Mala Madness!

I've written in the past about malas and about a japa meditation practice - a mala is typically a necklace of 108 beads used for meditation practice.  You choose a mantra, sit in your meditation posture, and thumb through each bead, repeating the mantra silently or aloud 108 times.  It's an ancient practice, and one very common among yogis.

Mala with a Ganesh charm; the remover of obstacles

One of our former teachers (and hopefully future...?) at Karma Kids, the lovely Camy Zachofsky, started making her own malas a few years ago after feeling like there wasn't a lot of variety or personality in many of the malas she was seeing at various studios and stores.  Camy has put a tremendous amount of thought into her designs, work into finding the best materials, and care in creating malas designed to support certain chakras, or energy centers, and different intentions for the person who will inevitably use that mala for a japa practice.

We had an incredibly fun workshop with Camy last week - Mala Madness, also the name of her company - where she taught us how to make our own malas as well as teaching us more about a japa practice.  Mine is a beautiful blue sodalite mala with a lovely copper key charm at the end.

I encourage everyone to check out Camy's website and facebook page and see her stunning malas for yourself!  They're great as a gift to yourself, to a yogi friend, or even to someone completely new to a yoga or meditation practice.  Enjoy your own mala madness!