Great kindness, great conversation, great fun and great passion have this all-too-clear effect on me.
To spend a day surrounded by beady beauty, with fellow beaders to talk with, and student beaders to share with....*sigh*. Heavenly! Quite simply heavenly!
Beads are such an elementary communication between people. Before any written or etched symbols achieved common use, we communicated via our adornments; status, wealth, ownership, skill - all these important social and societal cues were shared without a word being uttered, simply by the aristocrat's rare gems or the slave's bolted collar. From involuntary shackles to joyously donned betrothal bands, humankind has found myriad ways to adorn our persons to convey information. Even without a common language, the earliest nomadic populations could identify the leaders of any community they came across by their additional ornamentation.
Living in a place and time where languages are increasingly common and points of reference easily shared, beading has achieved the timelessness of true art. It has returned to its roots in conveying information from heart straight to heart, without any known language being involved, simply by being. The opportunity to share the skills and insights I've come to love is a rare and delicious gift and I cannot think of any way I would rather spend a day, than in teaching and sharing this wonderful world I love so well.
Happy Beadsday!
