Returning to the use of prayer beads.
(Image description: A photo of a long strand of beads. Some beads are light blue, gold, and red, while other beads are gold. They are laying on a white, fuzzy material.) Credit: Photo by Amr Taha™ on Unsplash
Sometimes, it’s the simple things that can have a surprising impact on the mundane and the spiritual in our lives. All too often, we think that we need grandiose practices to feel a connection to deities, ancestors, and spirits.
The Danu card in my oracle deck popped up recently, so I figure Brighid is nudging me to seek the sacred in the mundane. Also, I have felt the need to add something to my practice of daily prayers, but I wasn’t sure what that could be.
Meditation is an obvious choice, but there are many types and levels of involvement. I admit that meditation is a practice that I don’t do enough, despite there being many different resources for it.
However, one resource is a set of prayer beads I made years ago. They’re a bracelet style with 9 star beads with colored glass beads in between them to represent different aspects of Brighid, with oak leaf charms meant to indicate the four Fire Festivals.
Unfortunately, they had fallen into disuse. It’s a prime example of “out of sight, out of mind”. Perhaps it’s because there can be different uses for them beyond saying prayers related to each aspect, and I’m undecided on how to use them.
I referred back to the e-book One Heart, Many Gods: The Absolute Beginner’s Guide to Devotional Polytheism by Lucy Valunos as I remembered there was a section on the use of prayer beads.
One of the methods the author suggests is to repeat the name of the godly aspect you’re wanting to focus on. This technique seemed simple enough to start with and flexible enough to adapt to.
I chose to focus on the Brighid of Poetry bead, as it’s the first one on the strand. I only meditated on that particular bead for a few moments, but I had some luck with it!
Mostly, there was a calming, weighted feeling to it, as though I was being tucked into the darkness of Her mantle. I saw brief scenes of a hand holding a quill and writing words on parchment, while even seeing a flash of a flame as I murmured the epithet.
Again, this is only one method of using prayer beads, but it seemed to work for me to focus on Her. These brief glimpses weren’t immensely profound, but they touched my heart in thinking that Brighid the Poet was hard at work, bringing imbas into the world.
Returning to Brighid’s earlier message, finding sacred in the mundane might seem rather ubiquitous with a set of prayer beads. Yet, there is something holy in simple and mundane beads. They are given deep meaning when placed together like spiritual touchstones on a pilgrimage.
My goal is to at least make it a weekly thing to check in with Brighid using the prayer beads, if not more, depending on what my spiritual needs are at the time.
Over time, I can branch out and find other uses for the prayer beads and apply those techniques to my practice. I hope to add a little at a time to my spiritual routine and bond with Brighid.
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