Seeds & Wood Beads
Seed and wood beads are made from plant material rather than stone: rudraksha and star and moon bodhi seeds, and turned hardwoods such as cedar, rosewood, ebony and coconut palm. They are light, warm to the touch and have a long history in prayer beads across Asia. This collection holds every seed and wood bead we stock in a range of finishes and shapes for bracelets, necklaces, earrings and malas.
Appearance
Rudraksha seeds are brown and deeply furrowed, with ridges that divide the seed into segments. Star and moon bodhi seeds are cream to tan with a single dark dimple, the moon, surrounded by fine dark dots, the stars; they darken toward amber with handling. Hardwoods are smooth and show grain: cedar is pale and fragrant, rosewood a reddish brown with darker streaks, ebony nearly black, and coconut palm a speckled dark brown.
Wood beads are usually sealed with a light polish or left matte. Some wood beads on the market are stained to even out the color, and the darkest woods often are. Seeds and wood absorb moisture, so take them off before swimming or showering, keep them away from lotion and oil unless you want them to darken, and let them dry if they do get wet. Over years of wear the surface develops a deeper, glossier patina.
Formation and origin
Rudraksha seeds are the stones of a broad-leaved evergreen tree, Elaeocarpus ganitrus, that grows in the Himalayan foothills, Nepal and Indonesia; the fruit is blue, and the pitted seed inside is dried and bored. Star and moon bodhi seeds come from a rattan palm of southern China and Southeast Asia, not from the bodhi fig tree, which has no bead-sized seed; the name is a traditional one. Cedar, rosewood and ebony are turned from cut timber, and coconut palm wood from the trunk of the coconut palm, whose dark fiber bundles make the speckled grain.
Pairings
Petrified wood beads: fossil grain beside living grain, in the same browns, with stone taking the harder wear.
Amber beads: fossil resin is light like wood and warm in color, so the two sit together without a weight imbalance.
Kambaba jasper beads: dark green orbs add a cool color to brown seeds and woods in mala-style strands.
Meaning and Metaphysical Beliefs
Seed and wood beads have long been used for counting prayers. Rudraksha, said in Hindu tradition to have grown from the tears of Shiva, is worn by devotees across India and Nepal, and bodhi seeds take their name from the tree under which the Buddha is said to have reached enlightenment. In crystal traditions wood is associated with grounding and growth. These are traditional beliefs, not claims of physical effect.
