Hand Work as Meditation

Beadwork can be a form of working meditation and pure creative action. The spider in the picture is part of a large beaded flute bag, done on commission for a healer. Spiders are weavers, storytellers in many legend traditions and thought of as wise. I know I love them and adore seeing a good big porch spider or two on my porch during the summer months. Part of the joy of beadwork is the unexpected-ideas that seem to come from nowhere, fortuitous combinations that fall together, and striving, always striving to make things more pleasing and perfect, even in their imperfections.

Preserving the Past

Years ago, when my mother was still alive, I asked her if she had a button collection, as I was looking for interesting buttons to use in my beadwork. She excitedly took me down to the basement and unearthed a wooden wine box (probably held two bottles), that was full of buttons-mostly from HER mother's collection. The box came home with me and the button in the center of the pin in the image below became the focal point for the pin. I gave that pin to my Mom and she wore it happily. It came back to me when she died and is a prized possession. Not all of the buttons in that collection are as lovely, but I still pull out that box and use buttons from it fairly regularly.