April 2015 Featured Fellow Artist
As a little girl, I would sit by the hour watching my mom and grandmother as they shared a cup of tea ~ mending in their laps, often cutting down outworn dresses and other pieces of outgrown clothing to make something for my sisters, myself or my brother. I marveled at their perfect stitches, an almost musical rhythm as the needle moved in and out of the fabric. And oh, the things they would create.
Sometimes there would be a tiny trail of embroidered flowers. Both were very skilled with embroidery and I feel truly blessed to still have table runners and cloths with their detailed, perfectly stitched hand work.
They patiently taught me by encouraging me to conjure, to make things from my own creative inner landscape. I still recall the way the sewing needle felt in my small hands the first time, fierce determination on my face, eager to show them what I could make all by myself. In no time I was obsessed with making clothing for my dolls ~ keeping them warm in winter, adding magical bits so they could play with Other Worldly Beings who came out at night to share time with me. I've always felt these beings around me ~ guiding, comforting, loving me.
Over the years I would become enraptured by the textures, color and wonder of the treasures of the Earth and how these gifts from nature would interface with fibers to give new life in the form of a doll, a sculpture.
I remember being absolutely awed by the level of transparency. I can recall with crystal clarity and much tenderness the sound of certain voices as stories were shared in the circle ~ raw, uncensored emotion ~ some women breaking a lifetime of silence. In those moments I knew the power of making a healing doll, and that one day I would hold circles for women using the doll as a tool for personal healing and transformation.
In late July I had an opportunity to visit friends in Nova Scotia for some healing time. One day we packed a picnic and took ourselves to the Bay of Fundy, a truly magical place called Scot's Bay. I've always found healing and rejuvenation by the sea, something about the smells, the sounds of the waves & seagulls, marveling at the patterns of the driftwood. The tides there are known to be the highest in the world ~ sandbars stretching out for miles at low tide. You can climb over ancient lava rock formations with veins of crystal peaking out, shimmering geodes strewn over the salt-water kissed rock. I'd never been to this part of the Bay before. The energy of it all washed over me in healing waves.
I was truly bedazzled. Chunks of quartz crystal embedded in the grey green rock, some pieces broken free from larger rock formations by the force of the tides, tucked in amongst the rocks and boulders, here and there small fields of salt-water kissed pebbles with small, perfectly formed crystals nestled amongst them. Absolute awe and excitement filled me. I found a handful or more of small quartz crystals as I meandered along, holding them simply to feel their vibration, unsure if I should remove them from their home.
Out of this starry mist the sounds traveled toward me. I saw a great circle of woman moving in a weaving formation, their collective energy enveloped me in a sphere of cradling light ~ a wondrous, womb-like space. One woman stepped out of the circle and moved until she stood in front of me. It wasn't so much that she spoke words, more as if she communicated telepathically ~ soundings so exquisite, colors dancing like the Aurora Borealis ~ glyph-like, diamond-dusted, patterns being scribed in the starry fields.
She spoke of the crystals of Scots Bay, how they were encoded with special information that had been held in stasis for eons. I saw ice ages and melts, witnessed the ever changing landscape. It was like peering through a special lens. I saw great beings made entirely of light imbuing the crystals with information.
I watched an aspect of me gathering these crystals, honoring the information stored within, wrapping them in small bundles of sacred herbs (sage, tobacco, resins and rose petals) and placing them inside the bodies of healing dolls. Healing Dolls that I would give birth to, what they would look like, what they would represent - how women would come forward wanting to be stewards of these Healing Voice beings - how they would travel the globe and find themselves in trigger places on the Earth. These places I have come to know as Ley Lines, vast networks of energy lines connecting them altogether.
Throughout our history, many cultures have actually built temples, altars and sacred dwellings in many of the places where these Ley Lines intersect. I witnessed the energies of the crystals contained within each Healing Voices doll receiving sequences of sound and light particles, Code patterns. I saw these doll beings carrying their harmonics to places throughout the Earth.
The first twelve Healing Voices Dolls were birthed in Nova Scotia. Since then there have been so many voices. I've never made a sculptural healing doll without including a crystal, most have been gifted from Scot's Bay. In recent years I've felt compelled to bring crystal from other countries to the bay, leaving them in places amongst the rocks at the edge of the tide line, crystal voices uniting.
Yet words are what I have to somehow convey what I'm being shown as I work. Every stitch is a prayer ~ absolutely intentional, the addition of each bead, each rolling of the raw wool as I knead the wool to form the bodies of felt. Felting them seems to be the only way to bring their essence from the realm of the collective dreaming and highest heavens into the world of form.
The Luminaries feel as real as you or I. They surround me with their energy signatures, their vibration, their Codes, use my hands and heart as tools to create them in the physical.
I hope one day soon to have a sound file of the crystal bowl, the luminaries sounding through my voice....
Please visit Sharon's Sacred Luminaries and share in her ongoing adventures with them, on her blog. To meet more of her Healing Voices dolls, buy her wearable felted work, drums, rattles, paintings and much more visit Sharon's website.
To close this chapter, I'll share a favorite quote of Sharon's from Women Who Run With the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes:
"I hope you will go out and let stories happen to you, and that you will work them, water them with your blood and tears and laughter til they Bloom, til you yourself burst into Bloom."