I knew, before I left to travel to Australia for five weeks, that one of my spiritual tasks for that time was to create a doll to help me ‘bridge the worlds.’
To craft a prayer, literally, to help me weave together the nourishment of my roots and connections in Australia with the branches and leaves I am seeking to put out here in my new home.
I brought tiny meaningful items with me: a pebble from the mile road outside my house; flower husks from last year’s garden; a tiny square of the generous washer that held my unexpected blood on my Wilderness Solo; bark from a magickal oak tree in my yard; a sweet, spontaneous gift from a friend; and much more.
I added things I had been greeted with, as I wandered the northern suburbs of Melbourne in an ecstatic summer inhalation: pink eucalypt blossom; thistle tufts for my ancestors; a she-oak seed pod; grass heads from the field full of life and grace existing next to the shopping centre; a menopause clay ‘nest’ created in a workshop with Jane; and much more.
Under the last Full Moon (in Virgo), she came together in my hands: Rainbow Lorikeet Lady.
She wasn’t planned. I didn’t pick that beautiful bird. It would be more accurate to say she arrived.
Her inner bundle was so full of symbolism, she felt delightfully and undeniably solid, as well as uncompromisingly colourful (and kind of cheeky!).
Powerful medicine!
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When I had the original vision of a doll to bridge the world, I had imagined leaving her outside somewhere, in a place that felt right.
But on my last day or two in Australia, this no longer felt aligned, and I asked my Mum if it was okay to place my doll on the bookshelf in the loungeroom of my (teenage) childhood home.
She said yes.
And so I did, and made my farewells, and stepped through the Equinox portal to the other side of the world.
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In the week after landing, I had a number of txts back and forth with my Mum, with the upshot being that the doll was not welcome to stay in the house.
I was super grateful for a friend who was willing to run an evac mission and create a new home for Rainbow Lorikeet Lady (thankyou so much, Fi!!).
How ironic, this doll I created to anchor me while I am stretched so far away from the land that is native to me and the friends that are dear to me, was not in a safe or stable place!
How ironic that I created the doll in part to help me be more courageous in offering my spiritual work here in a place where religious dogma and fears are strong. Instead, the rejection came not from new community members but from my home, my family.
It was a deep invitation to:
1) notice where my doll arrived home, ie. with a dear friend, not my family
2) come home to myself, independent of how others perceive me
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I’m continuing to digest the experience.
Here’s that middle-realm message again, so consistent in my life: The magic is real.
To not name the spiritual intention behind my doll, when checking in with my mum, was a disservice to us both.
I kept the conversation practical and minimised the spiritual overtones. I avoided her ‘no’ and it meant I couldn’t claim the full power of what I was doing.
I’ve been invited to accept my Mum for who she is and what she chooses to believe. To accept that she looks at what I have created and sees evil in it.
She’s not ‘wrong.’ It just hurts the child in me, at times.
And I’m invited to witness the places in myself where I have damaged relationships in favour of principles. Where I’ve stuck to my beliefs and principles in a way that broke trust.
I don’t think it has to be an either/or, anymore. That’s what I’m getting excited about! That’s my Full Moon prayer. 😊
EARLIEST MEMORIES
All this has brought to the forefront of my mind one of my earliest memories: that of being at the (old) Brunswick Library, watching my Mum walk into the adult fiction section, and feeling safe then to read Dorrie the Witch.
There’s a part of me that has always been drawn to the occult (hello astrology, tarot, witches, sabbats, sexual fears and blood mysteries!) and has not found darkness there, but rather, illumination. Deep yin magick.
Why is this impulse in me? I don’t know. But I trust it in part because it was there so young. It is ‘true’ to me, God-given.
I also trust it because is is a path that is leading me to become a more loving person. “By their fruits shall you know them…”
This part of me never found a home in my family of origin, and I carry it around with me as a misfit aspect of self, expecting the same lack of welcome everywhere I go.
When I hold this dynamic semi-consciously, I replicate the pattern in ways that I find deeply painful. Like this latest round with my Mum.
What Rainbow Lorikeet Lady is inviting me into is a deep claiming of my medicine. My way.
And to release, with grace and compassion, other people’s labels, assumptions and projections onto who I am and what I do. It’s not my business.