Jeff Russell

Wow, I had no idea about making beads from flower petals, thank you for sharing this!

From my own reading of Pagan Prayer Beads, there's a brief discussion about what kind of symbolism you might consider when choosing/crafting beads, but if I remember right, the default assumption is that you'll be buying beads, and very little (if any) space is given to the idea of crafting your own with Natural Magic-informed processes.

As a brief aside, I have a bracelet with beads for the Runes which I made out of "Holy Land Olive Wood" (a company sells Israeli olive wood for beads and other purposes for its symbolic significance). In my case, I wasn't exactly going for the Christian significance, but the Runes are traditionally supposed to be carved on fruit-bearing wood, I was a Classics major in college, and I've always appreciated Athena, who gifted the olive tree to the Athenians, and I figured any Judeo-Christian holy associations wouldn't be hurtful. Perhaps more important than all of these considerations, olive wood has stunningly lovely striations and is dense and hard, making for very good-looking and long-lasting features.

Lastly, that's fascinating to hear about the different bead guilds. Those kinds of specialist technologies are exactly the kind of thing I'd like to learn more about - and I'd be interested to hear about the "alternative" social/business/political organizations of folks involved as well (what made guilds work when they did? What changed that displaced them? What have we lost in following "progress"?)

Oh, lastly, I'd love to hear how your DIY rosary beads turn out.

Thanks,
Jeff