Playing with dolls helps to find a connection with yourself and the universe

Multi-colored shreds, ribbons, ribbons, threads. In the hands of the group members, they gradually turn into dolls. And although everyone, following the instructions of the master, performs the same actions, there are no two similar dolls. Because their creators are different, and the doll is always a reflection of the individuality of its author.

For the manufacture of a traditional doll, only natural and often worn fabric is used, which is easy to tear into shreds. The fabric intended for the body of the doll is not cut with scissors, sewn, or pricked with a needle, because it is a symbol of the living body. Dolls are often wound and twisted. And the size of the patch, and how tightly it is folded, is ultimately determined by the author of the doll.

Participants also choose the color of clothes for the doll according to their taste. So that you like it. This allows you to express your state, react to actual experiences and make visible the features of character traits through the doll.

The laws of the universe

It is believed that the traditional doll contains the universal laws of the universe, expressed in symbolic form. And we get to know them through the process. Not intellectually, but directly, in manual work, passing this knowledge through oneself.

The body of the doll contains archetypal symbols: a column (strength), a sacrum (integrity), a knot (protection) and a bag (prosperity). For example, by rolling a piece of paper into a tight column, the basis for the body of a doll, we master the symbol of perseverance, strength of the inner spirit, support and confidence. Or, creating a body in the form of a cross, we come into contact with the symbol of caring for our helpless part – the horizontal is supported by the vertical – and with the symbol of the four cardinal points.

In some dolls, at the intersection of the vertical with the horizontal, an oblique cross is also used, the female symbol of fertility. The combination of two crosses forms the annual solar circle: the spring and autumn equinoxes, the winter and summer solstice and the transitional time of the sun.

So we invite well-being and order to ourselves, when everything is in its place. This symbol also contains the number “seven”, like an ancient spell about the incarnation of “I” seven times.

So the doll is a transitional bridge between the material and spiritual world, combining transitions and a harmonious merging of opposites. Death gives birth to a new life, which contains the dynamic balance of the meeting of two principles – male and female, and is built into the general system of the trinity of the world: upper (spiritual), middle (social), lower (traditional, the world of ancestors).

By shaking the doll, we build symbolic connections within ourselves through movement, connecting top and bottom, right and left, we better understand our own emotional world and begin to control it. For example, denoting three parts in the body of the doll: the upper one is the spiritual and thoughts, the middle one is the soul and relationships, the lower one is the roots and traditions as the foundation on which we stand, we harmonize these worlds within ourselves.

For different occasions

The world of dolls is diverse. There are dolls for playing, for performing a ceremony and for a talisman, support or healing. Each amulet doll is for a special occasion: to support, protect, heal, praise, attract good or good news. I will give a few examples.

We all know the Stolbushka doll from the fairy tale about Vasilisa – a parental blessing doll and a symbol of support and perseverance. In her body, the key element is a column, and an additional one is soft “live” hands, as a symbol of support and help.

When Baba Yaga gave Vasilisa a test, she fed the doll with bread crumbs, saying “doll, eat, listen to my grief,” and she helped. Therefore, the Stolbushka doll becomes a symbol of support for inner stamina in difficult moments of life.

Another example of a puppet based on a column. This is Pelenashka – the very first doll in a child’s life, she was twisted at the birth of a baby. Her body is a palm-sized column. She is a symbol of the vitality of the spirit that has been with us since birth. This doll helps the baby feel alive.

If you hold it in your fist, after a while you can feel how a heart beats in your palm. This, of course, is the pulse in the fingers. But thanks to this action, we are no longer alone and feel alive.

Another early childhood doll is the nodular Comforter doll. Bright, with a soft body and a handkerchief on the head with long corners to “wipe away tears.” Usually it was kept at the heart of the one who took care of the child, and absorbed the native smell.

If the child cries, the adult takes out the doll, runs it along the tear-paths and says: “Don’t cry.” That is, it passes through the facial muscles, which tense up during crying, and this movement starts the work of the parasympathetic system, the tension decreases.

When calm comes, the doll returns back to the heart. So the doll helped in the formation of containerization skills. The comforter also helps adults, and also contributes to the development of skills for containing various emotional experiences. After all, everyone needs comfort.

There are no incapable

Everyone knows how to make dolls. This is the skill of our body. And I met a lot of people’s surprise when they hold their first coiled doll in their hands, saying that “this is incredible: my doll, and she is so beautiful.” And among doing, two methods can be distinguished – author’s and traditional.

If you make a doll according to your own intuition, you will get an author’s one. It also reflects our experiences, mood, view of the world and contains a “personal” formula for understanding the world. If you make a doll following the canons that have come to us from time immemorial, then this is a traditional doll.

In addition to personal history, she invites us to explore and dialogue with the universals of the universe. It is better to make your first traditional dolls with the master in order to master the main points of folding dolls and tying parts, to get acquainted with the rules of making, passed down through generations. Then you can continue on your own.

In therapy sessions, we make a doll together: the very process of its creation is important, which reflects the client’s relationship with the world and with himself, and the doll as an art object. In addition, the client conducts a dialogue with the doll, formulating wishes, questions and answers.

No face

In tradition, it is believed that if a doll has a face, then it has a personal soul and you can enter into a dialogue with it, as with the Other. The faceless doll becomes a reflection of the soul of its owner. Therefore, amulet dolls are often either faceless, or with protective signs on their faces, such as a cross wound with thread, or painted symbols. Game dolls – with faces.

In the game, the doll plays the role of the Other, with whom it is necessary to enter into relationships, interact and be in different roles. A doll without a face can sometimes cause fear. It can be assumed that it appears if there is a trauma of loss of identity in the experience, the inability to face the pain reflected in the “empty” face. In frightening impersonality, stories emerge that reveal the pain of early childhood.

I remember one incident. Once at the session, we made a doll “Devka’s Fun”. This doll has a feature in the structure – one long handle that hugs the heart of the doll. The client, having made a doll, quietly said that she could not look at an empty face and wanted to draw eyes. I offered to draw them. She made slit-eyes to the doll, as if she was sleeping.

Already at home, after a while, she completed the eyes, as if the doll had opened them. And then she was able to remember and face a very early experience of her invisibility, of being abandoned. From an early age, she was left at home alone, left for a long time. These memories first came as a bodily sensation of frightening emptiness. Then they were confirmed by witnesses of her childhood.

transitional space

The doll embodies the manifested symbol of the transitional space: a bridge between the world of ancestors and living people, between the unconscious and consciousness. With the help of a puppet, we make visible all aspects of our physicality – from body image to transgenerational connections.

And the doll embraces with its symbolic capacity all of humanity, regardless of gender, race and age. And it accompanies a person from the very beginning of his journey on Earth, many historical finds testify to this.

Incorporating doll making into the therapeutic process is not just for women, as is sometimes thought. Men, boys, young men also make dolls. And in the puppet world there is also a division into the world of infancy, female and male, which reflects the development of gender in the world of the psyche.

So, there are three types of dolls: baby dolls, a woman doll as a female deity and a doll as a male doll. However, it is also true that in traditional dolls a female image is more common, which symbolically combines both principles, male and female, soft and hard, etc., as a symbol of life.

The doll is a symbol of the transitional world, so in order to start creating a doll, you need to perform a ritual of transition. How does this happen? First, the story of the doll appears, after that I invite the participants to a bodily warm-up.

After all, we make a doll not with a head, but with hands that are connected to the heart, and everything comes from a living body filled with the wisdom of generations. I use symbolic language of movement and music in the transitions. It creates an atmosphere for working with this particular doll, but will continue to sound after the dance.

For example, in making the Tula Lady doll, which stands akimbo, it is important to tune in to the weaving of hands in the form of a braid of three canvases, as a symbol of controlling one’s destiny, meeting with the power of the Goddess Mokosh and her two assistants, Doli and Nedolya.

We begin to prepare for this action in the dance, I build the choreography so that after that it would be possible to reproduce these movements and poses already on the territory of handiwork. When the doll is ready, we carry out the “revival” of the doll, because giving birth is not enough to do, you need to revive it – enter into a dialogue with it.

Each doll has its own special ways. The main thing is to start interacting with her in motion and talking. Make physical contact – take it in your hands and start talking. And after the session, the doll must be given a place, determine where it will live: in a bag or on a shelf. It is important to continue interacting with her, developing your ability to turn on the imagination.

In a secret conversation, you can hear either advice or consolation, depending on what kind of doll it is. If it is no longer needed, it can be carefully disassembled, because it is not stitched and can again become pieces of matter. If the doll is lost or broken into pieces, it’s not scary. This is not a collapse, but a transition. I invite everyone to treat dolls without the fanaticism of magical thinking. There is always an opportunity to reassemble or make a new doll.