Quick Update

This does what it says on the box:  it's a quick update.

I didn't go to the gym this weekend - it was quite a busy one - so I did a little bit of yoga at home.  I mostly spent the weekend making jewellery, doing household chores and recharging my batteries.

I have been spending quite a bit of time making mala bead necklaces.  This is a hugely meditative process and one I have enjoyed.  I began my process by buying beads that were attractive to me and planned the final product according to available materials.  My first few hours of this endeavour were experimental and filled with optimism.  I saw online that one can tie knots between each bead, which I tried.  That resulted in a very time-consuming process, which I expected and didn't mind,  The result I was achieving was disappointing so I put that first endeavour to one side and started again.  This time I didn't tie knots between each bead, but after each set of 27 beads.  This achieved much more pleasing results and, admittedly, took less time, which was a bonus.

The important part of this whole process is the materials.  I bought quite a few small packets of wooden beads.  These are interesting because they are not uniform in shape, colour, size or texture.  I started to choose beads based on appearance to try and exclude any beads which were not aesthetically pleasing because of a mark or an odd shape.  Despite the fact that the final product is beautiful, and I am incredibly happy with the mala, I realised that I was trying to make it as perfect as possible by disregarding beads with small flaws.  I think this is a metaphor for my life, and probably for life in general.

We prefer to choose beautiful moments to string together to display and to tell our life's story.  We would prefer to disregard the difficult, ugly, challenging parts of our lives;  to hide them away and to pretend that they don't exist.

I gave up on choosing perfect beads and have made a mala with all of the beads that I disregarded while making my first two malas.  The result is one lovely, very unique mala necklace.  I now wear this mala with various combinations of my crystal pendants (that I sourced all the way from Knysna), and I love the way it looks and feels.

My mala beads - super chuffed with this piece.

xoxo

Foxy

Image is my own