Books, Beads and some History

Books! I love books - the look, the feel, the smell. Especially old books. We went on a family outing to Recycle Bookstore this afternoon, and it was wonderful! It has been a long time since I visited a good, used-book store. I stood in the children's section with my daughters for a long time, looking at so many books - many were the same editions that I remember reading as a child. We brought home a great compilation of horse stories for my horse-crazy daughter, and I selected inexpensive versions of Louisa May Alcott's Little Women and Little Men, which I have not read in many years. I also bought Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass - which evidently I could have just read online, but there are still times when I'm happier holding a little paperback book than sitting with my laptop on my lap. I've never really read these, I think - only abridged versions, so I'm looking forward to reading them.

My kids tired of watching me look at books rather quickly, but thankfully this is a very relaxed bookstore that provides its own live entertainment for animal-loving young girls - two resident cats! As I was trying to reciprocate patiently and allow my daughters some time to fawn over one of the napping cats, I glanced around and saw, sitting on the floor in the middle of the aisle alongside a few piles of unshelved books, a book called The History of Beads from 30,000 B.C. to the Present.

Beads! I love beads and beading. The feel of beads, and the intense satisfaction of putting them together in unique and creative ways, is one of my favorite creative outlets. I don't really know all that much about beads, or their history, or history at all for that matter (my education was rather narrowly focused). So I brought home this book on the history of beads, and what a treasure it is! So many pictures of beads, found from people groups all over the world and throughout history.

There is something amazing about looking at these pictures. There is a picture of a bre*sts-shaped ivory bead of the East Gravettian culture found in Czechoslovakia, dated from around 28,000 B.C.! The author describes it as "capture[ing] an inner vision of fertility and motherhood", and that this is one of the earliest known figurative art objects. There is an amazing bead cloak of Queen Pu-abi, from the royal Sumerian graves at Ur, from 2,500 B.C.. This cloak looks somewhat like a short, beaded curtain and has carnelian, lapis lazuli, agate, silver, and gold beads (and these are all materials in my beadbox today!). There are beads, and their history, from Africa, India, Asia, the Americas. There are examples of prayer beads from all around the world, from many different religions.

So tonight, I am flipping pages and looking at pictures of these little gemstone, bone, and glass objects. I am reminded that there have been women (and men) who held and traded these objects, made art and adorned themselves with these objects, worshiped and prayed with these objects - for generation upon generation. I feel somehow connected, closer, to the women who came before me in history, as looking at the books of my childhood connected me a little to my own history. Isn't it amazing to think about women holding these beads, and begging God (in what ever way they understood Him) for mercy, for provision, for babies, for health - even longer ago than we can comprehend?