One of a kind artwork masterpiece

From time to time we get requests to craft something new! Something that we have not done yet!

Here for your consideration is one prayer wheel that answers this statement.

It was made in our custom signature 2.0 version design where only the drum rotates and the caps are stationery. This design came up in my mind a few years ago when I challenged myself to craft something new and artistic for our prayer wheels.

Think about it, prayer wheels have been made in the same design for about 2600 years…. I thought that it was time to craft something new! Ha!

And after a few attempts this design came to life!

A few months ago, a customer reached out to us asking for this design of a prayer wheel, but he wanted to have it painted in black acrylic. This we have never done before! But why not?

He wanted a golden Hung on the top cap and the liberation by seeing mantra on the drum.

Inside of this masterpiece of a prayer wheel are 50 million Mani mantras.

 

 and of course you can see it spinning here:

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/ogOlnkdxIbI

I wanted to share this with you all because one does not know how much more time one has on this earth in this body and it is better to let you know than to keep it to myself!

I love you all, you all have made a prayer wheel maker out of me, an artist… things I never thought I will say about myself. Rinpoche and Karma pushed me to a point I did not know existed and placed me in the spot of one who crafts and delivers fine art custom hand made masterpieces to all who desire a prayer wheel, but not just one machine made for tourists, but rather a masterpiece of fine art! What an honor it is to be able to provide this service to you all out there!

Thank you all for making it possible

Thank you Rinpoche for pointing us in this direction

Thank you Karma for appearing in all your splendor

Thank you Ayelet for being my partner in love in this lifetime and pushing me forward to create masterpieces of fine art with you

 

I love you all

ביקורו של אריק פמה קונסנג 2022

 

אריק פמה קונסנג - מתרגם, מתרגל ומורה לדהרמה במסורת הטיבטית - מגיע לראשונה לביקור בישראל.

במסגרת ביקורו של אריק יתקיימו שתי סדנאות והרצאת ערב בהרצליה ובכרמל, בין התאריכים 24-28 בנובמבר.

להרשמה>>

מדיטציה לצורך הארה

הרצאה פתוחה למתעניינים ולמתרגלים על מדיטציה במסורת הבודהיסטית.

 

יום חמישי 24.11.22

19:00-20:30

מדיטיישן פקטורי, הרצליה

לראות את המציאות מבעד לתרבות

מפגש סוף-שבוע למתעניינים ומתרגלים, אשר יתמקד באיכויות המהותיות של הבודהיזם, וכיצד לזהות אותן ולמצוא את הרלוונטיות שלהן למרות הבדלי התרבות בין סביבתנו לבין הסביבה בה נוצרה והתפתחה דרכו של הבודהה.

 

25-26.11.2022

שישי 15:00 עד 18:00

שבת 10:00 עד 18:00

מדיטיישן פקטורי, הרצליה

השתתפות מלאה בלבד - יש להגיע לכל משך הסדנה

התוכנית משלבת לימוד ותרגול מדיטציה

הבודהה של החמלה הגדולה: תרגול סדהנה והמרחב הפתוח של האהבה

סדנה זו תתבסס על צורת תרגול בודהיסטית מסורתית: סדהנה (מערך תרגול מונחה הכולל ויזואליזציה), אשר תתמקד בדמותו של הבודהה צ'נרזיג, המגלם את איכויות החמלה והאהבה. המפגש מיועד למתרגלי וג'ריאנה או אלה המתעניינים בצורת תרגול זו. אין צורך בהעצמה טנטרית לתרגול זה. 

 

ראשון-שני, 27-28.11.2022

ימים ראשון ושני, 10:00-18:00
בית הדהרמה על הר הכרמל ,עספיא (ליד חיפה)

 

השתתפות מלאה בלבד - יש להגיע לכל משך הסדנה

התוכנית משלבת לימוד ותרגול מדיטציה

להרשמה>>

less orders, more time to craft prayer wheels for the shop!

 Dear friends and Sanga,

this month has been a slower one in incoming orders (who knows why) so this is the first time in a long long time that i have spare free time to craft prayer wheels for the shop so customers can just click and buy them instead of ordering them and waiting for them to be crafted.

this opportunity gives us both (me and Ayelet) the creative time we need to craft amazing one of a kind special prayer wheels that we wanted to craft for a long long time, opening up an all new "special series" prayer wheels that are a work of art as well as being a holy tool for liberation and Karma cleaning.

i wish to thank you all for being the most amazing customers in this whole world, giving us a chance to do what we love most and make a small living off of it to support our life and practice.

thank you so much and keep checking in to our shop to see what we have made! hope you like it!

Micha & Ayelet

 

no more Swarovski crystals on top

 dear friends and Sanga,

the Covid-19 has done much damage to businesses all over the world in the past years since its arrival on our planet. one of those businesses that got hit badly was the Swarovski company. they closed down some lines and factories and that resulted in many people being fired from their jobs... and for us it meant that we no longer can order these crystals we use to put on top of our classic design prayer wheels....

we had some left from our previous order from them, but that supply is running out...

also, we got advice from H.E. Garchen Rinpoche not to use them anymore since practitioners sometime drop their prayer wheel, having the crystal brake and then not use their prayer wheel anymore and that is not good... 

so, for both those reasons (mainly Rinpoche's advice) we will no longer offer these crystals on top of our classic design wheels and only offer it as a counterbalance for those who want it :-)

with crystal on top

 

i think this is good because when we first started to craft prayer wheels, we got a look at Rinpoche's wheel at the time and it had a crystal on top and that made us make such prayer wheels... Rinpoche gave his prayer wheel (that specific one) to Sogyal Rinpoche and changed his to a one with no crystal on top, but we already started to craft this design with the crystal on top and customers all over the world wanted them on their prayer wheels...

no crystal on top

 

now, this era is coming to an end after thousands of prayer wheels have been made, so if you have one of them, you are lucky and fortunate (in more than one way!) 

enjoy your prayer wheels and keep spinning them for the benefit of all beings!

may all be free of suffering and the causes of suffering, and may all have happiness and the causes for happiness!

love y'all

Micha & Ayelet

levitating electromagnetic tabletop prayer wheel number 4

 

from time to time we get to do something absolutely unbelievable with our hands....

this here is one of those things!

it is a levitating electromagnetic tabletop prayer wheel!

although the space inside this prayer wheel is not very large due to the technicalities of crafting it, we still manage to place a microfilm roll of mantras inside of it. 

usually, this type of microfilm roll can hold about 20 million Mani mantras, but in this case the customer requested 3 different mantras so we had to split it into 3.

this amazing prayer wheel has inside of it 5 million Mani mantras, 1.5 million Medicine Buddha mantras and 250,000 White Tara mantras printed on microfilm.

the base is made from Walnut hardwood and the spinning prayer wheel is made from Maple hardwood and a Walnut top.

it has a beautiful lotus pyrographed on it by Ayelet.

i just love these levitating prayer wheels! there is something so magical about them... the fact that it is floating in space... just blows your mind!

this one is the 4th we have made so far and i want to make some more in the future, but i want  to change something in its design.

since the height it levitates off the base is reduced by weight, in this example the Maple hardwood is very heavy, i wish to switch things around next time...

to make the base from Maple hardwood and the spinning prayer wheel from African Walnut which is a very textured wood but light in weight... this will give the prayer wheel a better height off the base and will look even more amazing! 

African Walnut is beautiful on its own and no artwork is needed on it... actually, since the base will be made from Maple, maybe i will ask Ayelet to do some crazy artwork on the base!

we shell see....

this particular prayer wheel was ordered as a gift to a Tibetan master living in California by one of his students, hope he loves it!

thank you all for tuning in

Micha

fantastic news! and silly me, forgot to tell ya'll

 

 

so, it has been pointed out to me that my last post (a year ago) said that we are closing shop.... 

well, the day that post came out, we got bombarded with prayer wheel orders!

a few weeks later i got a job in the factory here in our community and i worked there every day for 4 hours, in the position of the assistant manager of the CNC dept, producing fantastic products for John Deere, Ford, Chevrolet, GMC, Tesla and many more... so, i got some income coming  in and i still had time to craft in the studio.... but, karma being karma, soon enough there were so many prayer wheel orders i could not keep the factory job! 

so, after about 8 months working there i had to quit that and say millions of thank you's to the factory CEO for allowing me this opportunity!

you know, in this crazy world i live in so many digital realities it is hard to remember to keep them all up dated... this blog is one of many platforms so i am truly sorry if i messed up someone's mind thinking we were not making prayer wheels any more....

we are!

 

but also not for long.... something else came up and we might be closing shop.

but that is for another post, when things become clearer... no point i messing with your minds again!

till then (be it when it may) we are taking orders and still making amazing and beautiful prayer wheels to share with the world who needs it now more than ever... 

crazy crazy times we live in

 

love y'all so much!!

Micha Strauss

sad but true

 this post might be sad for some, but truth is what it is and not what we "think" it is.

for the longest time we have been getting less and less orders for our prayer wheels.and at some point i started asking my self, what is going on?

i have come to realize that Google have changed their rules of engagement and our site is now raked 54 in the search.. that means that no one is seeing our website any more in search for prayer wheels...

why is this happening? no clue... we did nothing wrong.... 

but, Karma is Karma and there is nothing to be done in that sense... just accept this and move on :)

we have been trying for the past 3 months to move our website up the ranks, but with no luck. 

so my friends, since we still need to eat and have a home, we must now both look for work in the 9 to 17 world so we can pay our bills...

thank you so much for all you have done for us in the past and for all your loving kindness!!! 

we feel so grateful to have been able to provide this service to all of you out there in the world and we hope that you will enjoy our prayer wheels (if you were lucky enough to own one)

till now we have made 2043 prayer wheels and that is SO much more then we have ever expected!

we still hope that we would be able to provide this service to the world in the future, but for now we need to look for work...

we love you all! 

Micha & Ayelet  

custom prayer wheels

 why we chose to craft prayer wheels, or "it chose us" is a better way to explain it is a mystery. i do not understand the workings of this life's Karma... it is a big mystery :)

what i can recognize is that this profession brings much much joy to our hearts and minds! the thank you letters that we receive from all you guys is just heart warming!!!

we feel so fortunate to be able to provide such service for the rest of the world, and to bring into light both of our talents to create these holy objects.

the last few orders have been a custom prayer wheel. 

when this happens, it is very challenging! it takes us out of our comfort zones and pushes us to the limits of our capacities... i love that! thank you all for your amazing prayer wheel orders!

once i finish all these prayer wheels, i will have some time to craft new prayer wheels for the shop... i did not have time for the past few months to do so, but it seems that now is a good time for that. less orders are coming in (our rank on Google dropped) and we will have time to "create" some new and amazing prayer wheels for you all :)

thank you so much for being there for us

we love you all

Micha & Ayelet 

some insight into the monetery system we all live in, and a huge thank you to H.E. Garchen Rinpoche for showing me a brighter path

 

What a joy it is crafting prayer wheels 😊

As time goes by (some say faster and faster) I get to think a lot about "worth"… about my "worth" in this world…

When I was young, I was brought up to live and "see" the world as a community. Sharing everything we had down to our cloths. The most important rule we were taught was that work has the highest of values. There is nothing more important than hard work… they never taught us about money or how the economics of this world works…. I saw my first 100 shekel bill when I was maybe 10… we had no physical money, we were a social communist community (called Kibbutz for those of you who wish to explore it further) and we lived by the rule of "give all you can, get what you need". This worked great for about 80 years…

The point I am trying to convey is that in my mind, I did not have the correct "hard disk" to live comfortably in the "real" world that revolves around money… I had  a different hard disk and for some time, while I was living in the real world my attitude did not fit the situation… long story short, I became a homeless and had nothing to eat… that is what happens when you do not teach a child the correct way to handle money, or even understand monetary views…

I grew up, understood the function of money and started going up the corporate ladder so to speak, but the most important lesson I got to learn about money was very recently.

By the time I was around the age of 29 or 30 I read somewhere that money is a form of evaluation that society has agreed upon where you give your talent and get paid by how much "value" I feel about your job… my car breaks down, I go to a mechanic… he sacrificed time to learn about cars, I did not… now, he "knows" what to do while I do not… he then fixes my car. I appreciate this a lot!!! So, I show him my appreciation by giving him the amount of appreciation we agreed upon. That is how money actually works…  I can hug him too as appreciation, but he might not accept that as a form of payment 😊

When I realized that I finally understood why some people get a lot of money and why some do not…. This all made perfect sense.

As time went by I climbed up the ladder, sacrificed more and more of my time, my abilities, my sanity, my health…. But I got paid more and more…

At some point I became a farmer. I thought: "what is the best form of appreciation? I will grow food for people! Then, the money I make comes from the highest form of appreciation! I grow food for them, they pay me money as a form of their appreciation!" it all seemed perfect.

After a few years I realized that mono-culture farming (which I was a part of by managing the community's farm) is killing this earth, destroying the humans that live on it and all of nature. This method of farming is a big lie and we are all the victims of it. I decided to let that go and quit my job. After 18 years of climbing the ladder to success, I was out.

Now, a prayer wheel maker, I feel that I have finally found my place in the "monetary" world of money and value. I finally use my talent, my time and effort to create something that has value in the eyes of some and they wish to pay me their appreciation by giving me money… now this all makes sense and I can live my life by doing something beneficial to this world and beyond…

I was extremely fortunate to meet H.E. Garchen Rinpoche in this life back in November of 2008 and since then my life has never been the same.

Thank you all for your support in our prayer wheel project, it is making this world (and many more worlds) a better place to live in, and by doing that, we get to buy food and shelter in this one 😊  

a very special prayer wheel for Tarthang Tulku Rinpoche

once in a while something amazing happens.. something that can not be explained by my logic or my common sense... i am always amazed when such things happens... what amazing karma!
i must say that truly, i have no way to explain such happenings other than very good karma from past lives.. no other way to explain it :)

a close and good friend was about to go to Tarthang Tulku Rinpoche's Odiyan center for a 6 months stay and practice. a few months before he was planning to go he asked us to craft a very special prayer wheel that was to be offered to Rinpoche. of course we were so honored and humbled that such a request has arrived at our door step! holy moly....
but, we felt confident that we can produce such a prayer wheel and hoped that Rinpoche (who is a master prayer wheel maker and an advocate of prayer wheels) would like it...
so we set up to craft it. our friends request was of Ayelet to do her magic with the pyrography pen and to create the art on the prayer wheel using drawings from Rinpoche's many books. and so she did not sleep for a few days but made it! her gifted hands made this masterpiece come to life :)
inside, our fried requested the prayer wheel to have: the Mani mantra, the Vajra Guru mantra, the 7-line prayer and the Vajrasattva mantra, the Lord's prayer from the Christian faith, the Shir Lamaalot from the Jewish faith, the Surat El Fatiha from the Muslim faith, a special blessing poem from the Jewish faith and the Lakota people prayer knots for world peace. wow! what a compassion bomb! amazing....
we did as requested and the prayer wheel was made and ready for the picking up and traveling :)
came our stunning!!!
our friend left and traveled to the Odiyan center.
after about a week or so he sent us a most overwhelming message. the prayer wheel was offered to Rinpoche and he loved it! he was so happy that such a prayer wheel has been constructed for world peace and in Israel! what joy!
what an honor.... thank you dear brother for giving us this opportunity to be a part of something so amazing! we are in your debt :)

here are some photos of it and a short clip of it spinning (in my hand)