Anyone who knows me knows that I have had an interest in helping people to heal – whether from trauma, addiction, and particularly from loss and grief - all issues which can manifest themselves in a troubled mind and sometimes in a troubled lifestyle. I have been engaged for the last 18 years in therapeutic practise to assist others in finding pathways through these difficulties in their lives, and I have particularly been interested in the use of various expressive arts as means to working with and through the issues.
My initial skill set was in the use of poetry and Journal writing as a means to expressing inner feelings, building upon my (then) 35 years of personal journal and diary keeping. But after running my first Journal writing courses, (as a facilitator for Kathleen Adams ‘Journal to the Self’ workshops), I was quickly aware that I did not have the skills necessary to contain the difficult issues that can arise in a seemingly light hearted writing session.
I knew I owed it to any future participants to get myself properly trained, and thus I started on a long pathway of learning, which began with a Certificate and Diploma in Counselling , in which I specialised in grief and bereavement work. I then went on to take a Master’s degree in what was then called ‘The Rhetoric and Rituals of Death’ at the University of Winchester, where I also developed my therapeutic skills, building upon the invaluable academic learning, and putting it into practise to help others. In addition to the writing and memoir courses that I have since run over those years, I have also used sand tray work, photography, collage and visual imagery. Just over this last year I have been exploring the use of therapeutic healing doll work, which along with the other expressive arts above can be a very powerful tool.
I have belonged to an online healing doll-making group for the last nine months or so – ‘Healing and Transformative Dolls’ on Facebook - a group of very diverse and imaginative dollmakers who are all inspired by the group founder, Barb Kobe, who is also the author of the remarkably inspiring book ‘The Healing Doll Way’ - packed with inspirational images, the basis for a year long practical course and a book I highly recommend if you are interested in the work.
Imagine my surprise, when in the last couple of days, the name of a good friend of mine who I met while doing my Masters ‘death’ degree also popped up on the same group! Now, I have dabbled in the first steps (of modelling faces, which you can see above) to begin my first therapeutic doll; no such hesitancy for Angie - in her first few posts she has shown us a truly wonderful stick doll inspired by the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, a compassionate and courageous movement, promoting important causes which I know are dear to Angie’s heart (and mine)
(Sister Beata Twinkling Fakement, of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence - by kind permission of creator Angie McLachlan)
The Gorgeously Glamorous and deeply compassionate Sister Beata Twinkling-Fakement is already spreading her blessings upon the world in all their fishnet, leather and Beguine inspired glory, rather as their creator – Archbishop (Liberal Catholic Church International), LGBTQ activist, enbalmer, undertaker, academic, artist, sculptor, icon painter, death educator, musician, doll artist* and deeply good person Angie continues so to do.
I’ll muddle on with my modest modelling, while I wait to see what else she presents to the world to encourage us to help and to heal.
(*Only some of Angie’s accomplishments – I think I feel an interview coming on!!)
Journal prompt
Are you a practitioner of any ‘Expressive Arts’ ? Do you use them for your own pleasure and/or healing? (I think they can be both at the same time) – do you use them to help others?
Describe some of those people whom you have encountered in your life who have been an inspiration and encouragement to you – whether you have known them personally, or whether they have been an inspiration from afar…and from any time in history.
What have you learned from them that you have applied in your own life? What of those ‘life lessons’ would you wish to pass on to those who come after you?
If you would like to join the ‘Month in the Country 2020’ Facebook group to share and discuss your own responses to each day’s blog, just click here
Comments