Modern Relics
Mommy Shirts, Locks of Hair and Dali Lama Malas
Today’s post is inspired by the integration I am currently doing after holding space for women in Sainte Baume the last few weeks. There were two conversations that stayed with me: one about (holy) relics and one about the importance we place on the tangible.
I’m sharing a little collection of vignettes which I hope will find your heart, and touch something in you.
And, if you didn’t know that everything I’ve ever written for the Sacred Paris Substack is now in one place called The Sacred Paris Companion, I’d love for you to know that you can find it here for easy reference.
Many years ago, my intuitive healer in San Francisco invited me to a new moon circle.
The invitation was to bring something valuable to offer away, and she explicitly said that the more precious the item was the more powerful the medicine or exchange would be.
At the time I was traveling the world as a luxury travel writer for The Fit Traveller and I felt really, really light. I was on my own version of Eat, Pray, Love and had given up so much that her invitation stumped me. Suddenly I felt a pang in my stomach as I realized the most precious thing I owned was a mala blessed by the Dali Lama.
A mala I hadn’t taken off in ten years.
I then remembered that I had a second new one tucked away which I had never worn; I wrapped this one and took it as a backup in case I couldn’t offer mine in the moment.
When I arrived, I placed the new mala in the circle with the other wrapped offerings, keeping my precious one close. It felt like the right thing to do at that moment.
The circle ceremony began and then we were each asked to choose an offering from the center of the circle one-by-one, and as they were chosen and opened we were asked to share the significance. I remember feeling love and surrender on this night, the sisterhood sitting around the circle was deeply felt. I watched closely anticipating my mala being received and then ever so softly, I saw her hand reach for it.
“That’s my offering,” I said as I looked at her.
“But that’s only half of it,” I continued, as I carefully slipped the precious mala off of my wrist and handed it to her.
She was a mama, pregnant with her first child, and I instinctively knew that both malas now belonged to her.
Years later I had a tattoo of this precious mala tattooed on my wrist.
My niece is going to be ten in August and she still carries her “Mommy Shirts.”
I’m trying to remember when the Mommy Shirts became a thing, but it is one of the little details that seems to be slipping like others. She was four when my sister died and she sniffed her Mommy Shirts constantly before this happened - only I think my sister rotated them and they really smelled like her back then.
It was/is a sweetness I will never forget, my niece with her nose nestled in a shirt sniffing away. When she was little the shirt seemed to cover her whole face and it was such an instant comfort.
Today, they have weathered the years without my sister in a way that keeps her here. There are two of them, one lavender and one an earthy pink - worn in certain areas where the sniffing must feel better.
They are soft, and loved and a tangible reminder for all of us. Of a deep love. Of a love lost. Of the importance of staying connected. Of comfort.
My niece and I have a new habit when I visit. She lets me wash them by hand while she’s in the bath, as long as they are dry by the time she gets out. I wash them using our favorite smell, and then I carefully and lovingly use a blow dryer to dry them quickly so that they are ready when she wants a post-bath sniff.
I know every inch of these shirts. The parts that dry the slowest. The places where my sister’s shoulders used to be. Even the little hole where my niece’s grandmother has carefully stolen a little piece to place in a locket for her which she will always have.
Last time I was home I put my whole face into them, into the place where my niece and her mama love each other these days.
My husband lost his father suddenly in November.
He was in the hospital just before his 82nd birthday and he slipped away just after my husband had visited him. When my husband received the call from the hospital he returned immediately to be with his papa.
He clipped a little lock of hair on this night and asked me the following week if I could help him find a little reliquary for it.
The ashes came weeks later, his father’s wish. They too were in a reliquary.
Nearly four months later his mother passed, her heart stopped as she was having her morning coffee.
Some of the ashes were buried with her, along with a little bit of my husband’s hair and his son’s.
Just a few days ago I noticed that my husband is wearing his papa’s house slippers and his mama’s silver bracelet.
Perhaps this is what a relic truly is.
Not proof of death, but proof that love once lived here.
A shirt.
A lock of hair.
A precious mala.
The mystics understood something the modern world often forgets: that matter remembers. That devotion leaves a trace. That some objects become holy simply because they were loved long enough.
And perhaps a relic is nothing more, and nothing less, than love made visible.
Do you have such a relic? I’d love to hear more about it in the comments.
With all that is sacred,
I love this. Energy stays with things long after our physical bodies have given up their expression. This is why I love wandering through antique stores. I wish I could say I have a relic like this from someone I’ve lost. I can’t say that I do. But I know they’re true. And if I ever did have one, I’d hold it near and close.
This is so beautiful this way of remembering how love feel through an object. For me it’s the place where my grandmother lived. This home is about to be sold and I’m trying to not hold on the memories of that place. I’m so scared they’re going to fade away.