The Great Story Beads and the Devas of Creation

A year or so ago, I ran across a wonderful project, bookmarked it, then forgot about it. I remembered it this weekend and want to do something with it. It's a project known as Great Story Beads, also called Earth Beads, Universe Story Beads, Cosmic Rosary, Cosmala, Big History Beads, and probably other names. These beads commemorate the 'epic of evolution'. They highlight the actual story of the Universe to help participants experience wonder and a sense of real belonging in the vast cosmos and the adventure of life, including the events of our own life, thus ensuring we see our personal story as an integral part of a larger story -- and that we ourselves are an expression of the Universe.

The project involves identifying key events on the timeline of creation, and finding beads to represent each, then creating a necklace or mala.

Watch this video featuring one of the pioneers of the Great Story Beads:




And here are some websites for further reading:

Ritualising Big History

Evolution Beads 

Great Story Beads

I really love this idea and want to make such a mala. It got me thinking about another resource that attempts to tell a version of the Great Story, and that's Cilla Conway's Devas of Creation. This deck is not as literal in its portrayal of the Epic of Evolution, focusing instead on 'devas'. Conway describes them as 'primordial energies, invisible energy patterns in the universe, which contain the blueprints for every aspect of existence, from the smallest sub-atomic particle to the universe itself. The are multi-dimensional beings, each one part of the Implicate Order that physicist David Bohm talks about, where the Universe is simultaneously whole, and all its enfolded layers. Thus every deva contains within itself the whole Cosmos, the holographic image of Divinity. We ourselves are an integral part of that underlying order: a unique particle of the Divine Mind.'

Devas of Creation

The Devas of Creation contain the following cards:

The Unmanifest--
The Source
The Shining Ones
The Fundamental Laws
The Elements
Numinous and Ambivalent Qualities
Shadow Energies

The Physical Universe--
The Heavenly Bodies
Devas of the Seasons
Devas of Life
Devas of Earth
Devas of the Threshold
Into the Next Dimension

There are so many ways to organise your Great Story Beads. There are lots of timelines available online to help you plan what to put on your mala. And then you add beads to represents events in your own life.

It's just a fantastic project!

So now I need to find out where to source BEADS. Any ideas?