These scary, brawny and aggressive looking guys showed up recently on consecutive days. ​

And then these showed up. Almost as an antidote or balance to the fierceness of the first two. These have a more feminine and inward turning energy. ​

Above are a couple more Lynda Barry-inspired images. The first is a visual diary method. Four things that I did that day. The second is another visual diary, this one an image with a description. In this second image, I recorded how wonderful it was to see Patti Smith recently at the Lincoln Theater with my daughter and a friend. My daughter had seen her years ago (when my daughter was 15-now she is 26) at the List Center at GW University. Both times were wonderful but this time I loved getting to hear her sing much more. And also to see her daughter accompany her on piano. 

And of course, I am still making dolls...
Below is progress on another angel doll that I didn't finish in time for the recent Open Studios at the Jackson Art Center, where I have my studio. ​

Younger years, when goals and resolutions seemed very important
I gave up on resolutions years ago. I used to try to come up with goals for the year, after evaluating what I had achieved in the previous year. It felt important to improve myself-especially coming from a childhood and adolescent environment where achievement was important, both at home and at school. I tried to evaluate my life, even before it had really begun. I remember starting college and  writing copiously about my life, trying to find meaning in what I had done and what had happened to me. It seemed that I wouldn't be able to succeed in life, if I didn't understand where I had come from. But often I would become mired in self doubt and recriminations. It was like trying to measure the growth of a plant when you have only planted a seed. The more you stress about it, the less healthy it gets. 

Working with intentions that could be measured
In later life, I played with the word intention, instead of goal and resolution. This word felt more expansive to me, and yet I still spent hours writing and mulling, coming up with intentions that could be measured and that I then tried to evaluate on a weekly or even daily basis. And this could be very helpful. I learned a lot about myself. I learned to think more critically (in the healthy sense of this word.) I started to discover  what it was that made meaning in my life. Things started to make sense. 
I think that this self examination and exploration was important at this phase of my life and I still return to it sometimes when it feels right. 

Aligning with the Seasons of Nature
More recently, and this probably came along with when I discovered doll-making as a healing method, I have simplified this process even more. For the past four years or so, I have been participating in a daily practice that involves praying the rosary in a way that isn't connected to any church or religion. Within this practice I choose a "heart's desire" every 54 days and then kind of let it go, though restating it daily. And then after the 54 days, I choose another one, or sometimes stay with the first. 
I find that if I stay away from "self-improvement-y" desires I do better. If I focus more on desires that feel expansive, that come from my heart rather than my head, it works better. I do better when I connect with desires that are loving and accepting. My latest desire is to step back and see my whole self, and that especially includes my gifts, my light, my expansive self. Otherwise I spend too much time in the shadows, not that the shadows aren't important as well. The shadows make up one half of the circle that is me. I have spend a lot of time on the shadows (witness my teaching an on-line flip-doll making class for four years, Befriending Our Shadow)* What I want now is to find wholeness. 
*note this was the original, very first offer of this class. For now I am not offering the class again, but who knows?

Dark days of winter as a time of dreaming and reflection
During the dark days of winter-these liminal times-growth happens underground. Trees are completely bare but a ton of activity is going on down among the roots. I believe that is what happens for us as humans too during our winter (and for some, this might be another season of the year, you may not necessarily align exactly with what the season around you is doing. For instance, for some, winter is the most active productive time of year and summer is a time of reflection)We may be doing "nothing" on the outside, but inside (or underneath) all sorts of new growth is occurring. 
January especially is a time of dark, of reflection, of rest, of dreaming. I have used various creative methods of connecting with this time of year, envisioning what is to come and releasing what was. Over the last five years I have been creating a sort of totem pole vision of the year, or at least the first six months, inspired by a technique taught by the wonderful Fonda Clark Haight. 
These days, sometimes the goal is to live each day more fully. Am I feeling alive? And actually, I really don't think about the whole year as I envision what is to come. It is about the winter, what do I envision for myself in the winter? How do I want to show up? As I write this, I am sensing something completely different  wanting to be birthed in the spring. But not yet. Now I want to focus on the steps right now in front of me. I want to see the beauty in the bare branches of the trees and listen for what might be hatching below. 

I am curious what comes up for you when you read this? Respond to this blog post and let me know. 

​Introduction
I’ve noticed that on the occasions when it feels like my body is letting me down, I seem to develop new ways of listening and seeing. Unwanted as illness is, it prods me and pokes me into paying attention to my inner life, to parts of myself and of my experience that I might have been avoiding during the usual day-to-day. 
The following reflection came at a time of fever and fatigue, a time when I was too tired to think clearly, but too restless to ignore what was stirring inside me. As I lay in my bed, memories and images began to rise; of childhood fears, of birth-mine and that of my children-of sensitivity as a burden and a gift. What follows is my attempt to understand this recent experience: how illness, rather than silencing me, sometimes opens a door. 

​Fever as a Doorway
It is cold in the house and I have a fever. My thoughts drift in and out of clarity. Yet from within this fog, memories and images begin to surface with unusual vividness. Illness has always had this effect on me. It opens a threshold between the visible and invisible, the body and spirit. 
I was reminded of Frederika von Hauffe, a distant relative who was a mystic and healer. She became famous in her time for her psychic abilities, including the ability to predict future events, to see the dead and to heal herself and others. Her abilities increased as her body weakened but she died young. Her life was such an extreme example, but could I have been experiencing something of what she did, but on a much smaller scale?  

​A Fearful Child
Illness also often brings me back to my origins. I remember myself as a small, fearful and extremely shy child, when my parents moved us from New York City to suburban New Jersey. In our new neighborhood of immaculate lawns, quiet streets and sprawling houses, I didn’t want to go outside and play on the street with the neighborhood children. Their games of stickball and other raucous sports felt too loud, too violent. I was intimidated by the ways in which the other children seemed sure of themselves, comfortable with their loudness. I was afraid of being seen, and of making a fool of myself with my clumsiness. My sisters seemed to fit easily into this new world, while I retreated inside with my books. 
I was frequently ill as a child, with ear infections and fevers that necessitated me staying home from school. Reading was my refuge, my way of hiding and surviving, while sick in bed or as an escape from a life where I felt I didn’t fit in. I imagined that in the eyes of my parents and my peers, including my sisters, I was a failure somehow. I felt different in a way that didn’t feel acceptable. 
My mother didn’t understand this side of me. As a child, she’d been athletic and fearless, always outside, running, climbing and jumping. She excelled at school in gymnastics, showing little interest and aptitude for academic subjects. My hesitancy baffled her. I grew up believing that my sensitivity was a flaw to be overcome, rather than an expression of who I was. 

​The Pattern of Thresholds
I’ve noticed that illness often arrives at moments of transition, during moves, big decisions, or life changes. Each time, I am brought back to that same uneasy question, will I be safe if I cross this threshold? Beneath that lies another, do I deserve the freedom and gifts that change brings?
For much of my life, I have viewed my physical and emotional reactions to change as obstacles, evidence of my lack of resilience. But recently, I’ve begun to wonder; what if these are not obstacles at all, but messages from the body’s deeper intelligence? What if the symptoms are my body’s way of guiding me, reminding me that fear and growth often appear hand in hand?

​The Hidden Strength of Sensitivity
What would it mean to see my sensitivity as a form of strength? To understand that the same openness that leaves me vulnerable to illness or fear, also allows me to perceive subtle layers of meaning and connection that might otherwise remain hidden? 
Illness slows me down. It interrupts the surface current of daily life and forces me to stop and listen, to the body, to memory, to the whispers of the unseen. In that slowness, I can sometimes glimpse a larger pattern, the possibility that sensitivity is not a defect to overcome but a doorway to deeper perception. 
Perhaps this is what my ancestor, Frederika von Hauffe, knew. When the body is humbled, the spirit can speak more clearly. When bodily strength falls away, sensitivity becomes its own kind of knowing. Illness reminds me of the importance of my spiritual practices, that tend to fall away during the busyness of life. It becomes a time of recommitment to my inner knowing and to the web of connectedness to unseen ancestors and guides all around me. 

​Integration and Petition
The essence of my petition, I realize, is to live in close harmony with my inner life, to allow my spiritual awareness to infuse my daily experiences, not just in moments of crisis but as a steady undercurrent of being. 
To face my fears not as enemies but as guides. To honor the small, frightened child within me. To reframe her vigilance as an attempt at care and as a longing for safety. To thank her, and then to step with her into the unknown. 
To make space for my unseen guides, including my ancestors, to allow their guidance to come through, however subtle and whispered this guidance might be. 
In the end, I want to remember that contraction and expansion are parts of the same rhythm, the rhythm of birth, grown and of awakening. My folded wings are not broken, only waiting for their time to unfold. 
And that even in fear and confusion, the body is listening, the soul is awake and something new is always being born.

​Closing Note
IN writing this reflection, I am reminded that healing rarely happens in straight lines. It unfolds in spirals, revisiting old fears from new angles. The body remembers everything, and if we listen closely, it can show us the way forward. 
For me, illness has become not just an interruption, but an invitation, to pause, to feel, to notice the sacred intelligence working quietly beneath the surface. Each time I fall ill, I have another chance to reach back and meet again with the child I was once was, to soothe her fears and remind us both that sensitivity too can be a form of strength. And another chance also to connect to my lineage of ancestors, to receive their witnessing and guidance. 

​Honoring Doris Waschk Balz, Sculptor
I was so sorry to hear that Doris Waschk-Balz, my German cousin, an artist and sculptor, died in May 2025. Hearing this news, I felt especially grateful that my sisters and I had the chance to visit her, along with many of our other German relatives, last spring. We took our mother with us, rented an Airbnb in Hamburg, and mostly just spent time catching up with one another. Or really, my sisters and I listened as our mother, her three sisters, and her brother shared memories and reconnected.
The house we rented had a lovely garden, with doors that opened onto a bright green lawn. Every day, the weather was beautiful. The focus of the trip was to be with family; to celebrate each other and listen to the stories our mother and her siblings told.
Since Dorle (our nickname for Doris Waschk-Balz) lived in Hamburg, we were able to visit her and her husband, Klaus Waschk, also an artist, in their home on Övelgönne. Övelgönne is a tree-lined path along the Elbe River, dotted with fish restaurants built on piers directly over the water. Dorle and Klaus’s home could only be reached by walking along a footpath, which makes access difficult—especially for older residents—as there’s no way for an ambulance to reach the house.
We sat with them on their porch, enjoying an apple tart Klaus had made and a chocolate cake baked by Dorle. It reminded me of my student days. I visited them often during my junior year studying in Hamburg, and I came to love the tradition of Kaffeestunde, a daily pause around 4 p.m. for coffee and cake. I think I gained ten pounds that year!
During our visit, Dorle gave us a tour of her basement, where she stored many of her sculptures; models for outdoor pieces that can still be found throughout Hamburg and other German cities. She had recently closed her studio, no longer feeling well enough to use it regularly. I posted some photos from that visit last year, and here they are again.

​A Brief Bio
Doris Waschk-Balz was a German sculptor. She began her education at the Stuttgart Academy under U. Günther and R. Daudert. From 1964–68, she continued her studies at the Hamburg Academy under Gustav Seitz. In the early 1990s, she began working with ceramics, later combining drawing and sculpture. She created numerous public works, including the fountain at Großneumarkt in Hamburg and the memorial to the former synagogue on Oberstraße. She lived and worked in Hamburg until her death in May 2025.
A Long Line of Artistic Ancestors
Dorle came from a long line of artists. All her siblings were artists in one form or another. Her father, Ernst Balz, was a sculptor and the brother of my grandmother, Annemarie Balz Nestele. Her mother, Doris Gerstel Balz, was a potter. Wilhelm Gerstel, her maternal grandfather, taught Ernst Balz sculpture.
I found images of some of their work, which I’ve shared below; pieces by Dorle and her grandfather Wilhelm Gerstel. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any photos of Ernst Balz’s sculptures, though I did find an image of him. Growing up, my mother often spoke about her artistic cousins. While she was also very creative, she never felt she could match the level of artistry in Dorle’s family. For her, creativity was more a way of living, a way of enhancing daily life, rather than something separate, done in a studio.

​Interviewing My Mother
A few years ago, I decided to interview my mother about her experience growing up in wartime Germany and later immigrating to the U.S. alone to work as a Kindermädchen (governess). In the process, I spoke with my uncle, Wolf Nestele, who asked if I had ever heard of Frederika von Hauffe, a distant relative, probably five or six generations back. My great-grandmother, Mathilde Hauffe, descended from von Hauffe’s husband.
Von Hauffe wasn’t an artist, but a seeress. She created “automatic drawings” that are strikingly beautiful and could easily be viewed as art. I’ll be sharing more about her in an upcoming presentation. Her story is a rich and unusual one. Much of her short life was spent bedridden due to illness. She was written about by her doctor, Justinus Kerner, in his book The Seeress of Prevorst: Being Revelations Concerning the Inner-Life of Man, and the Inter-Diffusion of a World of Spirits in the One We Inhabit. More recently, John DeSalvo wrote The Seeress of Prevorst: Her Secret Language and Prophecies from the Spirit World.
Here is one of her automatic drawings, which she called a “Sun Circle”—though she imagined it as a three-dimensional sphere.

​My Mother’s Quiet Creativity
My mother, Ursula Nestele, doesn’t consider herself an artist, yet she’s a masterful watercolorist (at least in my eyes). Watercolor is notoriously difficult to control, and she approaches it with a light and intuitive touch.
Her creativity infused our childhood. Though we didn’t have much money, she found ways to make everything fun and imaginative; whether through cooking, simple sewing, painting, singing, or playing with clay. She brought play and magic into everyday moments. When we were sick or injured, she would tuck her thumb under her pointer finger to make a little face that could “talk” to us and cheer us up. She sewed most of our clothes, decorated our plates and cups, made our curtains, and cooked nearly everything from scratch.
I especially remember baking pies with her. She’d give each of us a tiny tin to make our own little pie alongside hers. We were barely tall enough to see over the counter, but the experience felt magical.

​Stories That Shaped Me
It took me a long time to make the (obvious) connection between the fairy and folk tales my mother read to us and the art I make now. I still have some of those original books, a treasured legacy of being lulled to sleep by magical, haunting, and sometimes frightening stories.
She read us the original Grimm’s fairy tales—not the sanitized Disney versions. In those stories, evil is punished (often violently), and sometimes even the innocent suffer. In Snow White, the evil queen is forced to dance in red-hot shoes until she dies. In Struwwelpeter, a boy has his thumbs cut off for sucking them. Max and Moritz, after one too many mischievous pranks, are ground into flour and fed to ducks.
As a child, I instinctively understood the stories’ logic and deeper truths. Children often grasp the emotional reality of such tales better than adults do. These stories inspired me and my sisters to create and act out our own tales, draw cartoons, and imagine magical worlds all around us.
What Comes Next: Embroidered Images, Dolls, and More
Right now, I’m working on a few other projects in my studio, but soon I’d like to start a series of embroidered images, and maybe dolls, based on my German artist lineage. I’m interested in how my mother, her mother, and their foremothers lived creatively and resourcefully. They didn’t shop for toys or ready-made food; they made them. They knew how to entertain themselves. I want to capture that world in embroidered panels and perhaps dolls as well.
I’m also intrigued by the supernatural lineage of Frederika von Hauffe and hope to explore her world in my work. Stay tuned.
At the moment, I’m deep into a piece called The Loathly Lady—a fairy-tale-like character who’s been quite demanding. She keeps asking for more details, more stars, more layers of meaning. I’m currently working on stars that can snap onto her belly, arms, and legs. She’s the keeper of the stars and the night skies. I’ll share her full story when she’s ready.

​In the midst of daily life, I gradually noticed that without realizing it, I had created altars throughout my house. I have one special altar that I’ve set up for daily practice, where I do yoga, meditate and read tarot among other rituals. But over time, I have come to see that altars exist all around me, both in my house and in my studio. 
 
What do I mean by daily practice?
The altar where I do daily practice has evolved over time (and I think I have written about it here before.) It is a place to put talismans, keepsakes and objects that have special significance. A talisman is a ritual object believed to carry healing powers-meant to heal, protect and hold meaning for its keeper. It may include writing to amplify its energy, and the materials used are ideally aligned with the talisman’s intention. 
 
Some are objects on the altar were gifts to me and others are items that I have collected over the years-reminders of significant times and places.  
 
My main altar
More recently my approach to this main altar--tucked in a corner of my bedroom, has become more intentional. I’ve identified four animals, sea turtle, lion, hawk and rabbit, as my spirit animals. The sea turtle has been with me the longest, probably as long as I’ve been together with my husband, which is a long time-almost 40 years. In the past, I used to receive gifts of sea turtles in many forms-felted, wood, metal, glass, from family and friends, each who knew how meaningful they are for me. Lately not as much, though I still love them. While these gifts are rarer now, my love for sea turtles remains strong. 
 
My connection to sea turtles began with a powerful dream:
 
In the dream, I come upon a well that has become covered in muck and weeds. Next to it is a pile of handwritten papers, roughly organized and a bit scattered. I begin to look at the papers and as I go down the pile, the pages become typewritten on neater paper. Then as I go lower still, the pages become illustrated pages from an illuminated manuscript. As I read what is written there, I realize that these are instructions to care for the well. The caretaker has died or gone away and has left these words to instruct whoever is meant next to care for the well. It tells of turtles who swim below in the well. The water must be cleaned out so that the turtles can swim freely and safely. I begin to clean out the well. I must be the next caretaker. I know when I wake up that this is a significant dream. 
 
The lion came to me in an active imagination journey and has taken on different meanings over time.  In the 90’s I had a shamanic journey where I saw the four animals as my guides, each representing a season and a direction. Since then, they have appeared consistently, each time in the same arrangement. 
Until recently, I only had the turtle represented on my altar. I didn’t have any representations of lions, hawks or rabbits. Recently I have started to remedy that. I have a cloth lion now and a small pottery hawk, and am waiting for delivery of a cloth rabbit. I have some of my dolls on or near my altars, especially the ones I created last year using black walnuts as heads. However, most of my dolls are in my studio. 

​The Informal Altars throughout my Home…
The other altars developed organically. On the top of my writing desk in the living room I have a set of tiny finger puppets on a stand-one of the first playful purchase that my husband and I made together. We’ve both always been drawn to whimsical, playful objects. 
 
Next to these is a tiny village of houses, part of a snail-mail exchange with a group of art therapists. Each of us created enough houses to send one to each participant. 
 
Nearby are two photos of me with my two sisters. One from when we were in our teens, photographed by my father on one of our every-other-weekend visits to him in NYC, after my parents were divorced. We are standing in a courtyard of the Columbia Law School campus, across the street from the apartment where I grew up and where my father was still living. The other was from much more recently-about ten years ago, during a visit to my sister’s house in the suburbs of NYC. Together they form a little village on top of my desk--a tribute to family and home. 
 
I won’t go into as much detail about the other altars throughout my home and studio, including the kitchen, bedroom, living room and even the bathroom. Each hold special energy, aligned with the purpose of the place-creating a feeling of comfort and peace. 

A Class on Altars
Last fall I took an on-line class called Manifesting from Beyond, consisting of a series of lectures by various creatives, artists, healers about channeling spirt and creativity. One session--led by Heather Greene--focused on altars. I loved learning how to approach my altars with more intention. 
 
We learned how to consecrate (and deconsecrate) altars, how to work with the directions and elements and how altars can be adapted to the unique demands of our lives. For instance, all you need for a traveling altar can be packed into a cigar box.  
 
Since then, I’ve learned to integrate some of these techniques. I have consecrated some elements of my altar with selenite crystal, and though I haven’t yet purified items for the altar in the full moon (too many cloudy nights!), it’s something I’d like to try. I’ve also learned to adapt to the realities of my space: I can’t use smudge sticks because my husband is allergic, so I have to find alternatives. 
 
There is so much more to learn, especially about crystals and stones and how to integrate their energies into my altar. One resource I’ve found helpful is Altars Made Easy: A Complete Guide to Creating Your Own Sacred Space, by Peg Streep. My hope is to continue to evolve my altars into truly living spaces.  
 
Altars in nature
Not all altars are created consciously. Simply by stepping into nature you can find them--if you know where to look. A cluster of mushrooms, a circle of stones in the woods or a patch of wildflowers can all feel like altars. On a beach you may find beautiful pebbles, sea glass or wood that has been worn by the elements. I am curious to know what altars you discover or create. Perhaps one day I may offer a workshop on this topic, especially to inspire you to create an environment for the dolls you make. Stay tuned. 

​We have to go through “Ugly” on the Way to our Creative Vision
In some of the doll making groups I have led, there is often a point at which participants talk of their dolls being “ugly.” This is especially true when they are making needle felted faces. When you put together a needle felted face, there is a stage where you have to turn the face inside out, add the nose and upper lip, attach it to the forehead and stretch it out to create a realistic face. It looks monstrous and ugly. It is an awkward process and it takes time to manipulate the face into something even distantly resembling life-like. It is so easy to get frustrated at this stage. 
But the reality is that our hands, if they are unfamiliar with this process, need to learn the movements and gestures to make in order to effect this transformation of the face. And our minds need to learn to be able to tolerate this messy stage, which is such an import part of the creative process. 
 
In any case, no matter the medium, making faces is arguably the most difficult part of creating a doll, and this may have more to do with psychology than anything else. The face is the first thing we respond to when we see a doll. It looks back at us and when we are the maker, we know unconsciously that this face is reflecting something of ourselves back to us. There is something nakedly truthful in this process. And we often don’t want to be faced with this truth. 

​Why do We have this Gap between our Vision and our Results? (at least at first)
We are, as humans, pre-programmed to, in the creative process, see in our heads how we want something to turn out, and it can be so frustrating as part of the learning curve, to not be able to realize that vision. Ira Glass, of This American Life, puts it this way:
 
“Nobody tells this to people who are beginners. I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be. It has potential. But your taste -- your taste is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. 
 
“A lot of people never get past this phase. They quit. Most people I know who do interesting creative work went through years of this…It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap and your work will be as good as your ambitions. It’s gonna take a while. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.”
 
This isn’t exactly my main point in this article, but it is relevant. In life and in the creative process, we need to accept the whole complex mess of who we are, of what our creative message is. As a member of the human race, we also need to accept all stages of development, including the awkward stage of adolescence, the “ugly duckling” stage, all the way up to old age. And in old age, that means accepting age spots, wrinkles, weird humps, and all the ways that bodies change as we age. As I approach 65 this year, this last has become truer and truer for me. 

​The Loathly Lady
I have been fascinated lately with the story of the Loathly Lady that comes from the Celtic tradition. I was introduced to this powerful ancient woman from the writings and teachings of Sharon Blackie, “whose work sits at the interface of psychology, mythology and ecology.” In her book, Wise Women: Myths, Stories for Midlife and Beyond,” Blackie introduces us to the neglected stories of elderly “hags,” “crones,” and “wise women,” in their role as teachers, guides and shape-shifters. She was drawn to pull together this collection of tales, as a response to the ways in which elderly women are only depicted in folk and fairy tales as either dangerous, threatening figures or shadowy, weak figures in the background of the story. 

I have written elsewhere about a doll I am currently working on, who is a “loathly lady.” At least for now. I usually don’t know what my dolls are going to be about, what their stories are going to be until I finish them. Sometimes it is months or even years afterwards that I discover their true meaning. Or sometimes the meanings shift. But at least for now, and I have a feeling the meaning is going to stick, this doll is a loathly lady. Blackie has a story about the Loathly Lady in the ”Wise Women” story collection, called “Kissing the Hag.” In this story, all the brothers of a particular royal family go on a journey into the woods and encounter an old hag who is guarding a well. Not only is she ugly but she is truly loathsome to look at. 
 
“Instead of a head of hair, she had a gray, bristly mane like the coarse hair along an old boar’s back. Her teeth were green, crammed unevenly into a mouth that stretched from ear to ear. Her nose was crooked, and her nostrils gaped. Her skin was spotted with pustules, and her legs were twisted and set at unlikely angles. Her knees were knobby, her ankles were thick, her shoulders were huge, her nails were filthy, and the stench of her breath was enough to fell a horse.”
 
Each of the brothers are disgusted by the hag and refuse to kiss her and thus are not allowed to drink from the well that would have quenched their thirst. Until finally the last and youngest brother, Niall, who has a completely different reaction to the hag. 
 
“Niall threw back his head and laughed, then roundly declared, ‘I’ll do more than give you a kiss—I’ll lie with you, if you like!’ and he drew a deep breath, pulled her into his arms and kissed her heartily.” 

​The Reward in “Kissing the Hag”
His reward then is that the hag is immediately transformed into “the most beautiful woman in the world.” And he is allowed not only to drink water from the well but to take some back to his family and more importantly, he and his family are given sovereignty over Ireland. She is the Sovereign of Ireland, freed by his kiss. 
 
In other stories of loathly women, the hag isn’t transformed into a beautiful woman and the Loathly Lady in other stories, sometimes chooses not to transform herself (as in the story of the Loathly Lady and Sir Gawain seen below.) But that wasn’t the point here. Niall was clearly ready to accept her as she was, not expecting in any way for her to transform herself. One way of looking at this story, it seems to me, is that in kissing her, he shines a window on her inner self, revealing the beauty within. 

​The Long Tradition of “Ugliness” Being Transformed
If you look back at fairy tales, there is a long tradition in which ugliness is transformed into something else. Ugliness often signifies evil but it also can signify something hidden beneath the surface. A truth that only the wise or brave, or especially the one who isn’t seduced by the norms of their society is able to see. Or sometimes the one who encounters “ugliness” is unwittingly invited to go beyond the surface and see what lies beneath. I think of stories such as The Frog Prince, where the beautiful maiden is forced to kiss the frog, in return for his kindness to her in retrieving her golden ball that had fallen into the well. In older versions of the story, she is throws the frog against the wall and he is transformed this way into a prince. 
Then there is the story of Medusa, whose ferocious ugliness not only puts people off but kills them. I have written elsewhere about the way the Medusa story was manipulated, even at its inception, to implicate Medusa herself as evil, when in fact she is the true victim of the story. But even without that back story, Medusa remains a powerful figure, forceful and strong, a symbol, embraced more and more as a representation of fierce femininity. 

And there is the story of the “Ugly Duckling” who is mistakenly raised in a duck family when in fact he is a swan. This story reflects to me the way in which ugliness is so much related to context. And it also speaks to the awkwardness of adolescence, that almost all of us had to endure. I know I definitely did. To me, this story also reflects the adolescent stage of the creative process that I was alluding to at the beginning of this essay. In the creative process, as in life, we have to go through that initial stage when we don’t fit in, when we, especially when we are meant to grow into something large and expansive and true, take a long time to find our way. ​

​Sometimes it is all about Context
We can see the importance of context in fashions/trends and new ideas in any field. How often is it that a new idea is rejected at first as awkward and ridiculous, because it is too big for the sensibility of the time within which it is born? I especially love Oliver Sacks and his writings about science (and I really miss him-he died in 2015.) His work with “locked in syndrome” inspired the Robin Williams movie, “Awakenings.” Sacks wasn’t afraid to experiment and explore ideas in a creative way that didn’t fit within the dry, clinical approach of the scientific community of the time. 

​The movie, based on a book he wrote of that name, describes his treatment of patients who were suffering from “encephalitis lethargica” and were in a sort of “locked in” state. Professionally isolated at the time, Sacks experimented with a drug L-Dopa, treating these patients who were mostly written off by the medical community. His results were dramatic and surprising, causing the patients to suddenly “wake up” from their frozen state. The results were not long-lived-most of the patients ended up having side-effects to the drug and were not ultimately cured. And yet, Sacks’ approach heralded a change in the way science and medicine was written about and conveyed to the public, in a way that honored marginalized patients and neglected communities. I have always loved his writings, and have very much appreciated the way he is able to take dry, remote medical stories and phenomena and make them vivid and real through his expressive and empathic approach. And he, who was at one time a sort of ugly duckling in the scientific community is now mostly lauded for the changes he brought about in ways of seeing and understanding the patients he treated. And there is something magical and fairy-tale like in the story of the waking up of these neglected patients, like something out of the story of Sleeping Beauty. 
 
Accepting Ugliness as Part of the Whole Picture
As I was thinking and mulling over what I was going to write in this rambling essay, the phrase “ugly crying” came up. What do we do when we “ugly cry?” We cry with abandon, not caring or perhaps caring but not being able to stop crying because the emotions are so strong. We relinquish the smooth-faced perfection-epitomized in the need for facial surgery or the use of Botox-and instead allow our faces to squeeze out like a sponge, surrendering to the wash of strong emotions. We surrender to a force stronger than our small selves. 
 
This kind of crying transforms our face, making it “ugly” but more importantly allowing the release of deep feelings that overwhelm us. Once we allow ourselves to cry like this, we are left afterwards with a sense of release and freedom. Both in that we have allowed the strong waves of emotion to wash through us and also because in the end, we realize that it doesn’t really matter what we look like when we cry. We give ourselves permission to be “ugly” and in the process, allow ourselves to be whole. 

Hello and thank you to my readers...
​I have to be honest. It has been tough in the last few months to get to words. My communications have been mostly visual, through making dolls in my studio and working into my intuitive journals. Both of these practices always help me to process difficult feelings and emotions. But lately, words have been coming to the surface and in this blog post, I share some recent thoughts. And I am grateful that you are reading what I write here. Because of course, art-making is a conversation. It doesn't really feel like I am fully expressing myself if there is no conversation with my viewers, my audience I guess you can call it. I will try to write again soon,  but I am not promising anything. But I do promise that I will try. 

Using the "Domestic Arts" as a Tool of Subversion
I remember watching a 2014 Spanish movie, "The Time In Between," that tells of a dressmaker who by stitching morse code into dresses, and selling them as high couture to Nazi wives, manages to covertly communicate messages to the British. She has to work closely with and spend time with people who she despises and whose values she abhors. Yet in her way,  she is able to help save some lives and this makes a difference. Later I discovered that in other parts of Europe, women used knitting as a means of covert communication, using the knit and purl language of knitting to spell out morse code and send messages beyond enemy lines. Apparently they would sit on railway platforms knitting. They would knit morse code symbols into their knitting, thereby communicating with passing soldiers or others who were helped by their messages. These stories may be apocryphal but there is a power in them. Who would ever suspect women who are engaging in the "lowly" domestic arts to be working as spies? 

A pattern of those who are oppressed being able to use their invisibility as a means of subversive communication
How often do/did those who are oppressed find ways to communicate and make statements that would be understood by others within their group, in a way that was invisible to their oppressors? And why didn't these oppressors see what was happening in plain (yet hidden) sight? Is it that they don’t value those who they perceive as “under” them, don’t see them as intelligent. Or is it that they don’t understand the context, history, meaning of the messages being communicated? Probably it is some of each. This kind of subversive communication can happen on a variety of levels, from the less risky to a life-threatening level of risk. I am in awe of those who were courageous enough to take part in these forms of resistance. 

Subversive stitching in ancient Greek history...(graphic content warning for this paragraph)
In Ovid's Metamorphosis, the story of Philomena is told. She is abducted and raped by her sister's husband. After this abuse he tears out her tongue so that she cannot communicate what has been done to her. But she finds a way.  She stitches her story into a tapestry and tell the story of her violation, even though she isn't able to speak. What courage and resourcefulness this must have taken. Below is an image of her story. In my Mother, Maiden, Crone, Death class, we spoke of Philomena's story an example of one of the many ways in which women were forced to submit, were repressed and worse. The aim in retelling these stories was to bring them to light and to transform them into stories of courage and strength. 

Fictional Examples of using Cronehood as a form of Subversion
Moving from the graphic to the pastoral, I love heroines such as Jane Marple in Agatha Christie's mystery series, who lives in the tiny English village of St. Mary Mead, where on the surface, nothing much happens and all is calm. To all appearances Ms. Marple is an innocuous kindly old woman, harmless and invisible. And yet, she is able to harness that invisibility to dig under the picture-perfect surface of her small town, to reveal the evil underneath. Kindly and hidden in the background, she manages to outwit the perpetrators of crimes. They would never imagine that this smiling woman, knitting or gossiping with other villagers, would be clever enough to discover their crimes.  

These examples are heartening to me in these times of confusion and chaos (especially, living as I do in the heart of Washington DC.) It is so easy to feel powerless (and I am outing my political leanings here, can't help it) in the current climate of bumbling, "bull in a china shop" patriarchy that we find ourselves in. It gives me some clues as to what we as women, as crones, as makers who use fabric, stitching, knitting needles, can do. We can speak out in our art, in a dramatic way, following the lead of artists such as Jenny Holzer or Judy Chicago. Or, just by quietly expressing what is deep in our hearts, we can serve as a conduit for what others might struggle to express. Our work can be a quiet witness or a forceful beacon of hope. 

Subversive messaging in Doll making
The image at the top of this post is a detail from a flip doll, The Living Earth: Healing Dark/Nuclear Light,  that I made a while back.  In this doll, I tried to work through my feelings of despair about the state of the earth.  In the detail above, if you look closely, you can see the lone polar bear on her shrinking ice floe. You can see burning and decimated forests and overheated oceans. However, it can also be read as aesthetically pleasing patterns and colors. It takes looking closely to see the message being conveyed. To see more about this doll, click on the image above. This side of the doll, the light side, or "Nuclear Light" depicts the damage that overheating and too much light can do to our earth. On the flip side of the doll, one can see the benevolent effects of "Healing Darkness." 

Messages in some of my most recent dolls:
All my dolls tell stories. It's just that sometimes I don't know the stories yet. In the above images, you can see a smaller doll, "Coco," made of cloth over a stick armature. Her story is below. 

"Coco" wears simple clothes and a necklace of skulls. 
She can appear scary if you don’t know her, but
If you know her, you understand that she is 
Fierce and loyal. A protective spirit, she will guard 
the edges of your life, the places where your fears 
call to you and she will bring you the courage
that comes from ancient wisdom. 

When I first made the doll, (see image on the left) I considered leaving her without a head. But after consideration, the doll let me know that she wanted a head. She also holds a small basket which could contain additional messages and secret surprises. 

"Wild Spirit/Fox Woman"
The message of this recent doll taps into a fierce and wild life-force as well as the ability of women to shape-shift throughout their lives.  
Here is her story:

The "Wild Spirit Fox/Woman" will not
Ever let go of her fierce love and
Her passionate belief in being alive. 
She harnesses the wildness of the 
Fox in the service of helping you to live
A life full of passion, creativity and  
Magic!

​My dolls speak to me in a subtle, you could say subversive way. I usually don't know what they will be about once I start to make them. I enjoy allowing them to speak to me, and hopefully to the viewer, using their own language and metaphor. Sometimes it can take me a long time, a year or even longer to truly hear their messages. I am grateful that they have allowed me to share some of their stories here with you. And I am so greatful to be able to have this way to express what is inside. It is a true balm for me and my wish is that in reading about them and hearing their stories, you can receive this balm as well. At least that is my hope. Thanks for reading. 

With the help of this doll, Vasilisa is able to take on challenges set by Baba Yaga, such as separating grains of rotten corn from sound corn, and separating poppy seeds from grains of soil. The doll also guides Vasilisa as to when to ask questions of Baba Yaga and when to remain silent. Thus, not only is Vasilisa allowed to live, unlike most visitors to Baba Yaga's hut, but she is also rewarded for her bravery and restraint. Because Vasilisa overcomes the challenges,  Baba Yaga gives her a flaming skull, a symbol of truth and fierce righteous anger. This skull ultimately kills her wicked step mother and step sisters. In this way, the maiden, having first received the wisdom and guidance from the mother in the form of the intuitive doll, now receives the protection and assistance from the crone, in the form of the flaming skull.
​
There are so many layers of symbolism to this story, including the scene depicted in this painting. In class we talked about how the transitions from maiden to mother, from mother to crone and crone to death can all be seen as a kind of birth into a new self. We are born anew as different women many times in our lives. This cycle of renewal mirrors the cycle of life death and rebirth that our ancestors would have known and trusted in. For our ancestors, who lived closer to the earth, there would have been a visceral connection to the changing seasons, each bringing its challenges and rewards. The transitions in life, becoming a woman, marriage, even dying, would have been recognized with ritual close to the home and amongst family. In revisiting these stories, we can reconnect to the deep meaning of life's transitions, large and small. 

In class, we also talked about how the maiden, mother crone and death are truly not separate from each other. Like nesting dolls, they each live within the other. As mothers, we know the face of the newborn baby girl, who seems to hold the wisdom of the wise crone. The mother within the maiden guides and protects her. The mother within the crone allows us to birth into new experiences and identities. ​And for those of us in the crone years, we hold both the maiden and mother within us. The maiden gives us the energy and fire to continue to take on new experiences and live fully. The mother within our crone self is a loving presence holding us, blessing us and enveloping us in her love. May we be blessed with these stories and connections as we reflect on these powerful ancient stories and on the stories of our own lives as well. 

What does it mean to be a "maiden" nowadays?
The focus of my work is with women in the crone years or apprentice crones at least. So how to talk about the Maiden part of the Maiden Mother Crone archetypes of a woman's life? I have been giving this a lot of thought lately, as we are focusing on the Maiden this month in an on-line course I am facilitating. To that end, I have come across some interesting writings on the subject.

A maiden is pure in that she is true to herself and her vision
One is the writing of Christine Valters Paintner, of the wonderful Abbey of the Arts. In discussing the maiden she mentions another antiquated-seeming concept, that of the virgin. Not in the old sense of the word, as someone who has never had sex, but instead as a woman who answers only to herself in her life. Someone who has a purity and single-mindedness of focus that has nothing to do with who she sleeps with but instead to do with how she leads her life. In the course I am teaching, we are re-visiting the stories of some maiden goddess archetypes. We are reclaiming their true stories from how they had been diluted and manipulated by history. And in this way, we are rediscovering our own true maiden fiery true selves. ​It is the passion within the maiden that motivates her and it is this passion of the maiden within the crone, that motivates us still, though we may be in our later years. 

Joan of Arc, a maiden warrior and mystic
In the Maiden Mother Crone Death class, we are talking about Joan of Arc as an example of a maiden archetype. Her story is a tragic one and yet she stands out as an example of one who fought passionately for her ideas. In our times we have our Greta Thunbergs and Mala Yousafsais. fighting for the environment and for girls rights to study at school respectively. In the image above, Joan of Arc showed up in an intuitive painting in a 1950's Science book I have been working into progressively. Here she is in her warrior form, though in a way in this image it looks more like the two figures are dancing rather than fighting. 

How can we as older women or crones, tap into our own fiery inner maidens?
I believe that we, like nesting dolls, contain all our younger selves within us. If however, some of those younger selves have felt shut down, belittled or ignored, it can be difficult to access them in our later years. Carl Jung said that the work of our later years is to begin to integrate all of our selves, with a goal of finding wholeness. So, even if we have spent our lives in forward motion, not looking back at who we were before, it can still be important to revisit and if necessary befriend and tend those younger selves. Personally, always having been an inward looking person, I have always looked back, but perhaps to the detriment of times in my life when it would have served me better to look ahead. But, yes, it feels important to me to revisit these earlier selves, not to wallow in past sadness and losses but instead to reclaim the best of who we were then and to allow these younger selves to animate our beings as older women. To inspire us to be fully alive. Ursula Le Guin is a great example of how to do this....

Inspired by the great Ursula Le Guin, who never lost the spirit and energy of her younger self
I've been thinking a lot lately about the wonderful and celebrated author, Ursula Le Guin. She was described as a writer of "speculative fiction, including science fiction." I’ve been reading her wonderful book, Space Crone, and marveling at the way her young energetic self shines through, no matter what her chronological age is, and even now, though she is no longer with us.  In these photos above, showing a young and old Ursula Le Guin,  you can vividly see the way in which her young self lived through her older self.

​The young and the old Ursula Le Guin in conversation with each other
In these two photos, the older Ursula seems slyly to be looking at us, challenging us to meet her gaze. The older self looks more confident and forceful. the younger self more shy. It is almost as if the younger self looks to the older self for reassurance. And it is this way with all women who have aged well, never allowing their younger selves to leave them, but instead being able to tap into all the ages they have been, making them the complex beings they are now in all their wisdom. I hope that I can be even a bit as strong, creative and full of life in my later years as Ursula Le Guin was in hers.

Being willing to revise old ideas and even throw them out, in light of wisdom gained in later years
One of the things I love about reading these essays in Space Crone is that Le Guin is very willing to revisit all of her earlier thoughts and beliefs. She includes talks and essays from all the phases of her life in this book and in some of them, she greatly revises earlier versions of her essays. She doesn't rest on the laurels of earlier successes but is always willing to revisit them in the light of what she has learned in later years. And in this way she, as an older woman, has the best of both worlds, the freshness of vision of her younger self along with the wisdom of her older self. In looking back at her earlier essays she grows in her understanding of what it means to be a feminist. For instance, one of her essays, written in 1988 "Is Gender Necessary (Redux)," she almost completely revises an earlier essay of the same title from 1976, in light of what she had since learned about the reality of being a woman in a man's world.

The mark of a true crone enlivened by her inner maiden
To me, this is a mark of a true crone enlivened by her inner maiden, someone who is willing to revisit all of her earlier ideas, to bring a freshness and new eye to them, even if this means questioning herself and making herself vulnerable. We can bring this same freshness to our lives and to our relationships, though it is not always easy. As older parents, we have to be able and willing to listen to our young daughters and allow their new visions refresh and enliven our older ones. I am grateful for this reason to have a young adult daughter who challenges me at times and helps me to see where I have become old and stale. Not always easy but helpful if I want to stay as fully alive and awake as I can be.

Finding Mrs. Who, Mrs, Whatsit and Mrs, Which
One of my favorite books to read as a child, when I was home; sick with ear infections, colds or fevers, was A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L’Engle. My attention was caught from the first lines of the book, “It was a dark and stormy night. In her attic bedroom Margaret Murry wrapped in an old patchwork quilt, sat on the foot of her bed and watched the trees tossing in the frenzied lashing of the wind….” Onward through the magical story of wise and mysterious crones, a mother with her own lab right in the middle of their house, and a quest to find her father, I was hooked.  I identified most of all with Margaret, the way she didn’t fit in at school because I always felt that way myself. I loved the three crone-beings in this story-Mrs. Who, Mrs. Whatsit and Mrs. Which.
 
Yearning for a Fierce Connection to Meaning
Later as an adult, I learned about the author, how this book was practically channeled in the way it came to her, and how L’Engle was a very religious woman and how her spirituality influenced her writings. But, as a young girl, none of that mattered to me. What mattered most was following the story of this young girl (and the Oprah movie didn’t come close to capturing the magic and truth of this story, not at all, sorry to say) on her quest to save her father and the world, from darkness and evil. 
 
What is this yearning that we feel as young girls, and then hopefully still as women, for a connection to meaning, true and deep, a fierce connection so deep that we aren’t afraid of danger? And not only that, but to feel that we are have agency and can have a positive influence on the world around us. And especially if we are feeling, as I did back then, that we don’t fit in, that our existence doesn’t make sense in the day-to-day world around us? 

Wisdom of the Crones
​It makes sense to me now that I would have been drawn to these stories back then. How reassuring to experience vicariously the story of a young girl who courageously battles darkness and evil. And to find the help of powerful crones, elder women who seem connected to the wisdom of the universe? As a young girl, I was always more drawn to elders than to my peers, so Margaret’s trust in these elders made sense to me. Just as in a dream, where all the characters in the story are a part of us, so in stories, we are able to identify with all the characters, the wise, the courageous, the fearful, the evil. As a child, I identified with the main character, Meg, but now I know that I would also have been identifying with these wise elder women.

​Wisdom of all the Ages
A Wrinkle in Time was ahead of its time in this way, providing so many strong wise female characters, not only young but also old. As young women, we want to be able to imagine into a future where we could be wise old women someday. Not helpless, sad and voiceless creatures as too often still older women are depicted in too much of the media and news today. 
We know on a visceral level that we as women are all the ages within us, the young, curious and full of life girl or maiden, the adventurer, lover, sovereign even, or mother, queen. And the wise, complex, creative and resourceful older woman, or crone, full of stories. Looking back now, I can see that this book, among many others, was the inspiration for the work I do today. 
 
One more Thing... that Tesseract!
And if you have read this book as I did as a child, didn't you love the idea of the "tesseract?"  Apparently there is a real meaning to this term as a mathematical model, but L'Engle creates something new and magical in her book. The tesseract* is, the ability to fold time and jump quickly from one place to the next. I remember in the story how it was explained, as if you could fold a string, letting the loop fall down so that an ant, crawling across the string, could step across the top of the two folded loops. Time can fold back upon itself. What a joy to imagine this as a child.
And yet, could you suspend judgment and imagine a way that this could also be true in our world?
Don't we all, within our bodies, hold the bodies of all those who we have been before? If we are older women, or crones, don't we hold all our younger selves within us? In this way, maybe we can suspend time, imagining ourselves all ages at once.
​ 
*in the book, the explanation goes like this: The fourth dimension is time. And if you square that, you get a tesseract. "You add that to the other dimensions and you can travel through space without having to go the long way around. In other words...a straight line is not the shortest distance between two points." page 78, A Wrinkle in Time