Angie's Healing Doll

In 2007 I made a healing doll for my friend Angie Cabrera (Minneapolis) She answered the ten questions that I ask anyone wanting me to make a healing doll to answer. Angie was diagnosed with Stage 4 ovarian cancer in 2006. She passed on on Thursday, June 25, 2009. You can see and read about Angie's story at http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/angiecabrera/journal

Her passing has takes me to my ever-questing questions - What is healing? Can making a healing doll for someone heal them?

These were her answers to the ten questions. See if you can find ways I incorporated her responses into images on the doll....

1.What colors are you drawn to? Do you wear often? Are your favorites? Blue and brown with a splash of red

2. What will this doll stand as a symbol for you? What will it remind you to think, feel, and or do when you see it? I am healthy and strong. I am loved and supported. Positive energy from the universe is pouring into my body.

3. What elements describe you? Earth, air, water, fire? Air and earth I breathe in positive energy and find hope and courage in the plants sprouting from the earth in the springtime. There is life after the winter.

4. What symbols do you like? You collect these, spend time around them, are drawn to them like a magnet?

family photos, flowers and plants, cross, mugs (for quiet tea drinking times with friends), smooth rocks, yin and yang, chinese symbols, angels, colored glass, mosaics

5. What part of your body do you feel needs healing?

Spirit - to continue to be strong and courageous

Lymph Nodes - to be full of healing energy

Feminine side - to be restored to life

6. Describe the symptoms and location of the pain, illness, condition.

Stage IV ovarian cancer that has spread to the lymph nodes. I have scars on my abdomen neck, and chest. The discomfort I have at this time is the pain around the port in my chest. It is a constant reminder that I get chemo (even more so than the hair loss!) and I have not been able to feel comfortable with it. It still bothers me when I touch it and I hate it when they stick my IV in.

7. If an animnal with special posers were to enter your life to give you power, what would that animal be?

It would be a small, white, furry animal that curls up with me and gives me comfort and warmth and would able to enter my cells and keep my body healthy. It would be a wise animal - an old soul who could help me on this journey. I don't get a picture of any real animal so you'll have to invent a new one. I certainly don't want a small rodent or a cat to enter my life! Maybe it would be a Narnia lion who is wise and protective.

8. When do you feel the powerful?

When I concentrate on breathing.

When coincidences happen

When I get hugs and notes and surprise visits

When the wind blows on my face

When I hear birds and water running

SPRING!

9. What brings you the greatest joy? Makes your heart sing? What does your heart yearn for?

Family and friends and traveling and getting to know other peoples and cultures brings me joy and energy.

However the thing that brings me my greatest joy is being with Douglas, Marielos, and JonCarlo. My heart yearns to be with them for many, many more years. The only thing that has made me cry during these 5 months is the thought that I might not be able to do that.

10. What is your favorite fairy tale? Explain how this fairy tale is a metaphor for your Life?

Stone Soup is the story that keeps coming to mind throughout these months. When everyone is concerned only for themselves, there is nothing extra and everyone feels poor. When people begin to share and work together, there is an abundance. I have felt this abundance during my illness. There has never been a lack of anything because the community has shared with me and my family. I know if I'm not here to help my children through some challenge in their lives, there will be many other loving people who they can lean on. One thing that was clear from the beginning of this journey was that it had to be a WE. It might be physically happening to me, but it was also happening to everyone around me too.

By taking away my illusion of living forever (or at least until I'm 80), cancer has given me the present.

On Thursday, June 11, 2009 7:49 AM, CDT Angie wrote in her Caring Bridge journal:

Here are my most recent thoughts on faith and God. I have read many books about near death experiences, Tibetian philosophies, psychics, forensic pathologists views on death, the book of Mormon, and the bible. This is what I believe today.

My God is a God of love.

Only good comes from my God. (All of the people who shared their near death experiences spoke of the incredible love they felt as they transitioned into their next lives. No one spoke of judgement or fear.)

In the garden of Eden, Adam and Eve ate of the tree of knowledge.

To me, the knowledge they gained was an awareness of the past and the future. They now missed the days that had gone by and worried about the future. They lost the gift of the present.

When I was diagnosed with cancer, I wished that I was an animal, unaware of the future and only focused on the present. I fought hard to live in the present and enjoy the moment. I had to battle with the curse of Adam and Eve.

When God realized that humans focused on the future, overlooked the present, and worried about dying, he sent his son as an example. He showed us that there is a better life after life on earth and that we will be part of that. We didn’t need to worry about dying.

My God didn't need Jesus to die for our sins - to balance the spreadsheet. A parent wouldn't say to their child, for example, "Marielos lied 4 times yesterday so JonCarlo, I'm going to cut out your tongue. That way I can forgive her." NO! A loving parent wouldn't do that and wouldn't keep a list of everything we did wrong and expect to be compensated for those sins. The father of the prodigal son took him back without question. If my God is a loving God, then why did Jesus have to die?

At this moment in my life I would give anything to have my mom return from heaven and chat with me for even one minute and tell me that everything will be all right as I transition on to my next life. She hasn't appeared yet. So, I can think on the example of Jesus and know that God already sent his son to show us not to worry about the future. Our life after this life on earth will be even better. I will be ok and my family will too. Jesus died so that we might release our fears of the future and live in the present. God, my loving God, sent his son as an example for all of us.

I believe that I was a spirit before coming to earth. I chose an experience that would help me grow and I'm living that experience now. When I have learned all I need to learn, I will shed my physical body and return to live with my God. When I think that I chose this experience, then there is a paradigm shift in my mind. This cancer didn't just happen to me. I chose this experience to become a better spirit. I have a choice on how I react to my situation and God is here to help me through this experience that I chose for myself. God did not make me sick. God is not ignoring my prayers for healing. God is not judging me. God is beside me, helping me through this so that I may return to his side.

My God is a God of love.

Rage Doll and The Raven

RAGE DOLL and The RAVEN
Doll Artist: Camilla La Mer
http://soulshamans.blogspot.com/

Three weeks following my hysterectomy surgery I am experiencing tremendous bouts of uncontainable rage. It is quite unsettling and quite unlike me. I am trying to befriend this new emotion or, at least, to sit with it in acceptance for the moment. This Rage Doll poured through me this weekend. She may have saved many innocent bystanders from experiencing my wrath had I dared to go out in public rather than stay inside my womb-like studio and express through my creation.

The beads pouring out of her mouth beautifully express the rage pouring forth from me related to a combination of issues from my past, recovering from surgery, and hormonal attempts at rebalancing. After I finished making her, I noticed that she has a regal mermaid-like quality. She appears beautiful, centered, and powerful even in her ragefullness.

She is holding a sea shell in her triumphant raised hand that symbolizes once again my ovary...the one that was taken and the one that remains...I am so grateful for my ability to create through process! This journey contains both extreme challenges and a deep richness...I probably would have it no other way...


P.S. I found this fabulous Folkmanis Raven puppet by chance today. She embodies so much of how I am feeling as well as the mystery behind all of this turmoil. She gets along well with my Rage Doll self. In one of my favorite books, Animal Speak, her characteristics are Magic, Shapeshifting, and Creation. Raven "teaches how to go into the dark and bring forth the light...This is creation." I relate to her disheveled feathers, slight air of irritability, sense of humor, and great access to deep wisdom...I am taking her to school with me tonight!

Be sure to check out the other dolls on her blog. Her email is camillaumi@yahoo.com

Owl Doll

OWL DOLL
Doll Artist: Kandra Niagra
www.weepeeple.com

The Woman Who Became an Owl

In the end, every time I looked at her, I saw the Owl.

Here I was, selling dolls at a Woman's Conference.

Feeling kind of laid back, feeling good- very in the moment…

And I've got my dolls out on display-

It's pretty routine… it's all good

and it's getting on towards evening.

The women are arriving for the conference

People are dressed up in gowns strolling around the hotel-

It's obvious that there are other conferences going on in the hotel -
a flock of ladies in wheelchairs one real darling-
real little girl in a miniature wheelchair wearing an adorable frilly dress and a tiara-

I mean DARLing!

Another group- uniformed men who looked like they were

assigned to escort the ladies in the wheelchairs-

It was all fancy and grandiose and clean and

you know it's the Peabody Hotel

and the Peabody Ducks are doing their walk

down their own little red carpet and there is a

Duck Master and he's got a red tuxedo on and a cane and a hat

and I am flying up and down in the glass elevators trying to film
the famous Peabody Duck Walk and I've got a great film.

And so I am so happy while I am fussing with

the finishing touches in the doll display,

and I'm selling dolls and it's all pretty efficient and fine-

going better than usual, really,

and I am standing out in front of my skirted table

when I felt her before I saw her…

like a shadow comes before a silent presence

I felt the mass of her.

She was like an Easter Island statue.

She was there, slowly, but thoroughly…

a spiritually massive crone with a cane,

and a scarf pinned stylishly around her neck,

a crone with eyes that seemed to taper into stripes,

the way bird's eyes and cat's eyes

lead right into their markings...

her creamy hair feathered around her face.

I had an Owl Doll on the upper shelf of my display

and she was staring at it.

She leaned on her cane and we talked,

and I offered her a chair

and we talked some more

and she put a down payment on the Owl Doll,

and shuffled away

down the hallway toward the other vendors

and was lost to view

as hundreds of ladies greeted one another

and chatted in groups.

I slept well that night.

Better than I ever had at any hotel - ever.

I dreamed, which I never do,

and was satisfied with the outcome of my dream.

The next morning, the crone returned.

She was still using the cane heavily but

she was more animated this time

and she hustled me over to

where we could sit down in chairs behind the table,

And she said that she wanted to show me

the Owl Dance,

if I wanted to see it,

and she was going to do it sitting down.

I had no preparation for this, other than the ability to

give another person my undivided attention…

what happened next I would not have wanted to miss.

She shape shifted into an Owl before my eyes.

I saw a woman become an Owl

and go back to being a woman again,

all in about 30-45 seconds.

I still see her face in my mind

how she tilted her head

and her eyes became something else and

she looked at me, then looked inwardly, upwardly,

and at that moment she was an owl.

After I got my jaw back off the floor,

I thanked her profusely, tears in my eyes,

for sharing with me the Owl Dance.

I read in the program later that she was a guest speaker

at the Women's Conference.

I have her phone number and address.

I will be contacting her again…

maybe I will learn more

about what she did and how she did it.

I hope so.

February 8-9^th, 2008

Grief Doll

One of my Open Studio students made this grief doll recently. She is formed by lumps of clay beads that were fired in my kiln. Then she painted the clay with acrylic paint, then sewed the doll together with leather strips. She holds a tear job in her lap. In the center of her chest is a small blue, clay heart. She sits on a piece of wood. She is quite stunning and everyone who sees her is drawn to her. The student's father is in hospice and has lived with cancer for many years.
This student's father passed April 25, 2009.

African Spirits Doll

African Spirits Doll by Joseph Coloff

Healing dolls can be made by using a pattern. Joseph Coloff's African Spirits
Doll uses a pattern from Patti Medaris Culea. Joseph says this doll she was
pure joy to make and that he felt a good connection with the doll. Joseph says
that sometimes these dolls tend to look a bit like the person he is making
them for. She is supposed to sit on the intended persons bed for protection.
When Joseph is starting a doll like this he thinks about the person and the
spirit the doll represents. He had been planning this doll for a while when he
found the yellow and blue gingham ribbons--he knew then that it was time to
start this doll.



During the making of the doll he ran out of the blue and yellow gingham
ribbon he was using on the skirt so he ran out and found the white he
used at the bottom, "This was the perfect addition to her, he said. "and
I think this made the dress. This doll represents Oshun yellow, and
Yemaya blue. These Spirits are sisters Oshun is the river and Yemaya is
the Ocean, and this spirit lives where the river and the ocean meet.
Joseph says that usually when he makes this type of spirit doll, he ends
up in a very good mood.

Comfort Dolls Project

Why a Comfort Doll Project?

From Pat Winter of Indiana
One simple idea, one piece of Art,this is where my idea was born.....I saw a beautiful crazy quilted art doll on an online group and couldn't get her out of my head so I ordered one . Linda Feuge was the creator of this beauty. My pure joy I felt upon receiving her led me to realize the power this beautiful cloth creation could have on a woman. If I felt so happy owning this piece of art,I could imagine what a woman who may never even know such things exist would feel owning one of her own.

There are many charity groups that Artists of any medium can join, many of which I donate crazy quilt blocks or items to. However, I haven't seen art donations going toward battered women.

They may be out there, I just haven't been aware of any. When Crazy Quilting International, an online group asked about charity causes, I raised my hand to collect cloth "Healing", "Spirit", "Comfort" dolls to be gathered by the dozen and sent to Women's shelter's.
Jo Newsham is a dear friend from New Zealand. She is collecting dolls for those who want to donate across the pond. Please email her for address if sending dolls there.
Please know that anyone who donates a doll can submit a name of a shelter in their town/state/country, to receive a dozen Comfort Dolls when available.

Unlike Jo, I had a short confrontation with physical abuse in my late teens. Thank goodness I had a supportive family to guide me home without further harm. It was the most frightening time in my life, and as the taxi made it's way to the airport and the miles between fear and freedom widened, I felt myself getting stronger and saw a bright future. I knew I had seen the bottom and the only way to go was up. I thought I was the only one who experienced this trauma. Embarrassment kept me from revealing my horrid mistake. Unknowingly, just like myself, many women are taken down this path daily. This experience can leave you with low self esteem and the feeling of failure. Fortunately I have found my Prince Charming and life is good.
Unfortunately, many women aren't so lucky.
I know some may think making dolls to give to a woman who has just been beaten, raped, or abused in some way is like putting a band-aid on an amputation. Well, I see it as sending a message of hope, love,and encouragement. A gentle hug, a smile, a nudge to go forward and see there is sunshine ahead.

Imagine a woman being handed a beautiful handmade doll with a message of hope attached. This doll, from a stranger whom she will never meet, yet makes this connection of love and caring from one heart to another. A stranger who can imagine, if not know firsthand where she has been and hoping she will have brighter days ahead. The woman carries this doll in her purse, pocket, or perhaps pinned to her lapel, knowing someone cared enough to think of her. When she needs strength, she strokes it or admires it and her lips turn up with a smile and her heart warms. Yes, I am a dreamer but I do think this will happen. Actually I KNOW this will happen. Won't you join me?

If anyone wants to create a "Comfort doll", please email me or send them to the address at the top of blog. I will collect them within the US, and hopefully find someone in each country to collect them because this is a worldwide cause. I won't dwell on details, but in the US, every 15 seconds a woman is abused.

Comfort doll specifications: 6" max size (smaller preferred) doll of any medium. It may have a face or be plain, any color, any shape, embellishing such as beading, sequins, and charms need to be sewn on very securely please. Crazy quilting, Fimo faces, painted, cross stitch, felted, etc. is all wonderful and welcome. You may choose any pattern you desire or make your own. I add a message to each doll, but feel free to add a sentiment of your own. There are many free cloth doll patterns online. Look under "goddess "too, they have wonderful simple shapes to embellish easily.

See more comfort dolls at http://www.comfortdolls.blogspot.com/

Thank you for spreading a bit of comfort to those in need. This will be an ongoing project.

You may send dolls to: Pat Winter 1010N 350E Chesterton,IN 46304

Being an artist and a mother

http://www.whodoesshethinksheis.net/janis_sculpting.jpg

A movie about Being a mother and artist is such a balancing act, but I can't imagine living without either one.

http://www.whodoesshethinksheis.net/