\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u2026the rosary is an ellipsis, a knotted umbilicus.\u00a0 You arrive in a text as a newborn, attached by a cord to the rest of your life, which has enwombed you so far.\u00a0 When the cord is cut by your disoriented curiosity, you crave reconnection, sending your own tendrils into space, to string your life to this river of moments, this cascade of beads.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n When I was six my great-aunt, who was a nun, gave me her rosary while she was dying.\u00a0 It was made of glass beads that shone dark blue against the hospital greens.\u00a0 Watching the nurses drift in and out, I played a game.\u00a0 I put the rosary on my head so that it hooked over my ears like a stethoscope.\u00a0 I made each nurse lean over me so that I could press the silver crucifix to their hearts, stealing boyish glances at them.\u00a0 I asked my great-aunt: What seems to be the trouble, young lady?\u00a0 <\/i>And Sister laughed and coughed.\u00a0 And so I pressed the crucifix to her own bony chest and said Let me listen, here<\/i>.\u00a0 And Sister laughed and coughed and cried.\u00a0 I pressed the crucifix again to her bony and papery chest and said Why are you sick?<\/i>\u00a0 She died soon after, and I have been listening to the beads and through the beads ever since.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n A lover gave me a Tibetan m\u0101l\u0101 for me to track the days of our lives. The beads are made from yak bone embedded with turquoise and coral harvested from the Himalayas, which were once under the sea.\u00a0 It is strung together with hemp string coated with beeswax.\u00a0 The bone holds the patina of sebum from the fingers of old monks who drank yak butter tea.\u00a0 Their minds consumed the bones and their bodies consumed the butter, producing bones. I prayed hard on this m\u0101l\u0101, in a room apart from her. It broke on every anniversary. When we parted, I didn\u2019t repair it.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Like a child on a summer\u2019s afternoon, I twirl my great-aunt\u2019s rosary into my yak bone rosary and so model my DNA as both an instrument of devotion and an image of my sacred transcultural and transhistorical bafflement.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Bored by theology, I worship rosarian technology in its pervasive and perverse applications: math, astronomy, physics, sexuality, linguistics, studies in time, medicine, communication theory, divination, aesthetics.\u00a0 The m\u0101l\u0101 is a grouping of precious points (a grouping of pressure points), a collection of ones (strings) and zeroes (beads), a symbol of lingam and yoni, an emblem of circular time.\u00a0 The rosary can tell a story of everything if only human recitation and interior monologue falls truly silent for just a few moments.\u00a0 The history of the rosary is told by these beads: a sombre truth interwoven with wondrous fiction. Or is it the other way around?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n A m\u0101l\u0101 can be made from the large seeds of lotus or rudraksha, hardwoods like cherry, softwoods like sandalwood, unpolished stones then polished by fingertips, and the bones of quadrupeds. Tiger\u2019s bones are said to turn semen to mercury. The bead should be porous, allowing for the absorption of bodily oils, pheromones, the saliva of pets, temple incense, rhythm, and thought.\u00a0 What the bead absorbs through handling releases as the breath of later prayers cascade over it. Whenever I speak silently, I taste the past.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The m\u0101l\u0101 is \u2018rooted\u2019 at its guru bead, a larger and more decorative bead to which the 108 are strung.\u00a0 It represents stability, anchorage, the counsel received by the devotee, and the teacher, the guru.\u00a0 One of the meanings of guru<\/em> is \u201cheavy\u201d.\u00a0 The guru bead lets the m\u0101l\u0101 sink down and in.\u00a0 It forms a weighted reference point in the stream of mantra, a bead that is recovered after each round, a bead that represents death and the present moment simultaneously.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The string of the traditional m\u0101l\u0101 is a tightly-twisted braid of nine threads, one for each of the planets, which themselves are figured by the beads.\u00a0 Over the lifespan of the string, one or more of these threads will snap, and as this happens, the total length of the string will increase.\u00a0 Through usage, the m\u0101l\u0101 renders consciousness more expansive because it makes the string of individual identity thinner.\u00a0 In turn, the m\u0101l\u0101 itself expands towards a very delicate and ecstatic breaking point.\u00a0 What connects our days together \u2013 the shadow of death \u2013 becomes more spacious and more transparent.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Every physical detail of the m\u0101l\u0101 is saturated with meaning and functional purpose unique to the devotee who will use it.\u00a0 The m\u0101l\u0101 is chosen for the reciter by her teacher, and the seller of the m\u0101l\u0101 is compelled to have comprehensive knowledge of which materials and styles are appropriate for each circumstance and intention.\u00a0 The typical m\u0101l\u0101-dealer of Kathmandu is running a psycho-somatic apothecary, dispensing slow-release capsules of prayer. While Western nuns may all be issued a standard-issue plastic resin rosary like a grunt receiving a rifle, Indian and Tibetan monastics will each receive a m\u0101l\u0101 that is appropriate to their physical and mental constitution, that will resonate with their natal horoscopes, and was carved or molded from materials native to their birth-place.\u00a0 These factors are meant to connect them uniquely to their tantric angel, their bodily integrity, or their ishta devata<\/i>: that most resonant and personal image of release.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The pharmacology of m\u0101l\u0101 beads is both precise and multivalent, designed to trigger physiological, neurological, psychological, and evolutionary layers of experience in interweaving dynamism.\u00a0 Mantras meant to appease either benefic or malefic influences should be recited upon white beads \u2013 crystal, pearl, or mother of pearl \u2013 which purify tissues and mind.\u00a0 White is anabolic, lactational, mucoidal, and seminal.\u00a0 Mantras meant to amplify virtues, powers, or external blessings should be recited upon beads of gold, silver, or lotus seeds.\u00a0 These substances both radiate and blossom.\u00a0 Mantras to overcome obstacles are recited on wooden beads: elm, peach, rose, sandalwood.\u00a0 These materials grow slowly and fragrantly along the paths of least resistance.\u00a0 Wrathful mantras for protection and the destruction of malefic energies are to be recited on rudraksha seeds or beads of human bone.<\/p>\n![\"Greek_uc_phi\"](\"http:\/\/matthewremski.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/Greek_uc_phi-e1380017568822.png\")
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