The Beads That Chose Me
The Beads
That Chose Me
I was told to look for gold. What arrived was white. This is the story of what I learned about the timing of becoming.
Last Sunday, my mala beads chose me. It had taken three months, two healers, and a color I could not find anywhere.
I'm listening with my full attention as she tells me she sees me with mala beads the color of the golden sun. She's a Reiki energy healer, and this is my very first Reiki session, three months ago in Costa Rica. It's something I have always wanted to try.
If you have never held them, mala beads are a string of beads used in meditation and prayer. The word mala is Sanskrit for garland. They have roots in many spiritual traditions, and they serve as a physical reminder of a person's path and intentions. A quiet tool for mindfulness, reflection, and connection. Something you can hold in your hand when you want to come back to yourself.
So her words stay with me. Golden sun. I keep them in the back of my mind.
You Will Know When It Chooses You
A month later, I'm still in Costa Rica, sitting with another Reiki healer. After our session, she tells me something strikingly similar to the first. And then she adds a line I don't forget.
"Mala beads choose. You will know when it chooses you."
So I don't buy one there. I think about ordering a set online, but every time I look, I can't decide. Nothing feels like the one. I keep waiting for the knowing she described, and it doesn't come. So I leave it alone.
The Table at the Entrance
This Sunday, during our Shaolin Master Class, there's a table set up at the entrance. Bracelets and mala beads, laid out in rows.
I'm really excited. I scan the whole table, looking for the color I was told to look for. And all I see are white beads. No yellow. No gold. Not one.
I pick up one of the last two white mala beads left, and for some reason I don't want to put it down. In my head, I'm thinking, but you're supposed to be yellow. So I tell myself, that's okay. I'll take this one, and I'm sure I'll find a yellow one somewhere else another time.
A woman comes to the table and tells me the beads are made of bodhi seeds by the Shaolin monks, and they are not for sale. They accept donations instead. I gladly make a donation for my white mala beads.
What the Monk Wanted Me to Know
I start to walk away. And then one of the Shaolin monks comes over to the table and speaks quietly into the woman's ear.
She turns to me. She tells me he wants her to pass something along, because he doesn't speak any English. As these beads get used, she says, they will eventually turn yellow-gold.
He raises his hand to show me his own mala beads, wrapped around his wrist. The same beads I'm holding. And from years of being worn, from being prayed with and lived with and held, they have turned a beautiful golden yellow.
The gold was never missing. It was always going to come. Through wear. Through time. Through use.
I went looking for gold and came home with white. And a monk crossed a room to make sure I understood that the two were the same thing, only at different points in time.
The beads chose me the way I was told they would. I just didn't recognize the choosing, because it didn't arrive finished.
I keep my white beads where I can see them. They are still pale, still new. But I know what they are becoming now.
Some things do not arrive as gold. They become gold, through being lived with, held, and worn. And so do we.
Dr. Maria Grace Wolk · mariagracewolk.com