In stories and pictures, this book shows how people of all faith traditions use prayer beads as a spiritual tool and a means of expressing their creativity. Every major world religion has a tradition of praying with beads and all are explored here, including the history and use of beads and specific prayers. Describes in detail and with diagrams how to make sets of prayer beads for personal use.
A BEAD AND A PRAYER introduces Protestants to prayer as a way to connect with God. Readers will explore the history and art of using beads in prayer, discover ways to pray with beads, and learn how beads can help them deepen their faith, understand Christian beliefs, and listen to God. Instructions for making prayer beads are included. Great for Christians with no experience in using beads for prayer, Sunday school classes, womens groups, prayer groups. Youth and children will also enjoy making prayer beads, led by someone using this book as a guide.
The practice of the rosary in various faiths is thoroughly covered in this stunning book and its accompanying DVD. For background, the commentary explains that the word "bead" has an interfaith origin: it comes from both the Sanskrit "Buddh," which refers to self-realization (the Buddha is the "Enlightened One"); and it also derives from the Saxon verb "bidden," meaning to pray. The rosaries pictured are made from such materials as rose petals, chunks of Tibetan amber, exquisitely carved Italian coral, and silken Turkish tassels. One simple mantra or prayer for each faith is also presented, as is a prize-winning DVD that takes the viewer into various world cultures where the recitation and method can be heard and seen.
Eleanor Wiley and Maggie Oman Shannon have taken an ancient practice and made it new. A String and a Prayer recounts the history and symbolism of prayer beads, teaches basic techniques for stringing beads and a host of other objects into prayer beads, and offers a variety of prayers and rituals to use those beads on a daily basis. Beads have appeared throughout history. Prayer beads are used in the spiritual practices of cultures as diverse as the African Masai, Native Americans, Greek and Russian Orthodoxy, as well as the religious rituals of Islam, Hinduism, Christianity, and Buddhism. But prayer is highly personal. By infusing prayer beads with personal associations, we can keep our spirituality fresh. The beads are a device to help build and rebuild meaningful ritual in our lives. With myriad ideas about what makes objects sacred and where to find sacred objects -- from the personal, perhaps beads from a grandmother's broken rosary, to the unusual, maybe seashells from far away found in a thrift store -- A String and a Prayer offers many suggestions for different ways that beads can be made and used, exploring the creative roles they can play in our relationships, ceremonies, and rituals. "You are the expert, trust yourself. Let the instructions be a guide to your own creativity," write the authors.
Offers fresh answers to the age-old question, "Why pray?" Building from the shared prayer forms of many faiths, Wikstrom offers a modern prayer bead practice that you can make your own. In addition, the author includes practical suggestions for composing prayers to use with the beads. Simply Pray is an excellent guide for anyone seeking a unique spiritual practice that is deeply rooted in the world's great religions. Wikstrom identifies and defines the four major types of prayer that are practiced by all the world's major religions: * Naming the many ways in which the holy is present in daily life and the wider world * Knowing the self introspectively --both in its strengths and weaknesses * Listening to the "voice of quiet stillness" that resides in each individual * Loving by reaching out to the world Simply Pray uses these four core prayer types to develop a modern worship practice, using prayer beads as a frame of reference. The book offers illustrated prayer-bead techniques that can be used directly or customized for personal use. There are also helpful tips on how to make prayer a part of your daily routine, as well as how to to make prayer beads and the benefits of using them: * Prayer beads serve as a focus for meditation. Much more than a mnemonic aid to prayer, prayer beads engage the senses to create a state of mindfulness. * Prayer beads are mobile altars. Simply touching the beads as they rest in a pocket, briefcase, or purse brings a prayerful presence to mundane moments. * Prayer beads serve as reminders of prayer and help keep track of prayers. Simply Pray is for anyone who is seeking a modern prayer practice that is deeply rooted in world tradition.
Religions from around the world--Buddhism, Hinduism, Catholicism, Islam, and many more, including the Pagan earth religions--use prayer beads as useful guides to remembering prayers and principles. Pagan Prayer Beads by John Michael Greer and Clare Vaughn is a unique and practical introduction to the design, creation, and use of Pagan rosaries, teaching the reader to design and make personal prayer beads for use in myriad spiritual practices. Co-written by a beading expert (Clare Vaughn) and one of the leading lights in modern Paganism (John Michael Greer), this book will garner an eager audience--from beginners to elders--looking for new inspiration in their personal spiritual practice. Beautifully written, instructive, and straightforward, Pagan Prayer Beads is user-friendly and easy to understand. Lovely black-and-white photographs accompany the text to further illustrate the art and craft of Pagan prayer beads. The how-to sections were "tested" by novices to both crafting and "the craft," who found the directions clear and easy to follow. Throughout the book, Greer and Vaughn have included fascinating history and lore as well as crystal properties, Pagan symbology, and deeply meaningful prayers and rituals to use with the rosaries. * 30 lovely black-and-white photos accompany the beading instructions.
Join author Jean-Louis de Biasi as he explores how the profound tactile experience of using prayer beads can be used to deepen spiritual work in Qabala, Wicca, Druidry, and Hermetic traditions. With tips and techniques for choosing prayer beads as well as cleansing and consecrating them for spiritual use, The Magical Use of Prayer Beads is an ideal guide for beginners and adepts alike. Includes rituals that can be performed alone, with two people, or with a group—extending the useful applications and power beyond the more traditional approaches. This book explores unique practices for some of the most prominent Western mystery traditions, creating new paths on the journey of spirituality and magic.
Prayer can heal you. It's not just hype or hope or a spiritual cliché.There is actual scientific evidence to support this. Recent medical and psychological studies claim that prayer can relieve stress, improve attitudes, and mend bodies. Prayer generates peace, power, and health-a triple preventative that guards against anxiety and disease. It's a simple act that heals. According to Chet Tolson and Harold Koenig prayer helps people function at their best when life serves them the worst. Even on good days, it enhances the mind-body-soul connection. In The Healing Power of Prayer, these authors explain the nature of prayer, what happens when we pray, the restorative benefits of prayer, how to organize prayer, and much more. Their facts and insights will encourage believers to increase, the fainthearted to revive, and skeptics to begin a life of prayer.
A creative way to pray – across faith traditions – made new for all who seek a more intimate experience with God. Lushly illustrated. Divided into three parts, the first part of Bead by Bead takes a historical look at prayer beads across centuries and cultures. Part Two showcases opportunities for heart/mind/body ways to “pray the beads without the beads,” including activities that are whimsical, ordinary, and spirited, to inspire readers to create their own. The book concludes with an invitation to contemplate one’s own life as a rosary. Readers are encouraged to draw their own set of prayer beads and, with discernment and prayer, label each bead. They then can keep and literally hold their life in their hands in prayer, gratitude, and awe.
What happens when a former Zen Buddhist monk and his feminist wife experience an apparition of the Virgin Mary? “This book could not have come at a more auspicious time, and the message is mystical perfection, not to mention a courageous one. I adore this book.”—Caroline Myss, author of Anatomy of the Spirit Before a vision of a mysterious “Lady” invited Clark Strand and Perdita Finn to pray the rosary, they were not only uninterested in becoming Catholic but finished with institutional religion altogether. Their main spiritual concerns were the fate of the planet and the future of their children and grandchildren in an age of ecological collapse. But this Lady barely even referred to the Church and its proscriptions. Instead, she spoke of the miraculous power of the rosary to transform lives and heal the planet, and revealed the secrets she had hidden within the rosary’s prayers and mysteries—secrets of a past age when forests were the only cathedrals and people wove rose garlands for a Mother whose loving presence was as close as the ground beneath their feet. She told Strand and Finn: The rosary is My body, and My body is the body of the world. Your body is one with that body. What cause could there be for fear? Weaving together their own remarkable story of how they came to the rosary, their discoveries about the eco-feminist wisdom at the heart of this ancient devotion, and the life-changing revelations of the Lady herself, the authors reveal an ancestral path—available to everyone, religious or not—that returns us to the powerful healing rhythms of the natural world.
