Jamie Lee

Last night I spent the night in a motel beside Piya Wiconi-the main OLC campus in Kyle. Since I teach in Pine Ridge on Thursdays, I decided to make that a part of my plan for days when we have meetings on Fridays. It gives me some alone time and time to write. Last night I didn’t write much but played with beads instead. For some reason, The Bead People are so friendly that I can’t resist building a few in my down time. In the past year I have probably created well over a thousand Bead People but it’s funny, whenever I count them I only have about 3-4 hundred. They keep going away. You’d think I would get tired of them, but I guess it is my “knitting.” It calms me and restores my spirit.

I was thinking about how beads have been a part of every culture I know of. Beads were cut, carved or molded from stones, shells, cones, wood, glass, gold, silver, and on and on. Beads were used to adorn clothing and household items and used as a means of exchange. It makes sense that The Bead People speak a common language.

Next week, Milt and I will be taking The Bead People to a first grade classroom here in Rapid City. We’ve done several so far and the children send me the most wonderful thank-you notes after I leave. I always tell them that I’m a writer and show them a couple of my books (beside the one that goes home with The Bead People). One little girl wrote to me after we were in her classroom and said that “All the books in my house were written by YOU!” I loved that! The students also make up stories about their little bead person or tell me how they shared the story with their families. It is a wonderful experience and I look forward to doing more.

Since I am into beads tonight, I’ll share a little writing ramble from a client session I did with a young girl in my office a few years ago. She turned me on to beading Christmas ornaments. (Yes, N.-you know who you are.) Think of it as my Valentine gift to you. And if you haven’t heard of The Bead People or their story, The Wind of a Thousand Years-you can visit http://www.thebeadpeople.org/ to find out more.

Jamie

A Mandala of Beads

Just before Christmas, a young client of mine came in for a session and brought me the gift of a beautiful beaded cap sitting on a glass Christmas tree ornament. She had made the gracious, pretty thing, and I was so excited about it she offered to show me how to make one. “I have the stuff in my car,” she said.

I had my own private stash of beads tucked unceremoniously away waiting for the time when I would take up what seemed like a frivolous hobby. (I love beads-and small stones-but was sure that all of my other work was too important and the time couldn’t possibly be spared for beading.)

That day, we spent her entire counseling session beading, our heads bent together and us talking about issues of the heart and soul. We worked like two prairie women-our fingers busily stabbing small glass beads with a thin needle . . .three white, one purple, three white, one purple… By the end of the session, I had a small beautiful Mandala of beads forming on the table before me. My client wished me a Merry Christmas and left, and I returned to my “real work”.

However, the beautiful white and purple circle stayed in my mind like an itch. I pictured the bright circle sitting alone on a wide expanse of cherry wood (my office table) like a distant star. Strange, how that circle beckoned like nothing has for a long time. Finally, just before bed, I crept back out to my office at midnight after two hours of writing and working on other more important matters. I simply could not go to bed without first revisiting that little beaded circle. I had to add one more ring to it and so I followed the pattern carefully around the outer circle . . . three white, one purple, three white . . . and, when the loop was done, I went to bed feeling oddly satisfied.

This morning when I went into my office, there it was again. I touched it, feeling the loose connectedness of the beads and thought, “What a beautiful pattern.” It reminded me of the rangoli, the sidewalk circle the yogis of India create at the entrance of a sacred place. They sift colored sand to create intricate images of the Gods knowing full well that the wind and rain will probably destroy it by dusk. And still, they create it anyway.

It was then that I understood my attraction to the shiny circle of glass beads. My work is always about finding patterns-but perhaps I put too much time and energy into finding the patterns of ugliness and despair. I work with individuals and organizations but, like so many others, tend to see them in terms of the problem patterns without searching out the patterns of order and ease. We get so attached to our descriptions of the problem pattern until soon that is all we see-and then we cannot tell another story.

The rangoli, the medicine wheel, and my little circle of beads looping into other beads remind me to look and find the patterns of beauty and connectedness as well-and to seek that greater order. I will remember.

And probably, I am totally hooked on beading again but can now see it as a way to remind myself to look for the links.