Many people ask how I started making jewellery. Inspired by the sacred thread worn by Hindu (Kalava) and the red thread often associated with Judaism’s Kabbalah, I wanted my own interpretation. Something that inspired internal reflection and was sanctified with blessings and protection.
Looking for thread, I visited a bead shop. It was closing down and I didn’t find the thread I was after but left with a gazillion beads. I spent the weekend making bracelets. I couldn’t stop. Any spare second, I’d make them. It felt right to light a candle and say a prayer or set an intention before I made them and I soon noticed different energies in my body as I used different colours or made different kinds of bracelets. A name and images would often arrive too. One of the first I made was Kwan Yin. I was feeling stressed and my thinking chaotic as I collapsed onto my meditation mat on the floor and started to make a bracelet. A calmness emerged and a soft, pink calm feeling seemed to surround me and I could see an image of her in my mind. Naturally, I fell in love with making stuff. I discovered the etymology of bead, or bede, means to pray and that’s what the process felt like.
Very quickly people starting noticing them. Strangers would stop me in the street and ask me where I got them and how could they buy them. I kinda like being invisible so would often take them off before I went out:)
I still can’t stop making bracelets and my deepest wish is they remind you of the sacred and beautiful within you. As the poet Hafiz said in an opening line, “Do you know how beautiful you are?”
*Tahi is Maori for “one”.
