This is another piece I made for the lovely Anya Kless. I am including my original notes as sent to her:
I started off with Indian Bloodstone to anchor the clasp pieces. Then I used the alternating green and gold glass beads in patterns of four-- four being a number I understood to be associated with the earth (i.e. four seasons, four winds, four corners, four directions, etc.), balance, and material gain (as opposed to spiritual gifts/gain).....The green, obviously, represents the earth, plant life, herbs, etc. The gold to me stood in for the abundance (wealth=gold association) of Earth's bounty as well as the nurturing of the Sun element which helps everything grow.Then I added Job's Tears beads because, in my mind, I thought of the Biblical trials of Job and how he maintained his Faith in his God (regardless of how we may feel about "his" "G(g)od", his show of faith through horrible Ordeals is inspiring). And it occured to me that as a shaman, healer, Priestess (especially of Ordeal type deities you serve, Odin and Lilith) that you would go through many Ordeals and still maintain your faith and service and devotion.The small green bone beads next to the larger Dragon's Blood beads was placed that way because, well, the phrase that came to my head was "blood and bone", the tests of the flesh, the shedding of blood as literal and figurative sacrifice (as well as Dragon's Blood as a resin/insence being an offering atteributed to many of the so-called "Dark Gods and Goddesses")In the second interval of the Job's Tears/bone beads/Dragon's Blood beads, I included amber at the ends because amber is an ancient fossilized resin, speaking to the strength of Earth and Her longevity, Her ability to survive and sustain not only Us as humans but before us and long after us, regenerating and cycling Her self-Healing.In the midddle you'll see amber next to two black beads, a cowrie shell in the middle, two black beads, and amber again. This pattern in my mind told the story of the ancient earth (the amber), Earth as a Mother, able to create and devour (destruction as a means of healing as occurs when "natural disasters" occur which many attribute to the Mother Earth cleansing herself), then the Black beads as the Black Womb, also generative and consuming, like Kali, like Time...the Black beads are the Blackness in the suspension of before-birth and after-death; then, between these blacknesses is a cowrie which, likened to a female womb/vaginal opening (not to mention the "teeth" of the cowrie and the myth of the Vagina Dentata), represented to me the carrier for new life or the actual act of birthing. Again, wealth comes into play because in Yoruban culture, cowries were used as currency, for divination, and Yoruban culture viewed children as the greatest wealth of mankind. If the cowrie is indeed a womb giving forth children, one is wealthy. If one is usiing cowries as money, one is wealthy. If one uses the cowries to penetrate the mysteries in divination, one is blessed with the wealth of spiritual gifts and communication/awareness.(...) I intended it to be long so that the cowrie would be drifting just above or at your navel or the entrance to your Womb (again, the cowrie/womb connection)
