Bead Shaman

Posted on December 31, 2013 by betsybeadhead | Leave a comment

I love to invite people to my home to help them create their own custom jewelry, or to take orders for it. I am like a shaman, but with beads. I use beads this way for myself, and I know there are others who have this need but don’t know how.

This is about more than just making a necklace or a bracelet. This is about making beaded items that have energy and meaning.

Making jewelry for the beginner isn’t easy. Perhaps you need only three beads, but you have to buy the whole strand. That is way too expensive for individuals. Perhaps you have an idea in mind but you aren’t sure how to do it. Perhaps you don’t know how to use crimp beads or clasps.

This is where you need expert help. There is an art to making things look simple.

Now, this doesn’t mean that making jewelry is simple.

Sometimes I’ll try to get across an idea and I just can’t do it with one design, so I’ll try with another. Sometimes even that doesn’t work. The beads are beautiful, they just aren’t beautiful together. This happens a lot more than I would like. When things happen in my head they work great. In reality the colors don’t work together or the proportions are off or the textures clash. I’m starting to realize that I’m better off if I just don’t think about it too much and just start trying it out in reality.

Sometimes I’ll buy a strand of beads just because I want to work with them. They are beautiful or rare or have a texture I’ve never seen. This happens a lot. When bead shopping, it is best to buy whatever catches your fancy then, because you won’t see it the next time. I’ll make something, and then have beads left over.

But being a bead shaman is more than that. Perhaps it is pretentious to say the word shaman, but I can’t think of anything else that comes close. How else can I describe an ability to create exactly what someone needs and I’ve not even seen them? How else can I describe being able to use beads as medicine?

If someone is grieving, giving them beads that are sharp or angular will only make it worse. Smooth beads, and ones that are oval or round, will be more soothing. Giving them beads that are neon colored will only make them hurt. Colors need to be muted.

This is part of what I mean. It is about knowing the effect that color and shape has on a person.

Knowing the history of beads is important too – where did they come from? Who made them? Are they used for any ritual purposes? What is the material? All of this knowledge comes from years of study. Beads aren’t just beads. They have layers of meaning.

Sure, there are books that talk about the powers of gemstones, and I know some of that. But I’m more interested in the other layers of meaning. For example, knowing that the majority of beads in one necklace were made by refugees gives the necklace a certain kind of beauty that isn’t apparent to the eye.

I love making power necklaces, and that other people can sense it. I love that I made a necklace in honor of the Holy Spirit and a lady wore it to a meeting in defense of her disabled child and prevailed.

I have studied beads over half my life, and there is always something new to learn and share about them.

The best thing anybody can do is give me a rough outline of what they want – a color, or a particular stone that they like – and then let me do the rest. A lot of this is by feel, and for that to work the person has to trust me. I’ll make exactly what they need, even though they may not realize it at the time. And when I make it, I pray for them. That energy goes into it too.

Beads are prayers made visible, and are stories in miniature.

Stop – on being still.

Posted on December 29, 2013 by betsybeadhead | Leave a comment

I’m trying to reassess stopping. Taking time out is hard for me. I think some of it has to do with my upbringing. The more I read of the affirmations for my inner child, the more I think it was programmed into me. It isn’t part of who I am. It is part of what my parents taught me to be. Thus, it can be unlearned.

Stopping is good if you are in a car. If you don’t stop at a red light, you’ll get run over. If you don’t stop to get gas you’ll be stranded.

We stop when we leave jobs or boyfriends. We stop when we drop out of college. We admit that we just can’t take it anymore, so we walk away.

But I want to stop before I get to that point. I want to stop as a sign of strength, not of weakness. I want to stop so I can go.

I stop every day. I stop and make time to sleep. I have an uneasy relationship with sleep. That is a third of my day, thus a third of my life just gone. But I know from hard experience that if I don’t make time for sleep then nothing ever works right. Not getting enough sleep put me in the hospital. Sadly the medical answer was to give me sleeping pills and not to teach me good habits that will promote sleep, so I had to figure that trick out for myself.

So now I’m learning how to stop. I’ve signed up for silent retreats. I’m taking time off from work. I’m turning off the TV. I’m trying to get into the habit of sitting still. I’m trying to not cram “stuff” into my day the same way a hoarder crams “stuff” into her house. Sometimes I feel that every moment has to be filled with something to do. I’m starting to see that as a result of my childhood.

It isn’t healthy. Sure, there has to be a balance. I don’t want to lapse into not doing anything. I did that for years. But I don’t want to do so much that I stop being able to enjoy life.

I think the more I learn how to stop, the more clearly I’ll be able to think.

“I’m sorry” – on forgiveness.

Posted on December 24, 2013 by betsybeadhead | 5 Comments

There is a difference in saying

“I’m sorry.”
or

“I’d like to apologize for…”
or

“I’m sorry that you felt hurt when I….”

They reflect different degrees of admitting responsibility. They reflect different degrees of accepting how the other person has been hurt by your actions.

There is the true sincere apology statement, and then there is the one where the person understands the social obligation of at least acting sorry. One is real, the other is fake. Don’t be mislead. Even saying “I’d like to apologize for” doesn’t mean anything. The person would like to apologize, but isn’t actually doing so.

And worse, saying sorry doesn’t really even mean anything. If you hammer nails into a tree, and then pull them out, there are still holes there.

Expecting the victim to forgive can actually revictimize her. It puts the burden on her, instead of the abuser. It minimizes her feelings. It glosses over the reality of her pain and loss.

If there has been no apology, no restitution, then there is no closure or healing. Even if there has been an apology or restitution, then is no guarantee that closure or healing has taken place. Once a person has been harmed by another person, sometimes saying “sorry” won’t fix it, and the damage is permanent, especially if the offender has a habit of repeatedly hurting people.

It isn’t fair to the victim to expect her to forgive at all.

Sure, Buddha says that holding on to anger is like drinking poison and hoping the other person will die. Sometimes you have to forgive so you can go on with your life. But forgiveness comes when it comes, and no sooner.

Saying “Aren’t you over that by now?” isn’t kind, or helpful.

Saying “But have you forgiven him in your heart?” makes no sense. What about the liver? Is it OK to still hold some resentment there?

It is the same as getting frustrated with someone who is grieving. Grief takes time, and there isn’t a fixed amount. It takes as long as it takes.

I think people are nervous around grief, or unforgiveness, or anger, because it frightens them. They want to rush right ahead to the happy bit, where all is good and everybody is loving and kind. That Hollywood ending isn’t real. That’s why it is in the movies.

Movies don’t show reality. Sadly, a lot of us have used movies as our role models. This is why a lot of us are in pain. A lot. Our reality never matches up to that reality, and we feel like we are doing something wrong.

Working through feelings is a long process, and our society doesn’t give a lot of help along the way. You have to process your pain, just like how a cow chews its cud. You have to work on it, and wait, and work on it a little more, and wait. You have to transform it into something else. Cows transform grass into energy for their muscles, and then milk.

There is a sort of alchemy here.

Trying to take shortcuts on the process only results in it not really being processed. It will come out half way, unfinished, lumpy. It will come out sideways, if it comes out at all. Sometimes it will get stuck inside, with little jagged bits poking into your soft parts, just causing more pain.

Take as long as you need.

You don’t have to forgive to the extent that you let the abuser hurt you again. You don’t have to forget.

It helps if you can move on, where this rock of grief and pain doesn’t define you, doesn’t limit you, doesn’t keep you stuck in one place.

Work on it. Chew on it. Draw. Paint. Write. Go for a walk. Take your anger with you.

You aren’t running away from your anger and pain and loss, you’re using it as fuel. You’re transforming it into something useful and necessary. It takes a while. It takes as long as it needs to take.

It isn’t about the money.

Posted on December 20, 2013 by betsybeadhead | Leave a comment

I got my Christmas bonus last week. Of course, it isn’t called a Christmas bonus. This is a government job. It is a “longevity” check. But we get it around Christmas, and not on the anniversary of our hire date.

Every employee who has worked for Metro for at least five years gets this check. It is a tiny thing at the beginning, and a little more each year. There were years where the budget was tight and we didn’t get it at all. Things are better now, and it is a nice thing to have back.

I noticed my reaction to it this year. I have this reaction every year, but this time I noticed. I’m trying to observe myself from the outside. I’m trying to see what I do out of habit and instinct and ask myself why. I want to see if that reaction or course of action is still useful. Sometimes we outgrow our actions, but we still do them because we haven’t thought about them.

I saw this money and wanted to spend it right away. I didn’t even think about buying presents for others. I didn’t think about sending some of it to a charity. I wanted to spend all of it on myself.

I wanted a treat, or a toy. I didn’t want to buy anything I needed. I wanted to buy something I wanted. I don’t even have anything in mind. I just wanted to spend this money, and spend it fast.

This is why for many years I didn’t have much of anything in my savings account.

I’ve gotten over that feeling for the most part. For the most part I’m sane. For the most part I save money and pay extra towards the principal for the house and car notes. But right now the desire to burn through that money shone like a torch.

I didn’t. I thought about it. I saw that feeling as the outsider it is. I saw it as a symptom. I saw it as being not really from me, not the real me.

I started to think about what that feeling meant. At first I thought that I was going on survival mode. If I convert that money into something physical, I can see it. I can keep it with me. Just like wandering tribal people who move their camps with their flocks, I wanted to convert that wealth into portable currency. Money is better if you can wear it as baubles on your coat, you know.

But where does that feeling come from? I’m not planning on escaping. I’m not foreseeing any need to bug out any time soon. Even if the zombie apocalypse does happen, I don’t see that bartering with beads is going to be the mode of commerce. But who knows? It worked for the Dutch when they bought Manhattan.

So I dug deeper. There had to be more to this feeling.

It is all about comfort and self soothing. This past month has been hard. Financially, materially, it has been fine. Emotionally, not so much. There’s been a lot of upheaval in my family recently. Too much drama and not enough sense.

When bad things happened I used to soothe myself with eating sugar and carbs, or smoking, either pot or clove cigarettes. I used to soothe myself in the same way that many people soothe themselves – to do everything possible to not actually address the situation itself. Sadly, a lot of our soothing methods result in even more problems.

I’ve gotten past a lot of those soothing methods, but apparently I’ve not purged myself from the “need” to spend money to cheer myself up. I’m glad I saw it as the craving it is, and didn’t succumb to it.

We can all learn from our cravings. They teach us what we really are searching for. I didn’t really want to spend all that money. I wanted what the money could buy. And really, I didn’t even want that. I wanted what it represents.

In this case I was searching for security and stability. I was trying to retreat into primitive ways of coping, rather than dealing with the problem at hand. Part of the solution is to stick with the feeling. I’ve spent so long trying to run away from my feelings that I’m not sure how to have them sometimes.

If you use crutches all the time, then you never develop the strength in your legs to stand on your own. Losing the crutches doesn’t mean that you suddenly have the ability to run, much less stand up straight. And it hurts, these first few unassisted steps. You want to grab the crutches back, or find something else to hold on to.

This is why a lot of people at AA meetings are chain smokers. They just traded one addiction for another. The problem hasn’t been addressed. It has just been transformed into something a little more socially acceptable, and a little less likely to result in legal problems.

I’m stripping away my crutches and my props, one by one, and it is hard. But it is essential. Sometimes I’m tired of all this growth I’ve done and I want to sit back and take a break. I don’t, well, not often, and not for long. I’ve learned that if I take a break, the break morphs into a full stop, and then I have to get started all over again.

Lifeguard

Posted on December 13, 2013 by betsybeadhead | Leave a comment

Lifeguards have to know how to rescue you and not get drowned themselves. Not only do they have to be good swimmers, they have to watch out for the drowning person who is thrashing about.

Drowning people don’t do anything right to stop themselves drowning. They will hit the person who is trying to save them. They will grab at them, pulling them under the water. The more they thrash and grab, the worse things get.

Lifeguards are trained to approach the victim from behind to rescue them, and to look out for sudden movements. If drowning people relaxed they’d be a lot easier to rescue. In fact, if they relaxed in the first place they probably wouldn’t need to be rescued.

Try it the next time you are in a pool. Tense up, pretending you are anxious. Feel like you aren’t going to make it to the wall. You’ll start to sink. Relax and you’ll start to float. Let go, and you are fine.

How much of this is like everything in life? Just tensing up makes an already bad situation worse. Freak out and you’ll need to be rescued. Then, when someone comes to help, you fight them. The smart helper knows how to approach you so they too don’t get dragged down.

Drowning, finances, drugs, dependency- whatever. It is all the same.

People have to get certified to be lifeguards. There are manuals to study and a test to pass. Kids in high school can do this.

Too bad that helping people not drown in other ways requires more advanced training. Maybe if it could be simplified and destigmatized it would be easier for everyone. If we can help people before they are really going under we will be doing very well.

Tear necklace

Posted on December 11, 2013 by betsybeadhead | Leave a comment

Shortly after my parents died, I took to expressing myself primarily with beads. I had learned to work with beads when I was in my early 20s when I worked at the Kennedy Center. I had no idea that a few years later beads would be therapeutic for me.
Talking about my grief only seemed to make it worse. Nobody was around to help me know how to process my pain and loss. I was raised in a family that wasn’t very good at expressing feelings anyway. A lot of “friends” left after both my parents died, saying they didn’t know how to help me. It made an awful situation terrible.
I took to beads. Beads have their own rhythm and harmony and logic. Putting beads in order is like putting the world in order, one piece at a time. It gave my hands something to do and my mind something to focus on. One bead, then another, then another. Somehow I made it through. It wasn’t perfect – there was a lot still stuck in my head that I didn’t know how to deal with, but it there was less of it after I made jewelry. And, I made a little extra money by selling what I made.
Beads have a lot of symbolism. Sometimes it is because of the materials, sometimes where they were bought, and sometimes because of how they were made. A lot can be expressed with beads that isn’t obvious to the casual observer. They just see something pretty. Me, I see layers of meaning. A good necklace can tell a story to rival any piece of fiction. A good necklace can exorcise the demons like no crucifix can.
I don’t do this as often now. I’ve found that walking, writing, and yoga help keep me on an even keel. I make jewelry, sure, because I still enjoy it. I just don’t use the beads in the same way as often.
This weekend was hard. I made a necklace. Well, to be honest, I made the pendants on Sunday, and I made the necklace last night. The pendants are “tears”. I didn’t use my full complement of bead-symbolism tricks on this design.
I’d gotten a bag of beads a few weeks ago from a local bead store. The whole bag was only $3, and it had enough beads to make maybe 5 necklaces if you added in others to space them out. The bag was full of blue beads in different shapes – all Czech glass. Sure, I could have used just the beads from the bag to make necklaces, but all of one color in a necklace is a little much and the design tends to get lost.
The bag had lots of these little teardrop shaped beads in it, and I’d wondered what to do with them. I could create a pattern with two of them, round end facing each other, with a larger rounder bead in the center. That didn’t really appeal at the time. The beads were sitting in a saucer near me when I was having a down day on Sunday (hooray for the holidays!) so I started working with them. One of my favorite things to do is work with copper wire. I pulled it and the beads out and started making pendants. By the time I was done I felt better. Probably the fact that I was discussing how I felt with my husband at the same time had something to do with it. I still think the beads helped too. They are like a security blanket.
Last night I put it all together. The other blue beads are from the same bag. The tiny “11s”, the white beads, are from a separate purchase. I like how it came out. Some people turn lemons into lemonade. I turn pain into jewelry.

Victim beads part two – a month later.

Posted on December 10, 2013 by betsybeadhead | Leave a comment

I made a victim bracelet after I went to visit my spiritual director last month. She wanted me to focus on my pain and those people who have harmed me. I’m opposed to this. I want to rush right ahead to the “forgive and forget” part.

Mostly the forget part.

But, she hasn’t steered me wrong yet, so I’m giving it a try. She didn’t recommend making a bracelet to help me remember. That is just something I do. This way, all day long I have a reminder to think about this. Beads are good tools for me.

I made it, with a bead for each person who came to mind. This was a month ago, and I’m discovering that I can’t remember who each bead refers to. A girl I went to high school with. My aunt. The former branch manager of the library I work at. My mom. A lady in a social group I was in. My brother, of course. But I’m having a hard time remembering everybody else. It isn’t easy.

Perhaps Jesus is getting on there and healing the broken bits.

I don’t want to focus on my pain, but I know it is important. You can’t heal what you don’t know is broken. Emotional pain is harder to work on. You can see a cut on your arm. It is easy to spot. Just put a bit of Neosporin on it and a Band-Aid and you are good.

But emotional hurts are harder to spot. The longer they aren’t tended to, the deeper they go. The deeper they go, the harder they are to dig up and get out. They tend to erupt in ugly ways. They tend to come up like privet in your yard, unwanted, unsightly, and well entrenched.

I want to forgive them. They didn’t know better. They didn’t know they were hurting me. I didn’t tell them. They didn’t mean to be mean and thoughtless and cruel. I want to let them off the hook and be done with it. I don’t want to wear this bracelet because it seems like I’m advertising my pain.

But I’m not, not really. Nobody knows what this bracelet is about. It is private. It is just a bunch of beads. Nobody knows they have meaning.

And why would I care what others think? When was I taught shame for these feelings? How much of this is the old idea of keeping the family name, the family honor clean, unbesmirched? Stiff upper lip, and all that. Don’t air your dirty laundry.

I always feel a sense of betrayal when I talk about these things. Not that I was betrayed, but that I am betraying them. This is especially true when I mention my parents. Don’t speak ill of the dead, you know.

How bad is it when the victim is the one blaming the victim?

So I wear this bracelet sometimes to work on these feelings, and ask Jesus into them. This is still a foreign idea. I wasn’t raised with the idea of Jesus as being real, and present, and my best friend. Jesus was a guy back then and out there, not somebody right now and right here.

I’m catching glimpses of this Jesus, and I think I like him.

Jesus as a BFF.

Posted on December 9, 2013 by betsybeadhead | Leave a comment

Last week I went to my spiritual director and she asked me to choose one of the times that we had been discussing. I talk with her about all sorts of events that have occurred in the past month. I talk about troubles with family as well as good times when I took time to take care of myself. She asked me to pick one time and “see” Jesus there with me.

This is still a foreign concept to me. I wasn’t raised with the idea of Jesus being right here with me, or being “crazy” about me, as my spiritual director insists that he is. But I’m playing along, and it seems to be helping. I often feel like I’m doing it wrong, but she seems to think differently.

I chose a time when I was sitting up in my “star stones” area, where I go to talk to God at the top of the back of my yard. It was one of the times where I did it not because I was mad but because I wanted to just visit. I’m trying to get in the habit of inviting God into each moment, not just the hard ones. I’m trying to be mindful of God’s presence all the time.

I visualized Jesus sitting right next to me on my right. She asked me what direction he was looking. I said he was looking forward, in the same direction I was looking. She asked me if he was saying anything to me. I said he wasn’t saying anything, but it was as if I could feel colors from him. She had me describe the colors.

This is the best picture I can provide to illustrate. I’d taken it the week before, on an especially “God” kind of walk.

It isn’t about the color, or what is in the picture, it is about what it makes me feel. These colors make me feel safe. They are calm and earthy and soothing.

She asked me to stay with that feeling and to think about it.

I started to cry. Nobody has ever made me feel like that. Nobody has ever made me feel that safe or loved or wanted. Nobody has ever just wanted to be with me and not wanted something from me. I feel like I’m constantly on my guard with people. I keep waiting for them to let me down or beat me up. With guys I’m always something to try to have sex with. I’m an object, not a person.

It was refreshing to feel that oasis of calm, where I’m not wanted for what I can give, but who I am. Everything that I am, my beauty and my bruises, my wisdom and my weakness, is loved and cherished and celebrated. Everything.

Later I started thinking that this isn’t fair, this feeling. This perfect feeling of peace just can’t be matched. Nobody else will ever live up to it. I’m going to get hurt. My feelings are going to be ignored and overlooked. I’m going to be treated like a thing, an object. Nobody is going to measure up to this feeling I get from Jesus. Why go to the effort of knowing Jesus more closely, when it is so beautiful? It is so fragile and strong at the same time. It is so heartbreakingly kind. Nothing compares. Nothing.

It reminds me of when I stopped smoking pot. Everything started to seem vanilla in comparison. Life was dull. Movies were boring and predicable. Food was tasteless. Friends were annoying. Family was impossible. I remembered why I started smoking in the first place. It added seasoning to my life and smoothed off the rough bits. Pot was the rainbow, real life was the black and white. Who wants three channels on the TV when you can have 187? Real life doesn’t compare well to altered life.

Jesus is always present and real and holy and pure and safe. He’s never thoughtless. Never pushy. Never aggressive, needy, groping. He always knows what I need. Nobody is ever going to measure up to that. So why even go there. It hurts.

And then I got a feeling back. I knew the answer in that moment.

Because He heals the brokenness.
He fills in the cracks.
Jesus makes up the difference in their lack.

Jesus is like this –
He pays the bar tab. He orders the cab. He holds your hair when you have had too much to drink and you have to barf. He wipes your face afterwards with a warm wet washcloth.

Jesus is in the face of all kindness
and is in all kinds of people
you’d never expect.

Focus on the light, not the cracks.