“… we grow in our understanding of God as we come to understand our life stories more fully.” — Rabbi Laura Geller,  IN SWEET COMPANY: CONVERSATIONS WITH EXTRAORDINARY WOMEN ABOUT LIVING A SPIRITUAL LIFE

My friend Gail likes artisan baubles. Handcrafted earrings that dangle and sway.  Colorful beads and pendants, necklaces that reflect an inner alignment with the Great Creative. “Baubling” is a spiritual practice for Gail, a connection to beauty, an expression of Divine joy. When Gail gets all gussied up and enters a room, I can hear the muses who inspired her jewelry or wove and painted the cloth of her jacket applaud. “Go Gail!” they say. “You are one we dreamed of when we willed this masterpiece into being.”

One of Gail’s favorite pieces is a necklace she spotted in a small shop on a winding cobblestone street in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. She loves the necklace because, as she says, “It spoke to me of its living spirit, a spirit that was joyous and fun. It had a life of its own. I felt like I had found a new friend to keep me company, and so I took it home with me.”   

Initially, I loved this necklace because it IS joyful and fun, and Gail took such pleasure in wearing it. Then I loved it because it reminded me of what happens when good women come together. We convene — colorful gems that we are — and our collective presence becomes a work of art, a bit of bling that echos the varied manifestations of the Divine Feminine in the world.

Gail’s beads have given me something else to love, a new way to think about a swarm of worries, a multitude of aches and pains, a string of disappointments, the minutes spent waiting in checkout lines or in traffic jams or in listening to someone drone on and on about something that holds no interest to me. I can take these occasions — minute by minute, event by event, precious bead by precious bead — and look for the Living Spirit that resides within them. I can make them my friend. If I do this, do it consistently and do it well, the muses will say of  me, “Ah, Margaret. She is the one we dreamed of, the masterpiece we willed into being.”  

Your thoughts?