Category: Workshops

We met last Friday in another great D&D event ‘Old Actors – How Can We Play Our Part?’ at the National Theatre Studios in London.

I called a session ‘Dreams and Hearts – is there age for them?’

Pernille, Paddy, Nikikay, Aladin, Simon and someone I don’t know the name came to the session. Most of us put dreams and hearts into the dolls and we meditated with them. We made 8 dolls in total. Thank you!

Some comments

‘Dreams and hearts have to do with life experience, not age in numbers. They can change or be fulfilled as time goes by (or stay the same)’

‘Heart is the root of everything. It’s what life is about – love’

We can play our part doing what our body, which is full of dreams and has a heart, asks us to do. I am going to keep making my dolls and I’ll dance again.

Lots of courage to all of us.

 

‘Is it a male or female?’ ‘Maybe a bit of both’. The part of the face we can see is eye-closed, peaceful. Unwilling at first. Mind elsewhere, somewhere else to – someone to – thing to – and yet don’t talk to me. Leave me alone. Stuffing dreams into cloth. Sitting in a small circle of women. A circle of no focus. There is no point. Push the stuffing right down, tight pack the cloud. It has to stand upright, firm. In me, there’s a melting. That wasn’t the intention. We didn’t know what was needed and it happened anyway. Words bubble and telescope around as the little body becomes firmer, plumper, more ready to stand. She asks me how, about my writing. My passion! She has heard pull of that thread at my heart and wants to investigate it. Tenderly she pulls that thread. ‘Passion is not always a joy’, she tells me. The guardian of the dolls! ‘It’s in the word’. I have placed my heart, it is big and in the right place. The point of the needle finds its place, pulls this stitch, and the next, and another. It was a big area needing completion- but not a problem! No! Our journey. Special scar. Thank you Regina x.’ 

‘I sat meditating. Part of me knows that I’m still at D&D in Bristol. I know I have my hand on my right wrist, feeling my heartbeat. My right thumb is placed on the heart of the doll I have helped to make. It’s in my palm. I hold it. And right now I’m held inside D&D. Within my meditation I hear talk about community, about a larger connection to the world, about a reason. I also hold a reason, a connection and a community now in my hand – you have made me part of a community with this doll, but also you’ve let me make a community. Thank you.’

 

We spent an amazing weekend at D&D12, this year at The Passenger Shed, Brunel’s Old Station, in Bristol.

I called a session for people to help me to put dreams and hearts into my dolls. I’ve just started to make the dolls transparent, the dreams are now visible.

Yanai, Caroline, Joy, Lizzie, Nicky, Finn, Elspeth, Emma, Kerrie, Vic, Sarah, Kate, Jack, Richard, Kaiya, Ben, Amerie, Tanuja, Catherine, Kate, Emma, Roxana, Naomi came to the session.

We’ve been working on the third community of dolls. We made 20 dolls this weekend.

We’ve reached 1468 dolls in total already!!!

Jennifer joined the dolls and brought her project, I absolutely love this project, she writes down people’s personal fairy tales. We stayed together with our projects for some hours, it was a bliss. She also made the most beautiful signature book for us, I loved it!

One of the comments reminded me the old times when there wasn’t the split between work and holidays. That’s what we feel when we make dolls, there’s no separation anymore, work and pleasure are together again.

In the last big circle Ridley asked ‘how do the dolls stand up?’ I tell you Ridley, because they stand up together, they support each other. If any of them give up many will collapse, sometimes all of them, so the magic is to stand up together and do not give up to help one another.

Some comments:

‘This was just what I needed to do. To sit and make and talk and share thoughts. Thank you.’

‘I had a really fantastic experience. The way people talk and connect when they are making together is invaluable. Thank you! I wish there was more making at D&D!’

‘Interesting conversation and thoughts. The figure is the same  kind of size as Gilda was.’ 

‘Thank you for the choice to sit and talk about dolls, dreams, hearts and puppets. It has also a time to reflect on the hearts in my family – near and far, biological and artistic.’ 

‘Thanks Regina  for this chance to try something new and inspirational. I loved the fact that I’ve put dreams and a heart into a doll.’ 

‘Check Shrouds of the Somme, 19240 individually wrapped dolls to commemorate the people who died on the first day of the battle. Rob Heard based in Somerset.’ 

‘We are the giants bringing tiny nation to life. Breathing dreams into them and kick starting their existence with our pulse energy. Be happy together tiny people. Peace and love are your watchwords. They are everything.’

 

Thank you so much to everybody who made dolls and to everybody who made this brilliant event happen once more, at this time in this beautiful space in Bristol. Thanks to Sarah, Ben, Anabel, Nick, Lee and Phelim, and lots of other Sarahs, Robert, Jen and many others, much love to you all.

  

 

 

On 11 December 2016 I run a workshop called ‘Dolls and Meditation’ in São Paulo, this is the invitation written by Claudia Vasconcellos.

‘Trump president of the United States, Britain outside the European Union, far right in ascendence in the whole world. Brazil, from any perspective that is observed, in crisis.

There are concrete ways of combating the regressive wave, with vote, with undersigned, in resistance, in commitment to plural ideas and attitudes, in short, what we have done so far. 

But there is a complementary, subtle, and absolutely necessary way, which is via meditation. In this case, meditation can be understood as a collective collaboration to harmonise disconcerting tendencies, to neutralise impulses of anger and intolerance; and thus propagate a deep human tune which evolves into states of fraternity and compassion.

In the present case, meditation is carried out together with the manufacture of dolls that will be donated in groups of 700, for asylums, nurseries, schools, hospitals etc., on the five continents.

This poetic exchange strengthens relations amongst the inhabitants of the planet. It is a gesture of solidarity, peace and hope spreader called DREAMS AND A HEART.

Regina Mendes, creator of DREAMS AND A HEART, has been conducting her workshops between England and Brazil for the last 4 years. The first community of dolls is ready and it will find their destiny in the hands of other people. 

Check out DREAMS AND A HEART details at:

https://dreamsandaheart.com/

We invite you to extend the power of this gesture, donating some time of your Sunday in the company of people who also dream a more fraternal world.’

https://www.facebook.com/events/235533616876341/241928436236859/?notif_t=like&notif_id=1481543662060108

 

 

On 27 November I run this workshop in the beautiful countryside at Florescer na Mata.

http://www.florescernamata.com.br

Before the workshop, during the morning, we walked in the beautiful preserved forest with doctor Fernando Bignardi, the idealizer of Florescer na Mata, who shared with us his knowledge about plants and animals. When we came back to the house we had organic green juices made by Heloisa and delicious lunch cooked by Julia.

After the lunch we started the workshop. Solange, Cynthia, Fernando, Julia, Eliana, Odete, Irani, Gisela, Rodrigo, Heloisa, Pedro and Lelia came, most of them working in Health Services and the Arts. We put dreams and hearts into 13 dolls and we meditated together connecting with our heartbeat.

Some comments

‘I really enjoyed participating in this project – to fill the dolls with dreams is to reactivate our relationship with our neighbour and with our own dreams. It is to know we are able to walk forward without losing our primordial essence.’

‘It was very good to welcome you with your initiative. I really like making your dolls! I feel that with them I find a channel of connection with the universal network of love and compassion. I hope we can repeat this gesture many times, each time with more participants. Strong and loving embrace and gratitude.’

‘When you were introducing the project to us, I saw a flock of angels in your head … do not be intimidated if someone says you’re a dreamer, keep going’

‘I was excited for the experience, but maybe because I was in a rush, I was unable to feel the moment.’

‘Through the dolls you are moving the matrix of thought, inserting the emotional element and giving it representative form. People may not even see the mechanism you are triggering, but this process is introducing Love into people’s lives on a large scale. I felt that there is an intense spiritual accompaniment in your work. May you reach millions of dolls!’

‘Collaborating with your project made me feel very satisfied. I would like to make a doll to myself to remember my dreams. I thought of the dreams spread all over the world. I could fill with dreams a little house, a tree, an animal, a country … I would fill any shape with dreams!’

We spent a lovely day together, thank you so much for the invitation, thank you everybody who came to make dolls and a special thank you to Heloisa who helped organised the event. Hope we can meet again soon.

 

 

This week we went to a residency at The Old Nun’s Head in London facilitated by Jenifer Toksvig, she call us to make our heart work. I made 14 dolls while sharing other people’s project.

The dolls got inspired by Jen’s colourful stuff, suddenly they brought a shaman to join us – whoever comes are the right people!