The Tibetan prayer wheel sat about two feet off the sidewalk on a wooden beam in front of the Planet Earth Yoga Center in Fremont.

When people and yoga students passed by on North 35th Street, they could spin the copper drum, which has prayers pressed on its side and a scroll of good thoughts inside.

In the Buddhist tradition, thoughts of peace and awakening would flow into the wind. But the 30-pound handmade wheel from Nepal has been missing since Saturday.

Yoga instructor Laura Yon-Brooks is perplexed as to why someone would take an object meant for everyone to enjoy.

"One thing everyone says is that it's really bad karma to steal people's prayers," she said.

Yon-Brooks last saw the wheel about midnight Friday. When she returned Saturday about 8:30 a.m., something was amiss.

"I reached out to spin it, and there was nothing there," she said. "I looked up and down the street, like "Candid Camera." Like, it's not here."

The thought of late-night pranksters taking it entered her mind. So, too, did the image of copper thieves making off with the wheel to sell it to metal recyclers.

In recent months, thieves in the Seattle area have raided construction sites and utilities to do just that.

The yoga center bought the wheel, which is worth about $400, around 2004 with the help of Far East Handicrafts. The wheel is 20 inches tall and 14 inches in diameter.

Newari artisans in Patan, Nepal, spent about 100 hours making the wheel, said Kirk Richmond, an owner of the store.

The artisans make prayer wheels for monasteries and people worldwide, he said. For those who have never seen one, Richmond added, it is similar to a paper towel roll sitting on a spindle.

"It is sad," he said. "But the sadness is on the people who took it."

He said the prayer wheel is meant to help people's minds awake, and that Buddhists spin it clockwise.

"Stealing a prayer wheel is counterproductive," he said.

Yon-Brooks said Seattle residents also have contributed to the wheel.

At a Fremont fair a few years ago, residents wrote prayers of peace on a scroll that was placed inside the wheel.

"People in our community feel very connected to this because their prayers are inside of it," she said.

Richmond has a message for the thieves: "They can return it and make themselves better."

But if the wheel is not returned, Richmond will have another one made for the yoga center and help raise money for it.