A ritual which is also a kind of spell, placing us into direct conversation with invisible and powerful forces of healing.
Working with healing dolls. Weaving a new crown
A few weeks before the stroke, I noticed that the Mother Earth doll on the table beside the window was looking a little shabby. I took her into my hands and looked her over… She looked old, tired, and—my heart tugged—neglected. “I’m sorry,” I told her softly. Then, following the impulse to ‘help,’ I began to move, guided by instinct and an inner pulse of love and appreciation for what she has meant to me.
This is a post about a ritual which came to me spontaneously. A ritual which is also a kind of spell, placing us into direct conversation with invisible and powerful forces of healing. This self-guided healing work is also a kind of play - and which, in its way, can offer support when life throws us a curve ball.
At the exact mid-point of my first Becoming Real Workshop, halfway between modules three and four, on the eve of the summer solstice, I had a (mini) stroke.
It would be absurd to pretend this did not happen. More absurd if I did not include it as a part of the ‘constellation’ that gathered around this workshop.
I am fully recovered and next week, the Workshops are back on!
In this post, I am sharing one of the practices that I work with in my own healing - and with clients. I have shared about this before - on Instagram (here) and (here) and in this post (here).
I’ll begin with a small, simple story about how this practice unfolded for me, and then I’ll offer steps you can use in your own life.
A few weeks before the stroke, I noticed that the Mother Earth doll on the table beside the window was looking a little shabby. I took her into my hands and looked her over. She’s been with me since my children entered Waldorf School, standing on the altars that spring up all over my house—various scenes of blessing.
My son was 7, my daughter 5. That’s almost thirty years, I thought. A long time.
Now, she looked old, tired, and—my heart tugged—neglected. Household dust caked her shoulders and the top of her head. Her white apron had yellowed, adding to her careworn appearance.
“I’m sorry,” I told her softly. Then, following the impulse to ‘help,’ I began to move, guided by instinct and an inner pulse of love and appreciation for what she has meant to me.
I removed her white apron and set it aside. I brushed the dust from her shoulders. I reposed her bendable arms from a posture of endless outreach to one of repose and receiving.
My attention turned to her hair - a crown of white wool, twisted into an “old lady” hairstyle, which sat atop her head like the icing on a cupcake. That day, it struck me as inelegant, not respectful of who she was, what she’d been through, what she stood for.
Speaking to her out loud as I worked. “You deserve a lighter crown.” I removed the wool, yellowed with age, revealing a soft, peach-colored head.
On the front of the head - the face, two blue eyes and a rosebud mouth. On the back, I found coarse stitching, roughly tied off. It disturbed me and I wanted to cover it back up. I refashioned some fresh wool into a new hairstyle, braided and wound it around her head, leaving the crown exposed. I placed her on my kitchen island, where I saw her each day as I chopped vegetables, tossed salads.
After the stroke, when I was able to move around the house again, I found my Mother Earth doll toppled over.
I carried her to the living room where I was resting by the window. Working intuitively, without thinking about I was doing - just wanting to connect with her again - I removed all the stuffing from under her skirt. “You deserve to sit now,” I told her and, for the first time in 30 years, I folded her long skirt over her invisible legs. “Rest now, I told her. All is well.”
I placed her on the bookshelf closest to my spot by the window, atop a stack of books by Thich Nhat Hahn. Each day, as we sat together for several weeks, I would reach up and touch her soft skirt. We were healing together, regrouping after toppling over - being tended to after years of tending to others.
When I felt stronger and began sitting in the sunroom, Mother Earth came with me. I lay her head against a supportive, solid stone from my mother’s studio. The stone was one of six, each beautiful in it’s own way - and I had them all. They were the models who’d posed for my mother’s last painting and therefore, sacred to me.
From other shelves, I gathered objects from around the house: the huge Redwood pine cone I found in a forest near Bolinas, the weathered conch shell I’d carried home from Florida’s Gulf Coast.
I set them all around her, along with smooth stones from beaches where I’d walked with my parents, my husband, and my children. She was Mother Earth, after all, and I sensed that these offerings—each representing one of her gifts to me—would bring her comfort.
My thoughts were dreamy then - a jumble of ideas and images about re-balancing, about seasons, the way that blazing summer, lush with vibrant color yields to autumn, a rest stop, a time of cooling temperatures and fading colors. All of nature preparing for winter sleep. The necessity of renewal, of rest.
One morning, weeks later, I was in the sunroom, talking with my sister who’d called from California. I snapped a photo, wanting to show her my altar. Only then, did I notice that I’d placed Mother Earth atop the vision drawing I’d done years ago, a swirl of words that I made, dreaming a good life around myself.
A stone and a woman asleep atop a vision. Surrounded by other meaningful objects. Three green bottles from my mother’s collection, filled with paper roses. The wise woman statue that my sister made for me, draped in crystal necklaces. The ‘roses’ sign that my daughter used in a film about a flower vendor. Beyond the windows, the pine trees, evergreen. Standing tall.
At the center of it all, Mother Earth reposes, leaning on a stone, holding a pine cone in her lap. Green and growing things surround her.
This quiet, personal ritual of healing and self-care emerged spontaneously - a mix of intuition and the sense of setting things that were out of order back to rights.
I was doing it in other ways, in other places, too.
A Basket of Dolls
When I visit thrift stores, shopping for my daughter’s vintage clothing business, I often encounter dolls. Some of them call out to me, and I carry them home. Almost all of these have a problem—a loose hip joint, a lost button eye, a bad haircut. I can never say why I relate to this one and not that. Some combination of memory and aesthetics draws me in. Perhaps they remind me of a childhood friend. Perhaps their expressions feel familiar.
I snapped this image sometime during the summer. I don’t remember placing the dolls this way, but when I saw them in their basket, I was moved by the tender care the brunette doll was offering to the soft body of the baby doll. Moved by the way all the dolls in the basket were gently holding one another.
It’s funny how this healing ritual works—I often discover I’ve moved things around, as if in a trance. I am always surprised and always delighted to see what my hands and heart have done when I am ‘not looking, not trying.’
Seeing them reminded me of how we all hold one another, knowingly or unknowingly, through the shared struggles and joys of being human.
This tender scene became part of my healing constellation, reflecting the themes of support and renewal that I was discovering during this time.
The Healing Bridge
There is a whole branch of healing and psychotherapy that supports this sort of healing work. Dolls, sand tables, art materials, and other tools help people—children and adults—to express and work through their emotions. Expressive and creative play seems designed specifically for this purpose. I believe that it is.
For thousands of years, human beings have shared stories of experience through visual representation (cave paintings, for example), through the voice (song and storytelling), and through the movement of the body (playacting, dance). We are designed to live in the in-between. To translate our emotions into movements, into stories, into art.
Rituals, like the one that I spontaneously moved through—or you could say, the one that moved through me—happen in the bridge space between the real and the numinous. This is where healing happens; this is how healing happens.
Invisible forces, guided by their own purpose—of life force, of sustenance and repair—are built into us. They heal and make whole what is hurt without being told to, without our conscious effort. We lie down, and the body, guided by mysterious and effortless forces, rebuilds and restores itself. Something takes care of the body as the body takes care of us.
I tell you this brief history to bring the invisible to the front of our awareness. To point to and, for a moment, catch a glimpse of the magic.
In my ritual, a woman takes care of a special object, acknowledging its sacredness, infusing it with meaning and, inside of that meaning, flowing love and care toward it.
This transforms an inanimate object into something sacred—symbolic and representational— which becomes an expression of her own healing gifts turned outward. Somehow, in the alchemy of psyche and soul wisdom, this simple ritual engages with the healing forces that are turned inward. The forces of repair and recovery, of renewal and return which Mother Earth flows to all creation.
In other words, through the doll - a ritual object - I spoke with the Grace Mother, tending her as she tended to me.
It is no accident that this was the doll that I chose. I have many other dolls. As you can see in the basket of dolls photo above. I have countless more. Little dolls - toys from Lego sets, wooden figures of queens and kings, tiny animals, stuffed animals.
But this one—Mother Earth, the force of life, the Grace Mother—was the one I instinctively moved toward, instinctively cared for, just as her forces were already moving toward and within me.
A Practice for Renewal
Here are steps you can use to create your own ritual of renewal:
Choose an Object: Find something in your space that feels symbolic or meaningful—a doll, a stone, a piece of jewelry, or even a plant. Let it call to you.
Clear and Cleanse: Gently clean or care for the object. Remove dust, repair damage, or reposition it with attention and love.
Listen and Speak: As you work, let your thoughts and words flow naturally. What does this object represent for you? What messages or feelings arise? Allow yourself to speak your thoughts and feelings out loud - or to write them down. This helps to activate the ritual space, making the experience more embodied - more real for you.
Transform: If it feels right, make a small change to the object—restyle it, reposition it, or add something new. Trust your intuition.
Place with Intention: Choose a space where the object can rest and be honored. Surround it with objects, colors, or materials that feel comforting and supportive. You might ask the object: What do you need? What would support you?
Reflect: Take a moment to sit with your creation. How does this act of care reflect your own need for rest or renewal?
Wait. Allow the process to move and evolve over the next few days or even weeks. It is not necessary to come to any conclusions. You may find, as I did, that your hands and heart are working inside of their own logic. Let this happen without rushing to make meaning.
An Invitation
In our Constellation Workship, we explored other ways of making meaningful connection, illuminating our everyday, everywhere conversation with the spaces and objects around us.
I invite you to reflect on an object in your life that might symbolize renewal. What would it mean to care for it as a way of caring for yourself?
If you feel inspired, share your experience with this practice in the comments. I’d love to hear how this small ritual of restoration resonates for you.
And in January, we begin the new year with Sacred Ache. A new Becoming Real Workshop. I hope you can join us! Here’s the link for that.
PS If you like reading this, please click the ❤️ button on this post so more people can discover it on Substack. Please click through and leave a comment. Please restack and share this (and any of my posts that touch you) with a friend. In this way, the good spreads into the world. And for that, I am so grateful. Thank you!
With gratitude, love and all the blessings of the season,
Amy
xxoo