ONE Knot Between Each Pearl

Learning from my Grandmother’s pearls

by Angela Babin

 I have described to clients “My Grandmother’s Good Pearls.”

 Grandma Mona was a fine arts painter but could also fabricate or craft anything from velvet curtains to elaborate fabric dolls wearing haute couture dresses and jewelry. 

 When she was in her 80s, and struggling with aphasia – she and I would walk together at an outdoor flea market in New York. She would hold up items to me and point out the good things – like a correctly rolled hand-stitched hem on a vintage scarf or – the way that the silk thread was knotted in between each pearl on a necklace.

 What did these knots do? 

 Well – firstly – the knots prevented the actual beads scraping together. This friction can irritate and erode the surface of the beads where they touch each other. Not so if there are knots!

 Secondly – when you place a strand of pearls in your palm – if the strand “is knotted” then the beads nestle in your palm gently and evenly, as the knots make the necklace bendable and flexible. Without the knots – the strand will flop around in the hand, and also does not hang as gracefully on the neck.

 Thirdly – and most dramatically – these knots prevent grave loss and accidents. Imagine your strand of pearls suffers a break. In the case where there are no knots, all of the beads cascade away following the first bead that got wrenched off. Some of the beads may even get lost as they roll away, on the floor, on the street.... However, with a knotted strand - in time of accident, break, injury – exactly a single pearl is lost.

 Let us apply this image to our experience with mindfulness.

 In his definition of mindfulness Viktor Frankl said: “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”

 In times of stress and trouble, when a challenging moment arises sometimes there is a rupture or tear in our experience – in our personal strand of pearls. In fact – we may lose a pearl. 

 Furthermore, if our strand does not have the spaces created by the knots, then all of our pearls could scatter in the challenging moment. But, if we have worked and experimented with meditation and mindful practice – perhaps we have formed some space around each experience – protecting and providing just a little cushion. 

 We use our mindfulness and meditation practice to create these little knots – “spacers” in between all of the pearls of our experience.

 Think of the beads on the knotted necklace of pearls as having a little buffer preventing abrasion, or exacerbation of the bad event, of a rupture in the strand. Instead of losing all the pearls – rather than experiencing the “runaway train” of fear, rage and loss -- we can step back and take a breath. These spacers provide a moment in which we can become responsive not reactive – so we will not experience a completely cascading and catastrophizing loss.

 Each minute of meditation is important – each minute creates a little space, a personal pillow – to allow us to think, observe, and make choices in our responses. 

 And – just as the knots in the necklace are simple to make (grandma Mona showed me how to make these with a special beading needle) we just need to experience our mindfulness practice, the cycle of practice, and return to practice. Mona showed me that the knots take a little patience, and also if I made a wrong turn, I could simply “Begin Again.”

 This applies to practice. With each breath – we have a chance to begin again, to return lovingly to our experience and practice. Imagine how many breaths we have in a 30-minute meditation – there are perhaps 300 opportunities to return. To create space. To craft our own personal cushion. I think also about the beauty of repetition of practice – and how a strand of beads sometimes appears in the different worlds of spiritual practices. Think about the beads in the Rosary, Worry beads, Prayer beads, Malas, and Tasbih or Subha. Sometimes the beads are gone and we are simply left with the knots alone as in Tzitsi. 

 Because I love symbolic visualization, I keep a set of “Good Pearls” right by my computer to remind me of grandma Mona, and to remind me of the simplicity, and, possibility of practice.

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 This writing is from a blog series ©2021 Angela Babin, MS, LCSW.

Learn more about Angela here.