Queen of Swords

I'm leaving on a business trip tomorrow morning -- flying from one side of the continent to the other for a conference.

I spent most of this evening snuggling Wolfling and stringing and restringing beads with two different pendants. The beads were not cooperating. The first piece I finished looked pretty but didn't have the heft I needed. The second one just wouldn't come together with the big, dramatic end piece.

Finally, since the strand was intended to a link to LM, I finally relaxed and invited him to help. Got something lovely and hefty and right in less than 15 minutes. It wasn't that he took over moving my hands or whispered clearly in my ear, but I eased back a bit and let his energy share my fingers.

I have no idea if the final effort would be attractive to anyone else, but it feels right for us, at this time. It's something I'll feel good having in my pocket over the next few days.


Guess I'd better start thinking about what I'm going to wear now. . .


And if anyone wants to offer prayers for my safe journeying Tuesday and Friday, I'd be most appreciative!

My daily meditation is supposed to begin with a five-minute session of four-four breathing -- but I'm pretty sure that unless I look at the clock I don't get anywhere near that, and looking at the clock is tough given that I take my glasses off and sit in a dim room when I meditate. Finally I had the idea of creating a set of prayer beads to count the cycles of breath: four cycles per minute for five minutes equals twenty beads.

I've created a lovely strand with hematite beads for each breath cycle, each separated from the next by three slightly smaller beads. Each set is either green-blue, red, or tiger-eye. After the tenth set I have a smooth, colorful oval stone to let me know that I'm halfway through -- because I get twitchy when I don't know how long a given activity is going to go on. Opposite the halfway stone there is a silver pendant with a labyrinth on it to mark the beginning and end.

I'm very pleased with the way the strand itself has come out. The hematite gives it a nice heft and grounding energy, and the colorful spacing beads make it pretty.

The problem is that I can't get the $%&$ crimp beads to actually crimp so I can seal the ends! I've ruined four of my last seven crimp beads. For some reason I just can't get the pliers to do the job -- and it's taking me at least five minutes or more just to get the wire looped around the pendant and back through the beads. I am beyond frustrated! And now I'm going to have to go to the bead store to get more crimp beads in order to finish it.

Last night a still-new friend came over because she was craving prayer beads and wanted to make some. We'd been partnered at the last women's circle meeting and she saw how I used my friendship strand as a way to ground and focus, and she wanted something similar. I was more than happy to oblige.

She came over last night with two strands of medium-small amethyst rounds and a set of pendants from her jewelry box which were too small for her to wear as necklaces. I got out my bead stash and tools and spread it out, and then asked her some questions about intention, using my own strands (some made by me, many gifts from my teacher) as examples of purposed strands.

I tried keep my own energy to myself as she started touching and comparing beads, but was pleased when she liked my idea of pairing the amethyst with same-sized hematite rounds. (I'm a big fan of hematite for my strands, since I like the way it helps me ground.) She arranged the beads by specific number and laid out her charms. I also ended up giving her a couple of charms -- a spiral and -- when it became clear she needed a rosary format not a toggle bracelet because of the size -- an Isis charm for the terminal pendant.

Everything worked out beautifully, even the crimping at the end. I knew the project was a success not because my friend was happy with how it looked (although it was gorgeous indeed) but because she couldn't stop caressing it.

I was pleasantly surprised that I felt very easy about sharing my supplies with her. I honestly wasn't sure how that would go. Beads (and charms) can get expensive, and I can be very possessive, but I found that I was delighted to be able to contribute to her piece. She helped balance that by gifting me with an ankh charm with a stone in it which she brought to use but decided it was time to pass on.

During my first visit, my teacher was very generous with her supplies and her time and experience in helping me create my initiation necklace. Learning how to make necklaces and strands has been a real blessing, and I took great satisfaction in being able to pass on some of what I've learned and help someone else get started.

Last night I went to a dinner meeting for women in the local bdsm community. It ran until after 9pm, at which point I was facing a walk back to my car through a relatively safe area of the city, but still -- alone at night once I turned off from the group.

So I took my sailor's pocket knife with it's "bear claw" out of my purse and stuck it in my pocket. I took out my keys and stuck them in my other pocket. I removed and replaced the knife at least once in the restaurant, as well as my keys, as well as by my car.

It was only when I was doing my evening ritual with LM that I realized the strand I had made for him as a connection was not on the altar. . . and that I had put it in the front pocket of my jeans that morning. In the past when this has happened -- forgetting to put the beads back on the altar -- I've always found the strand in the pocket. Not last night.

It wasn't in any pocket, and it wasn't on the floor under where the jeans were hanging. It wasn't in my purse, and it wasn't in my car.

I called the restaurant, and no one had seen it. The manager said he'd put a note up.

I went to bed after midnight, feeling wretched. I put a lot of love and energy into the strand. It's been an important, comforting symbol of my love for and ongoing connection with LM.

But when I finally lay down and pulled up the covers, I felt him lie beside me and put his arms around me. He told me that while of course he too loved the strand, he'd lived so many lives and left behind so many 'things' that there was no 'thing' he could not do without. Even this strand. You are my 'token' he told me. You are in direct connection with my energy. You don't need the strand for that, and I don't need it to know you love me.

It has also occurred to me that it's possible that our concurrent ordinations and my own emergence from grief have shifted our energies significantly enough that this strand, however beautiful and cherished, has served its purpose. As the Scottish Gentleman emailed me last night:

. . . try to remember that there are more powerful forces guiding such an important item. I'm certain it doesn't move by chance, and will find its way back to you!

Or, if it does not find its way back to me, then it was time for it to leave.

But I hope they find it today at the restaurant. I'm going to call back after they open.

The thought of it lying on the sidewalk or in the road on Broadway is intensely painful.

( If you have a moment to send some energy, this is the strand I would very much like to have come back to me )

I've re-made the prayer bead strand that broke.

It's not quite the same as it was before (aside from the fact that my finishing is never quite as elegant as my teacher's work).

The original strand had rose quartz to represent Inanna -- and while it worked within the artistic and energetic integrity of the piece, it didn't feel entirely right to me as a representation of Inanna. Her stone is lapis -- and she's far more fierce than rose quartz feels to me.

As it happens, I have a strand of lapis beads which my ex-husband gave me for Christmas years ago. It's been sitting on my Inanna altar since I put it up a few months ago, but not actually used. As I looked at the rose quartz beads this evening I realized that the lapis beads were about the same size. I brought them down, and yes -- they fit.

So I re-did the strand with lapis instead of rose quartz.

Except that I cut the tiger tail off too short to be able to double it back through the crimp beads to finish it, requiring me to cut another length and re-string the strand.

That's when I realized that the row of lapis seemed too intense, and the dark shade combined with the skulls and the wood beads to make the overall tone of the strand too dark. So I swapped out half the lapis for half the original rose quartz, alternating them. The contrasting colors seemed more Inanna-like than either solid color, and seemed to represent both the intense and the light energies better than either stone alone.

When I re-strung it this time, everything went together well. It still has all the elements my teacher included, as well as a bit more to make it fully mine.

I'll try to post a photo in the next day or so.

. . . but I'd like to spend another day "nawt comin' out." It felt very good to hang out all day in my jammies with Wolfling, get my bills paid, and just be at leisure.

I have a couple of containers of homemade soup in the refrigerator (!!), which is good. There's a loaf of garlic bread to go with it for dinner tonight and lunches for the rest of the week. (I'm going out for lunch with a friend from work today.)

My beading supplies are re-organized and ready for my next project. I've been talking about doing an "aspiration strand" but I think that instead I'm going to make my elemental cross pendant into a beaded necklace to wear for spiritual direction work.

I'm contemplating other designs for Christmas presents. It feels good to think that I can now give homemade gifts! They won't be appropriate for everyone, of course, but it's still going to be A Good Thing.

Last night I did all my practices, including the Middle Pillar. I resist that one at a very deep level, but it always feels good when I overcome and do it.

Back to the day job. . . .

I spent all day Tuesday in an offsite team meeting. It was actually a pretty good day, as such things go, but by late afternoon my introvert nature was starting to experience serious overload from the constant demand to be engaged with sixteen other people, and I was burnt out on corporate business.

So I took out my friendship strand of prayer beads, slipped my wrist through the circlet, and held on to the pendant. Although I hadn't planned it that way it's the perfect size to be held like that.

The beads in the strand are made from semi-precious stones; they're smooth and have a nice heft. The charms are bordered by hematite, adding extra grounding energy. Just holding the strand felt good and helped center me. The charms were also a constant reminder of three people I love and who love me, and the entire strand spoke of the spiritual path we share.

It was extremely comforting to have that concrete reminder of "what matters most" in the midst of a meeting that was important to my day job, but ultimately meaningless to me personally.

Although I've been truly enjoying making the strands, this was the first time I've actually used one of them in a way that worked for me, and it was wonderful to have that experience.

We're having Day 2 of the meeting today, and I'm taking the beads out as soon as I sit down.

My latest bead project has been a pair of almost-identical friendship strands for my teacher and myself. The pattern of the primary beads and charms is the same, but the focus pendant and pendant beads are different for each. I completed hers and sent it to her a couple of weeks ago, and finally was able to finish mine today.

I'm extremely happy about the way this one turned out. It looks and feels just the way it should.

( But I'm putting it behind a cut out of respect for your friends page. )

I've just completed my first solo bead project: a strand designed to help center me when I do the morning meditation I received the day after my initiation.




(Click the photo to expand, if necessary.)

The meditation starts in the underworld (at the pendant) with Ereshkigal and LM, then goes up and into the four elements plus the stars. The transition beads above the pendant strand are transitions in the meditation as well.

Looking at it now, I might have chosen to at least try putting the spirals next to the black stone at the top of the pendant, but it always seemed to want the transition pieces, and the round beads didn't fit well against the shape of the stone.

Ah well. . . my teacher has warned me that pieces like this need to be re-strung periodically, so I can always change it later if I want to. For now, I'm just delighted that it went together as easily as it did!

It was kind of funny: both the Earth and the Star sections were redesigned three times each before I found the combination of colors and shapes that worked for me. It certainly helped to justify the amount of bead-buying I've done in the last few weeks. It meant that when the original design didn't quite work I had lots of options to fall back on.

I was also surprised by how quickly the strand seemed to take on a sense of life as the beads started to go on the tigertail. Once they were strung, and moving together freely, the whole assembly became far more potent. I guess that shouldn't be a surprise. . . but I was surprised by how quickly the sense of life/energy began to grow.