Jeff Russell

Thanks for the update, and no worries on it being "late."

I'm glad to hear you've gotten the materials for your beads! I agree that there's a certain tendency to turn it into a LARP, but I also think that the material part of it is one of the attractions - it's certainly what first grabbed my attention for this kind of praying, so I'd say don't feel bad about enjoying it.

And yeah, fair enough on the struggles with translation. Translating poetry is always very hard, and as you say, these poems/prayers are indeed very idiosyncratic, so that makes things even harder. I think either approach you mention has merit, and it makes me wonder if I ought to have picked a "liturgical" language like Old Norse or Old English and just leaned into "don't worry about translating, the poems are in this language, it doesn't have to be what you speak" like Catholics historically did with Latin for the Rosary.

That being said, I obviously find value in praying in the language I actually know, and have crafted some prayers that work for me along those lines, so I certainly can't begrudge you doing the same for yourself! Whatever you end up coming up with, I'd love to see it.

Good luck, and may you find the praying helpful, whatever shape it takes!

Cheers,
Jeff