This week was a momentous week when my beads and I were united after 7 months apart. It felt like reuniting with an old friend when I carefully unwrapped the jar with my thousands of beads in it.I haven’t yet had a chance over the last few hectic days to count out how many beads I need to now add into my jar to represent the days gone over the last 7 months or so, but will do this week. 

The magnitude always hits me so much stronger when I have been away for a week or two and then put all those beads in to represent the days away. I know to put 7 months worth of beads in the jar will be extremely moving. It’s such a stark thing looking at beads drop into a jar knowing you can’t get them back again. Days that are now spent that you can’t get back again…

Today I spent sometime in a graveyard, an ancient graveyard by a castle, and was looking at the dates and names of people in the graves. Some died extremely young, a few days old, others a few years and still on one headstone 7 children had died varying from a few days in age to late twenties and then their parents died in their late seventies. I was struck again by how mysterious this all is, life. How some of us have days, some just a handful of years and others decades. That even within one family the dice can roll so wildly differently for people.

I remember a plaque above a crypt in Rome which simply said “what you are we once were, what we are you will become” Graveyards and crypts are poignant reminders of where we’re all headed. The question is when. Which always brings me back to the Bead Movement as it is a grounding reminder to daily have a moment, a thought and an intention for the day. 

Reminded now of my favorite line in my favorite poem, by Mary Oliver:

Tell me what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

I plan to have an adventure, as well as sometime in a hammock and by a roaring fire, but most of all I plan not to squander any of it. Even the seemingly dark days that come during a plague.

Tags: mary oliver, Mhairi Morrison, The bead movement