Breaking radio silence here to post pictures of the doll that I commissioned from my friend Beth, who makes these amazing spirit dolls based on a combination of description from the person commissioning the work and her own inspiration from the god or spirit of whom the doll is a depiction. You can see more of her work (not just limited to dolls, by the way!) at her Etsy store- click on the link for sold items to see more of these dolls.

Because she describes her handiwork far better than I could, here is the description from her site:

Handsewn cotton flannel doll, approximately 9 inches tall with clothing handsewn and designed by yours truly. Apollo is not a god I deal with a lot personally, but His persona came across to me as a curious mixture of teen punk rock star and college professor, and his outfit demonstrates this: he wears linen slacks with a black tee shirt trimmed with snakeskin-printed fabric (a reminder of Delphi) and a professorial-looking courdoroy jacket with leather collar and pocket. His necklace is hand-crocheted nettle yarn and goldtone wire with a bee pendant. (The Homeric hymn to Apollo alleges that the god’s gift of prophecy first came to him from three bee maidens.) His hair is a mixture of natural fawn-shaded alpaca and dyed mohair in shades of bronze accented with shots of bright yellow-green; I was definitely going for a flame effect here! His wings, made from dyed feathers attached to felt using acid-free, archival quality craft glue, attach at the shoulders via sewn-on snaps.

Heart contents: a bay laurel leaf, iolite, and bay laurel and cypress essential oils.

As I do not currently have my shrine for Apollo set up, (I have reasons for this, I an thinking about discussing a bit in an upcoming post. That’s right, folks, I plan to start making real posts again.)  He is temporarily residing on my girfriend’s Hermes shrine- next to….a Hermes doll, also commissioned from Beth last fall.  I commissioned Hermes as a gift for her, and loved him so much that I had to have one of my own, and here they are.  So exclaim how much you love them and then get thee over and get one 9or more!) of your very own.

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