Keening Prayer Beads are rooted in grief, yet provide a tactile way to enter lament, to honour loss and to stay close, returning day after day to what grief teaches us over time. In the words of Francis Weller, grief and love are sisters. The practice of reclaiming keening is to give us tools to help us grieve, and Keening Prayer Beads sets is one of those tools.
They are an invitation to sit with grief, however hard that can be. For it is sitting with grief, building a relationship with grief that helps our painful grief begins to move. This is keening work, to help grief move and transform, this is how we heal and make sure grief doesn’t become stuck and make us ill.
Your sitting practice is a place to consider all those faces of grief, from anger to confusuion, from feelings of unfairness to deep inconsolable sorrow, it is aways love that flows in, like water, to fill up the space of grief.
In your grief practice, your living practice, your meditation practice, Keening Prayer Beads become a companion for learning to live with grief, to begin to build a relationship with grief, to honour what has been lost, to stay present with what still aches, and to find a small, repeatable practice for carrying love through mourning.
The below audio file is a reading of a piece included in the Girl God anthology ‘Wounded Feminine: Grieving with Goddess'. This piece was originally titled Death is an Old Woman.
You’ve probably found d this page as you now have a set of Keening Prayer Beads in your hands, joining over 400 other people out in the world. On this page you’ll find an introduction to the beads, including:
The symbolism of the beads
An unravelling ritual
How to use the bead sections
Prayers and chants
Caring for your prayer bead set
Path of the Ancestral Mothers of Scotland
Gallery
Contact & newsletter sign up
These sets used to be called ‘Celtic Soul Prayer Beads’ but over the last year, and especially with my mums death, I realised how much I needed that tactile ritual of moving the beads through my fingers. While death holds sorry and the myriad of all the forms and faces of grief, I was still holding my beads after the tears stopped, and memories and love swirled in to take the place of grief.
I found them a tool to help move grief, but also to honour and celebrate that which we have lost, but appears in a different form.
The Symbolism of Keening Prayer Beads. The set is made up of the following sections:
The Pendant - setting the tone for the set
Silver Step beads (3)
Birth, Death and Life Beads (3)
Mystery bead (1)
Main circle of beads (40)
Threshold beads (8)
1.The Pendant
The pendant might well have been what attracted you to this particular set of beads, and so might set the tone for your prayer beads.
2. Step Beads
The three silver step beads are an invitation to intentionally shift your perception from the everyday and into sacred space. Step Beads - stepping into sacred place, connecting to place.
This practice might look different for each of us. I use them to connect to a favourite place, imaging my feet taking three slow steps on familiar ground, or following a path. With this practice I am also connecting to the energies and deities of this place.
The three step beads are slightly heavy and so satisfyingly weighty in your hand for this grounding purpose.
3. Birth, Death and Life Beads
We each have been born into this life and one thing we can be assured of is that we will die.
The first bead after the three step beads is the birth bead - acknowledging this birth and our existence in human form, and gratitude for being alive.
The death bead (which follows the mystery bead ) invites us to reflect on our own mortality. What is your relationship to death, is it something you've considered or is something you'd rather not think about?
The bead outside of the circle on the tassel represents life and our individual choices of what we engage with in our life.
4. Rúnda (The Mystery Bead)
Rúnda is a Scottish Gaelic words meaning hidden or secret but it can also mean unknowable, unnamable and beyond our understanding. This bead represents this unknowing, whether you call it divine, source, Goddess or God. It also represents the acceptance of not knowing, and honouring the mystery of how that relationship unfolds. The mystery bead is generally made from a star cut quartz bead.
5. Circle of Beads
The main circle of beads is made up from 40 beads divided into 8 sections reflecting the festivals of the Wheel of the Year.
6. The Threshold Beads
The threshold beads divide the 40 main beads into 8 sections of 5 beads. Each of the sections represents the 8 festivals of the Celtic Wheel of the Year.
The sections aren't named and so if you wish to use your prayer beads by considering the different energies of the Wheel of the Year you can begin with whatever holy day season you are beginning with.
The sections are divided by threshold beads, which are generally are generally circular or spherical with a spiral or Celtic knot style design .
Jade Keening Prayer Beads with Irish Bog Oak Brighid’s Cross
2. An Unravelling Ritual
The end of the silk thread where it has been cut has been left unravelled. While the thread might unravel a little naturally, the main unravelling of the thread is a ritual for you, a symbolic act as the beads leave my hands and are welcomed into yours.
3. How to Use the Bead Sections
I’m sure you have your own way of using prayer beads, but I;ll share how I use the individual sections of beads.
The Pendant
Some days I really need to quieten my mind a little before I can sit in this practice. I begin with the pendant, what is it that drew me to it, what special qualities does it hold for me. What is it about the pendant that is drowning me in right now as I sit with the beads?
Three Step beads
Each of these beads is an invitation to connect to place. For each step I might recall a favourite place I associate with Brighid, perhaps beach or holy wells throughout the hebrides. I take some time recalling these places, the sounds of the birds, the weather and how these places felt.
An Rúnda
This is the bead which represents divinity and the unknowing principle. To consider those encounters in life, the synchronicities and awe we experience. This is creation, source, Goddess, God, whatever name you use, or don’t use. To sit with this unknowing, be comforted by it, challenged by it and everything else that might arise.
The Circle of Beads
Using a chant
One way to begin the journey around the circle of beads is to use a chant. Beginning again with each bead before moving on. Another way I also find effective is in making up a phrase of nonsense words. These are words you have no connection with and I find can be very helpful to quiet the mind, especially if it is racing or worrying and doesn’t create any associated images or story. I continue on for as long as I need around the circle using this made up phrase.
You could also use the word Rúnda (phonetically raw-n-da) one way to do this would be to let go of whatever focus you have of divinity, letting go of the frameworks you have of understanding and how you relate to this concept, knowing that the energy of this divinity, this divine changes, and then so does your relationship.
Wheel of the year reflection (more in the Ancestral Mothers Section below)
The circle of 40 beads are divided into five eight sections, this reflects the sections of the Neo-pagan wheel of the year. This is another way of journeying the circle of beads, reflecting on each of the festivals and what that offers. What energies or figures might you hour on that journey. Or circle the beads honouring one figure, reflecting on the different faces of that figure that you see throughout the year.
Breathing into the Circle
More than often I approach these beads through the 3 step beads, An Rúnda, and begin the circle with a made up phrase and at the point where I feel myself sinking deeper, I take my hands on either side of the set, forming a circle and let myself sink down into that circle. This is the circle of life, or the holy well. Like the well those holy waters are life giving and everyone before us and those to come after us all need clean water.
Thought the Hebrides there are holy wells, many associated with local saints or Brighid. Some wells were said to hold specific powers of healing and people made a pilgrimage to those wells to cure certain ailments.
In the tale of the The Elucidation (from the story of Perceval within the stories of the Holy Grail) it tells us that there were once Well Maidens who tended these holy wells. They had a golden cup ad would offer travellers and pilgrims water and shelter on their journey. Now isn’t the time for the full story but a hideous act caused the well maidens to retreat from the world, leaving the land a wasteland, which we now live in. To touch on this story is to remember the well maidens, and how each of us, in our own way, might be able to step into that role of tending the wellspring and providing life giving water in its many symbolistic forms.
4. Prayers and Chants
There are so many sources of inspiration to create your own prayers and chants. A favourite of mine is the volumes of the Carmina Gadelica, I ight take traditional prayers, use the same rhythm and flow but rewrite them. Click here to view the Carmina Gadelica online.
I create my own prayer book, making a small booklet with folded printer paper, a decorated from cover of A4 crard - all folded to create a A5 size booklet. If you don’t have a long reach stapler you can add an elastic band or sew the pages together.
I’ll add poems from favourite writers such as John O’Donohue, and this way you can build up your own collection of writings to use as prayers.
Create your own prayer book - I made the above booklets from folded printer paper and a black piece of card for the cover, or use a notebook or journal. Copy prayers or poems - from favorite writers such as John O’Donohue etc. Build up your own collection of writings you may wish to use as prayers.
5. Caring for your Keening Prayer Beads
1. Avoid storing them by hanging them on something – Silk can stretch over time, so avoid hanging your beads on a hook or peg, this may weaken the cord and cause it to lose its shape.
2. Pouch or Bag. Selecting a special pouch, bag or box to store your beads helps them lay flat or gently coiled. (I don't provide these as it's a very personal thing).
3. Keep Away from Water and Perfumes – Silk is delicate and can weaken when exposed to moisture, oils, or perfumes. Avoid wearing your beads while bathing or applying scented products.
4. Handle them with Clean Hands – This stops both your beads and the cord from residue as natural oils and dirt from your hands can wear down the silk over time, so try to handle them with clean, dry hands to preserve their longevity.
5. Restringing I've only had two sets of beads break. One user shared that she was willing to take the risk because she always carried her beads with her while walking, often in very wet conditions. The second person was at the bedside of a loved one, and the beads broke at the same moment her beloved passed away.
6. The Path of the Ancestral Mothers of Scotland
As the circle of your Keening Prayer Beads set form eight sections, these can be reflected in the wheel of the year. Below is an outline to the Ancestral Mothers of Scotland.
I use the frame of the Wheel of the Year to hold stories of the Ancestral Mothers of Scotland. Some of these stories come from folklore (the lore of the people) such as tales of the Goddess Brighid and the Cailleach, while others have emerged from my relationship with the land around where I live.
While you might well have your own figures you connect to, the figures i call the Ancestral Mothers are my inspiration for creating the beads.
The four Gaelic festivals are:
Imbolc (Là Fhèill Brìghde)
Beltane (Là Bealltainn)
Lughanasadh (Lùnastal)
Samhuinn
The Descending Moon (Autumn Equinox)
The full moon of Autumn Equinox beckons preparations for the dark of the year. To Breejah and the women of the Bear this means tending to the Cave of the Grandmothers and the rituals which herald the return of the great She bear, whose winter journey provided the first descent and return story.
Hag Eye Moon (Samhain)
Samhain, the Gaelic festival of the dead, a time of honoring ancestors - our blood and bone ancestors and those lineages we have adopted or been adopted into. Samhain holds the story of the great Crone, the Cailleach who makes her way to the Cauldron of Corryvrecken to wash her great plaid. An age-old ritual in which she brings the land into winter. As she lifts her bleached shawl from the churning water, shaking it dry, lifting it up and around her shoulders the falling drops of water freeze instantly and turn the tops of the surrounding hills white with the first dusting of snow.
Antler Moon (Winter Solstice)
Winter Solstice holds the story of the the Old Antlered One, and ancient towering, antlered skeletal figure. She brought life to these northern lands and was first honored by the people who followed herds of reindeer. Among those people were the women who wore antlers, the wise women of the clan and among them, she Who Runs With the Herd. Their rituals include gathering at a stone & bone shrine where they undertake their shapeshifting ritual, to take reindeer form and run with the herd.
Kindling Moon (Imbolc)
The festival of Imbolc welcomes Brighid back into the world. With her return Brighid brings hope and as an activist hers is an Active Hope rooted in action. Among all of Brighid’s traditions and rites I work with her gift of Keening, of lamenting - a tradition Brighid brought to the world.
Bear Returns Moon (Spring Equinox)
Spring Equinox marks the emerging from the dark of the year, the ritual of looking back at our time in the deep and deciding what stays there and what we move forward with. To our earliest ancestors seeing bears emergence from the cave would have been an auspicious sight. To comes across a bear in hibernation you might well think she was dead with her low heartbeat and slow breathing. And yet she comes back to life, and as she does the land magically starts to awake and bear often gives birth in hibernation and so she emerges not just coming back to life but with new life in the form of cubs by her side. In the story of myth - descent, deep and return - Spring Equinox symbolizes the great return.
Seal Skin Moon (Beltane)
The time of Beltane on the Ancestral Mothers calendar is honored on the 1st crescent of the waxing moon. This moon honors the Ancestral Mother Cee-al, who lived in Scotland in the Mesolithic, connected to the isle of Oronsay and the great shell middens. Hers is a story connected to the seal people, her mysteries around honoring our wild self, reading the landscape and the tale of the Selkie-Skin.
Gathering Moon (Summer Solstice)
Summer Solstice offers us the longest day and the shortest night. In these northern lands it barely gets dark, and the land is bathed in the magical wash of long lingering twilights. It’s by the light of twilight that we can almost see the unseen, faces in the cliffs become visible. The Ancestral Mothers are celebrated int he stories of the ‘Big Women’ - of the female warriors and tales from the Western Isles. It’s about connection community, taking time to step outside of patriarchy and dream new ways of being and organizing how to put those plans into action.
Talon Moon (Lunastal)
Late summer is a time of being under the wing of Talieasker. A bird woman who is far more eagle than human. Hers is a ritual of excarnation, of tearing the flesh from the bodies, a ritual where the dead were left out in sky burials for the raptors to clean. I met this figure on the Isle of Eigg, by a huge eagle shaped rock called the Eagle’s Primotory by a curious place called the Oracle’s Chamber. Taliesaker’s rite, for the who seek her in this out of the way place, is to lie you down, lull you into a place between the worlds before she performs her ritual, which often involves the metaphorical ripping away of accumulated, unwanted ayers. Not a ritual for the faint hearted.
6. Prayer Bead Gallery
A selection of prayer beads I have made over the years.
7. Contact & Newsletter sign up
If you have any questions about your prayer beads, or would like any additional information, or would like to leave feedback on your set (which I’d be very appreciative if you did) - or if you’d like to keep in touch, use the relevant buttons below.
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