Charmed Circle

Ceridwen posted a collection of charms, fetishes, and keepsakes; Chaiselongue followed with a Turkish Eye. This is my showing.

I've lived a nomadic life, and I suppose my main spiritual practice has been letting go, so I have not arrived at this moment with enough to fill a cabinet of curiosities. I do have a few small treasures I've arranged on a ripply scarf that looks to me like the river into which Heraclitus says we can never step twice.

The gold chain is my grandfather's watch chain, missing the watch. I remember fingering this chain as I sat in his lap feeling safe, cherished and cherishing. During my worst years of financial hardship, I considered selling the chain, but I was never able to let go of it. Inside the charmed circle of that chain, at about 11 o'clock, is my grandmother's thimble. It's made of nothing special, pot metal, but it's dear to me because it gathered her energy as she embroidered pillow cases and table cloths for all those she loved, her hobby when she had retired and was the age I am now. To the right of her thimble is another bit of pot metal: a prayer ring from the shrine of Notre Dame de Rocamadour, in Languedoc. My son S., who was four during our time of living in Cordes and visiting Rocamadour, insisted on buying that ring for me with his precious allowance money because it was his belief that it would protect me. He may have been right, as I'm still here.

To the right of the ring is a small pendant given to me in South Africa by a Hindu mystic named Padmani Pillay. The pendant features Mata Durga, sometimes called Shakti Ma, the mother of all mothers and destroyer of demons, holding knives to cut through deception. Padmani Pillay was a highly-respected clairvoyant who often entered a trance in which she spoke for Mata Kali, but she said that whenever she was in trance and I appeared, Kali went away and Mata Durga began to speak. As a result, she felt that I was somehow a manifestation of Mata Durga's energy, and she gave me that pendant "so that you keep calling her to you." Padmani died three years ago, but one of her children stays in touch with me on Facebook.

Finally, slightly to the left of Mata Durga is the tiny gold locket I wore as a small child, a gift from my great-aunt Lucy, my grandfather's sister who married well and lived in a brownstone in New York City, and who always showed up at family gatherings with spectacular gifts. I'm waiting for my granddaughter Bella to be old enough to wear the locket, at which time I'll pass it on to her.

I am agnostic about the unseen forces of the universe. I know that I don't know. I have seen people like Padmani Pillay do and say things that defy my understanding. There is much I don't understand, and although I have little faith in anything but the existence of beauty, the force of nature, and the infinite devices of the human heart, I respect those who believe they know things, and I back away and leave them to what they know.

My thanks to Ceridwen for starting this meme and to Chaiselongue for adding to it. It was a pleasure to hold these things in my hands, to think about the love in them, and to arrange them for a photograph. In the process of doing that, I learned how difficult it is to get a good clear focus on an assortment of small things. I wonder who else will sort through their charms, fetishes, and amulets and carry on the meme.