About Jai Malas
Hi, I’m Sarah, founder and maker of Jai Malas.
In 2018, I got sober. For the first ten months of my recovery — a sort of gestation period — I was forlorn.
In those early days, I had to learn how to live all over again without my favorite coping mechanism, my lover, my crutch: alcohol. I didn’t know what to do with my hands or where to place the ache and the cravings.
So I began praying with a mala.
I recited my mantra 108 times each day and asked for clarity. As I slowly began to string days together, I also began to string beads. I took a mala making class with Molly Duff and found inspiration from other makers including Tammi Salas and Dawn Hoppe, and allowed myself to dream. Soon, I was making my own malas and eventually, in 2020 during COVID shutdown, I began to make them for friends.
Japa mala meditation gave me purpose during that dark and tender time. It provided my hands something to do, my heart somewhere to land, and my spirit a rhythm to return to.
Each Jai Mala is created slowly and with intention. I weave a prayer into every knot, every stone and every guru bead. These malas are born from devotion, from recovery and from the quiet, steady work of showing up one breath, one bead at a time.
It is my hope that these beads bless all those who adorn them.
About Me
I am a midwestern mystic with my feet on the earth and my heart turned toward the sacred.
I find devotion in the ordinary and the wild: in art journaling and mala making, in my early morning ritual and around campfires under open skies. I enjoy creating beauty with paint, a gratitude journal, food, beads, plants and fibers. I love being in nature and camping in all its forms, from backpacking in the mountains to weekends at Lake Michigan in our vintage Avion camper.
I am a partner, a mother and a trauma-informed yoga teacher. My work is rooted in reverence for the yogic tradition and expressed through mantra, meditation and ongoing study of Sanskrit. Jai Malas takes its name from the devotional exclamation Jai Ma! — meaning victory, praise or reverence to the supreme goddess — and reflects my devotion to the goddess traditions and the sacred feminine in all her forms.
I am a registered yoga teacher (RYT) with Yoga Alliance, a certified SHE RECOVERS Yoga teacher and a two-time graduate of the Vitalist School of Psychospiritual Transformation. My offerings are shaped by lived experience, recovery and a deep respect for the body and the ancient wisdom it holds.
Everything I offer — whether on the mat, through prayer beads or in a shared ritual — is an invitation to come home to yourself, one breath, one practice, one moment at a time. Jai Ma!
