What to consider when choosing a bespoke spiritual necklace

Bespoke is a word that gets used loosely in the jewellery world. It often means: you can choose the metal. Or: we'll engrave your initials on it. These are customisations, and they're fine for what they are, but they are not what I mean by bespoke.

When I make a bespoke tantric necklace, I mean something really different. I mean a piece that begins with you; with who you are, where you are, what your energy is actually asking for at this moment in your life, and work outward from that, stone by stone, into an object that is genuinely yours in a way that no mass-produced or even 'personalised' piece can be.

The process is intimate. And like most intimate things, it works best when both people come to it with some openness and some honesty. This post is about how to approach a bespoke commission in a way that allows something truly resonant to emerge.

Begin with where you are, not what you want

Sometime, when approaching a bespoke commission, a client leads with aesthetics. 'I'd like something with aquamarine because I love the colour.' Or: 'I want something that looks like the one I saw on your Instagram.'

These are great starting points, and I listen hard to them because sometimes the thing we are aesthetically drawn to is also the thing our energy needs, and the instinct is worth trusting. But the deeper conversation is often about where you are in your life right now. What are you moving through? What are you trying to call in? What are you ready to release? What does your nervous system need; more grounding, more expansion, more protection, more opening?

From that conversation, the right stones, the right proportions and pattern configuration, and the right mantra reveal themselves. 

A bespoke necklace is a piece of jewellery that emerges from a conversation between your energy and mine, and between both of us and the materials.

Trust the process, not just the outcome

The bespoke process at True North Lake takes time. There is a period of deep listening, of sitting with the intention of the piece before any stone is chosen. There is often a back-and-forth: I might suggest a particular stone and you might feel a resistance to it, and that resistance is information worth exploring rather than overriding.

There is also the making itself, which is meditative and slow. I work with mantra throughout. I do not rush. The pace of the making is part of what goes into the piece.

This means a bespoke commission is the right choice if you want something that will serve you for years, and that deserves the time it takes to be made properly.

What to bring to the first conversation

You don't need to arrive with everything figured out. In fact, arriving with everything figured out tends to close things down rather than open them up. What's most useful to bring is:

1. Honesty about where you are — the real version, not the edited one. The commission conversation is confidential and held with complete care.
2. Any strong instincts you have, even if you can't explain them. If a particular stone keeps catching your attention, or if you feel drawn to a particular colour or quality, say so. These instincts are usually energetically accurate.
3. An openness to being surprised. The piece that emerges from a genuine bespoke process is often not the piece the person thought they wanted — and almost always more right than anything they could have specified in advance.
4. Patience. The timeline is part of the integrity of the process.

Is a bespoke piece right for you?

A bespoke tantric necklace is for someone who is ready to be known, or rather, to allow something of themselves to be known, and to receive back an object that reflects that knowing. It is for people at significant moments: transitions, awakenings, endings that are also beginnings.

It is also, simply, for people who understand that the way something is made is part of what it is. That an object made with full attention, for a specific person, over a significant period of time, carries something that a quicker or less intentional process cannot produce.

If that resonates, I'd love to hear from you. The first conversation is always without obligation. It is simply a conversation, and sometimes that conversation itself is a kind of medicine.

Emily x