puppets that had a similar enchanted look and I recalled the Jim Henson film, The Dark Crystal. I came very late to this film after a friend suggested that I watch it for the message it held : 'where mountains talk to each other and rivers sing'. So this week I watched The Dark Crystal again as I made a medicine doll and I was entranced by every aspect, especially the craft and detail in each puppet and sets and the overall design and look of the film created by artists, Brian and Wendy Froud.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBUEGrIcfzw

And now here's the weaving magic of this story of the dream, the eye and The Dark Crystal: when I posted a photo on our Facebook page and  Instagram of The Dark Crystal, I received comments from so many people telling me how the film had influenced and enchanted them as children and how it is still so beloved to them. And then I heard from master toy designer, Tim Clarke, who worked on and built all of the Mystics in The Dark Crystal! Tim built the 7 foot beings, the Mystics, directly from the drawings of Brian Froud. I love these ancient and gentle creatures, their wrinkles forming spirals and symbols on their cheeks. My favourite Mystic is of course urUtt the Weaver. Tim said he was happy that The Dark Crystal was still inspiring people twenty years later. Well, last night I caught the final golden thread when I read that the genesis of the creation of The Dark Crystal came about when Jim Henson discovered a taxidermist's glass eye! He said: 'It got me interested in doing creatures that really looked alive'. And that is what dollmaking is all about for me, finding ways to enchant the doll with so much spirit that it fills with life. I want children particularly to feel and see that the doll is there as a living, breathing friend.

This week was a lovely reminder to trust the dreaming, even if it is many years old - so much of that dream has already come true - I now live in Sherbrooke Forest, my home is on a dirt road and close by is a magical shop called Epoch that looks like it was handmade by elves. Some of my dolls have found their new keepers there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQY8Ei3cda0

Poem for the OwlKeeper's Daughter - Barn Owl doll

Owls are magical creatures and there is something so gentle in the heart-shaped face of the Barn Owl. We were gifted feathers of the barn owl from a friend who lives in Queensland and they are the softest feathers I have ever held. When we offered The OwlKeeper's Daughter, we received this beautiful poem from Fiona Lewis, another Sherbrooke Forest inhabitant :

The owl keepers daughter offers trust in the night The owl keepers daughter brings vision as a light The owl keepers daughter lodges a crystal in the heart where the wisdom of foresight pierces illusion like a dart The owl keepers daughter so gentle and quiet whispers peaceful incantations in the fading twilight The owl keepers daughter brings the oracle to life and ever so still cuts through fear like a knife

Thank you Fiona! We're very happy that she is already inspiring creativity - your words tell her story so well. Blessings and love on your owl wing journeys in the forest x

StagWoman Medicine Doll Drawn by Alice Savage

This week I received the finished drawing of our StagWoman medicine doll by 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 StagWoman was a personal medicine 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!

Into the Forest Wild - Spirit Doll for the Magdalenes

Wild Girl Shadow spirit doll by Sacred Familiar

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 a few 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.

Wildgirl Shadow healer medicine doll by Sacred Familiar

medicine doll by sacred familiar

A couple of months later I was preparing to hold a ceremony at the site of the Magdalene Laundries at the Abbotsford Convent here 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 termed '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 wished to gather with lots of other sisters to somehow let the women know 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 organising 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 hold this space 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 Mother Nature is all I needed! I now know the Mountain Ash trees to be forest guardians and protectors. Learning this helped me to create a medicine 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 is 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.

Shadow medicine doll by Sacred Familiar

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 sister, Talulah, a Shamanic Midwife of Making Sacred, Talulah, who had travelled from Sydney to support me and our ceremony and 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 I see as a messenger for friendship, and when I looked at the doll she now had 2 black eyes made from mud. She looked straight at me -  she was 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 ancestral memory of the forest and the wild and natural 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 Magdelenes 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 Aboriginal girls who had also been in the laundries and the tribes that had known this sacred land beside the Yarra River for thousands of years before these modern laws and judgements. So many women gave the gift of their love and voices that day to sing the spirits of the Magdalenes home including the magical singer, Lisa Mitchell, who shared her own new songs written at the time of our gathering. I played these songs again yesterday and they are are like celestial devotionals, ancient songs to open the veil. We saw and felt some amazing things that day and I am grateful to everyone who helped weave that heart-opening ceremony especially the women who came who had family and friends in the laundries and orphanage. And to 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.

Cosmic Children and GrandMother Dolls

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

Alchemy of Coexistence by Patricia Ariel

"Alchemy of Coexistence"
Graphite, charcoal, acrylic, pastel, on Fabriano watercolor paper, mounted on panel
16 x 20 in  2014
© Patricia Ariel

Aaaaah Patrica Ariel! Sometimes it feels like she is painting directly from my dreams. Alchemy of Coexistence is one of Patricia's latest paintings created for the Hidden Kingdoms exhibition that also featured another dear friend, Alice Savage. I love so many of Patricia's paintings but something about this new work is so enchanting to me. In fact, whenever I see this painting I have to stop. I have to take it in all over again. And then it does a strange symbiotic balance within me as I sit in front of it. The balance of the antlers and the datura flowers and the sweetest expression in the women's closed eyes and soft mouths... it's such a mystery isn't it?

Next month I will talk with Patricia for a new series of interviews about artisans who consciously create with the sacred and with intention. Another reason I'm so in awe of Patricia's artistry is that not only does she have an incredible ability to paint what she sees in her visions she also has the gift of weaving with words and when she writes about her work and inspiration she does it in such a fascinating way that she doesn't 'solve' the riddle of her creations but helps you to navigate and journey deeper into their dreaming - or the rabbit-hole! I think Alchemy of Coexistence is a perfect entrance into this mystery.

"My "hidden kingdoms" are inhabited by characters that take the shape of an archetypal and spiritual analysis of my own personal experiences, and how their understanding can reflect on the outer world. At the time I started the piece I was somewhat immersed in reflections about my own duality, and thinking about how the experiences that take me to darker and more silent places end up nourishing my so called “positive” side, creating almost a third entity. This “inner alchemy” I experience so vividly constantly reminds me of the Jungian concept of shadow integration: two polarities – conscious/unconscious, light and shadow, day and night, masculine and feminine – coexisting in perfect cooperation. I decided to explore it revisiting the image of the “twins”, each wearing a different headpiece that are not simply placed upon their heads, but that are almost part of their own bodies. The headpieces, shaped on the form of deer heads, an animal that symbolizes gentleness and regeneration, are clearly representing the dichotomy life/death, that here are not literal symbols, but archetypes of “darkness” and “light” - unconscious and conscious. The figures are surrounded by datura flowers, seen as a sacred plant by Native Americans as having the power to make the living to communicate with the spirits of the dead, which I found a perfect metaphor to the concept, as well as a good representation of the “flourishing” of the consciousness due to this integration."

Patricia Ariel  http://art.patricia-ariel.com

ORIGINAL AVAILABLE AT THE DREAM FACTORY GALLERY
http://dreamfactoryart.bigcartel.com/product/alchemy-of-coexistance

This Week's Forest Inspiration

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

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