I’ve encountered The Cailleach in trance a time or two, and each time Her presence touched me deeply. I don’t have the same devotional relationship with Her that I have with The Mórrígan, but She’s still very important to me.

So maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised when, on my daily walk, I found half a walnut shell cleaned out by an obliging squirrel, picked it up, and heard her name in my ears almost as clearly as if someone close by was speaking it aloud. I pocketed the walnut and kept walking, now thinking of Her and why I heard Her name so clearly. 

By the time I left the woods, I knew She wanted a spirit doll, with that walnut for a face, and I had some pretty clear ideas of the design. I hadn’t made a spirit doll in years, but the sense of being guided through the process hasn’t changed.

This is how it often begins: I find something on a walk who whispers ideas in my ear, pulls on my hand, tugs on my consciousness, insists on becoming a home for someone. It’s like there are Gods and spirits waiting in the land for someone to come along who they can make things with. I don’t always get such a clear understanding of Who wants to inhabit the doll; sometimes I just know what I need to do. But in this case I had no questions.

Back in my yard, I gathered up some pieces of roots from a shrub I removed last spring, now dry and ready for creative projects. I brought them inside, washed them carefully with an old toothbrush, and set them in a warm corner of my studio to dry. 

Once I had the framework for Her shape, my eyes fell on the burnt and torn tshirt I found in the woods earlier this year, and a scrap of black woven fabric from another project. 

And when I sat down with the scraps of cloth, spirals were the logical first choice for stitching. She is, after all, a Goddess of cycles and storms. She is even thought to be associated with a whirlpool in Scotland – another kind of spiral. And once I decided to line her cloak with black fabric, I knew it needed stitching inspired by the carvings found in megalithic tombs beneath the Sliabh na Cailleach in Ireland.

I talk about all of these steps as if I was in control, deliberately making choices, having a plan.  But the truth is, I often feel like I’m not fully in charge of the process. It’s more like I follow a series of tugs and nudges, until a piece comes together in a way that feels right. But I suppose this is what sets a spirit doll apart from a sculpture or art doll: a spirit doll isn’t just a piece of art, it’s a vessel for a spirit to enter, a body for a spirit to wear. Some spirits get excited by human ideas, and will enthusiastically hang out in a vessel I designed intentionally; but some have very particular ideas of their own, and if I try to deviate from those ideas, it doesn’t go well. This project definitely fell under the latter category.

Creating a spirit doll is a trance-like act, an act of listening and responding, of letting my hands be just a little bit inhabited by the will of someone else. And each time, it feels like a privilege to work in this way. Often what comes out of my studio is as much a surprise to me as it is to everyone else. And I love that.

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You can also commission a spirit doll of your own while my commissions are open.