Digesting My Life

How can dollmaking help us to know our inner healer? I learned along time ago that the dolls I made were speaking to me, or were the voice of my bodymind. This showed up when the left hip jutted out in a doll right before having my left hip replaced....and I've seen this same thing happen with two other dollmakers.

The symbols you are drawn to put on your doll often relate to your body and areas that are bound up asking to be released. One student in a class was struggling with wrapping a large, 3 foot stick doll. She kept wrapping and the more she wrapped the more frustrated she felt. Once I encouraged her to unwrap the entire thing did she realize that her body did not want to be bound up it wanted to be unbound and released from her bindings....and after she unwrapped the doll she got what that was all about. So often the symbols or the actual process of making the doll don't speak to us or make sense until later on.
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When I made a doll to heal my digestive tract I spent time studying the digestive process and learning the shapes of the organs and internal body parts involved and then put those symbols on the doll. This was as if I was saying to my body teach me about you and talk to me as I make art to symbolize you.

Do you have a story about how a doll you made was healing for you?

How can you play with the idea of allowing your body to speak to you through your dolls?

I believe that making these kinds of dolls can be healing and transformative....and sometimes I forget and then I make one..and remember.

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