Saturday, July 23, 2011

Fiddling with Dolls While Norway Burns

Lolana of Nanakuli
 A great disaster happened in Norway yesterday - a young man killed many innocent people, most of them teenagers who had been attending an island retreat just a few minutes by car from where one of my friends lives. The killing is believed to have been politically motivated.

When I first heard the news (on Facebook) I felt horror, shock, dismay, helpless. Then I remembered that we are NEVER helpless in the face of a disaster. We can always send healing energy to help those in need, and strengthen the helpers on the ground.

Serena
Serge Kahili King has written about this on http://huna.org/html/911.html.

"Each time you become aware again of what happened and/or what's being done about it, here are some specific suggestions of what to do:
1. Pray to a higher power to help the helpers (which includes healers and peacemakers).
2. Imagine the helpers being surrounded by healing light and/or being assisted by angels or other spirit helpers.
3. If you know how, do an inner symbolic journey to help the helpers.
4. To the best of your ability, take the time to bring your own spirit to a state of peace by meditating on the beauty and goodness in the world, and practice positive expectation no matter what happens that the work of the helpers will be successful, in this world or another. This may be the most difficult thing of all to do ... and the most beneficial." (bolding mine)

Does suspending our own joy in life help others in any way? No, I don't believe so. Does our joy and happiness increase the "happiness quotient" of the world? I think it does. If we can truly achieve #4 above, then we are free to go about our daily business with joy. My spirit comes to peace most readily when I play with dolls or garden, so that's what I've been doing.

Bless Our Happy Big Island Home

Linda's Make-Over

Yesterday I went on a "play date" over to another doll-maker's house. I haven't really hooked up with other doll-makers that much in person, but I'd like to. We didn't play dolls as it turned out. I helped her understand her new Mac computer a little better and we got to know each other better, too.

I've been so busy that it was stressful to even figure out what to take to play with. Doll-related? Too complicated. Beading? Always an option, but I didn't think Helen was too interested in beading. I finally picked up Linda, my tried and true friend since I was 5 years old, a cleaning toothbrush, a big book of doll clothes patterns, and my paint pens and sketchbook, just in case.

And then I hauled it all back home and put it away. Except Linda, who got a thorough bath and a bob.

Linda ready for her bath
I got Linda when I was 5 years old. We were visiting relatives in Texas, a world away from the little town in eastern Washington where I grew up. What a beautiful doll she was! Long BLONDE hair, which I cut off almost immediately. Oh my goodness, was my mom ever mad! She told me that now Linda would be bald for the rest of her life, and it was my fault. I'm amazed I wasn't scarred for life, but in fact, I wasn't even that upset. It was worth it, I loved cutting hair.

She was bald for 5 years.The Christmas I was 10, my mom and grandma gave her an entire make-over, including a waist-length brown wig and a new wardrobe. They did this without my knowing a thing in advance, which is pretty incredible. Unfortunately, Linda went through the same fire we did, about 5 years ago.

Waist-length dreadlocks and dirty dirty shoes
Linda's truly bad hair day
She got smoked and superheated and her eyes clouded over. I did give her a washing, but she certainly needed another. Her hair was really nasty, all gummed together.

53 years old, cataracts forming
 Her eyes still open and close, but she's lost eyelashes on her left eye, probably because of stress                 
I took her entirely apart. Her head is stuffed with cotton batting. I did not take it out, I was afraid of disturbing her eye mechanism. I found a salad dressing cap that exactly fit the opening, and then put her head on the bottle out of the way while I washed her limbs. I read on a doll hospital website that Formula 409 works well to clean up old vinyl dolls. It sure does! It strips the gunge right off and doesn't take the paint off.

First they took my legs off and they threw them over there...
Then they pulled my head off and stuck it on a salad dressing bottle
There was no combing out those long dreads, no matter how carefully I went at it with the cat flea comb. She simply had to have a hair cut. Even short, it took almost 2 hours to comb out and trim her hair. And then there was the matter of that bald spot...

Linda's new bob

So happy to be clean
These are her original shoes


Even her eyes came clearer after being swabbed gently with 409.

No longer just a dirty doll
Do all my posts have an underlying Huna moral? Well, maybe so, because Huna is the spiritual philosophy that underlies my daily life. I try to live an intentional life. What does that mean? It means doing things with an intention in mind, holding that intention firmly during whatever it is I'm doing, and believing the energy of that intention will manifest in my life.

As I carefully cleaned her, I held the healing intention of graceful rebirth and positive change for myself and all who need this energy. Linda is a happy dolly today!