Yesterday’s forecast of wild weather turned out to be mostly sound and fury once more. As it happened, we were running errands in town when it hit, and even there it turned out to be mostly trickster winds sending walls of dirt and dust flying everywhere. The “rain” amounted to a small shower and a few scattered drops, only enough to run the windshield wipers for a scant couple of passes across the glass.
Back home, it was clear that the weather had delivered even less: a few drops, a lot of wind, and clouds mostly bypassing us to the south. Today, our small world is bright and sunny, the only haze from the smoke plume hanging low on the western horizon. But there is a giant shelf cloud forming behind the peaks and the wind is rising fast.
Perhaps the predictions for Monday’s rain and snow will not be so far off the mark after all.
For now, the air feels much colder than the that of the mercury’s display, and there is an unsettled feeling in the air. But we all — humans, animals, plants, elements alike — go about the work that we know needs to be done anyway. For us, that involves sorting and separating of seeds, and tilling the earth if the wind permits. The wild creatures are busy with pollination, deliberate or incidental. Plants are hard at work on growth, collaborating or contending with the elemental spirits as necessary.
And the world is that little bit more green today than yesterday.
It is more colorful overall, too, if only barely. The elevation in town is just enough lower than here that the trees there leaf about three weeks prior to ours. So, too, do their flowers bloom earlier: I noticed yesterday as we drove along Ranchitos Road that the lilacs were already in full bloom, if a bit subdued in the leaden storm light. Here, our lilacs have only budded out just this day, hard nodules that still resemble berries more than flowers and can barely be called purple yet. And the tulip that began to bloom on Tuesday is still solitary, but on this day, it is at last fully open to the light, a blossom strong and red beneath the sun.
In that regard, it seems the tangible embodiment of today’s featured work, a pair of earrings equally strong and bold, and just as equally delicate in their pattern as the tulip’s own fragile petals. From their description in the Earrings Gallery here on the site:
SunPetals Earrings
The worlds of spring and summer flower in sunpetals of warmth and light. Wings evokes source and act alike with these earrings, a pair of bold dangling petals of hand-cut sterling silver built around fiery red orbs at the center. Each drop is shaped halfway between an ellipse and a crescent, a flowering ray of light that dances from the ear. Around the molten center stones are arrayed four additional “petals,” each hand-stamped, repoussé-fashion, and extending to the Four Sacred Directions. Sterling silver wires hold the drops by way of delicate silver jump rings. Earrings hang 1.5″ long by 15/16″ across at the widest point; carnelian cabochons are 3/16″ across (dimensions approximate).
Sterling silver; carnelian
$325 + shipping, handling, and insurance
These are almost impossibly simple earrings, and yet they are some of my favorites. Put them on, and both they and the wearer are transformed: They are big and bold, yet spare and elegant; they dangle beautifully without being heavy or invasive, and they catch both the eye and the light. In that, they are much like the brave and solitary tulip at the base of the aspen — so bright it’s impossible to miss, its beauty as brilliant as it is serene.
In a season marked more by howling trickster winds than any other force, a little serenity goes far now.
But after fifteen months of pandemic and counting, these earrings remind me, too, of our own resilience, our own power. The stones, red as blood, as the sun, remind me what centers us and keeps us in the light. They serve as a metaphor for our survival in the face of unimaginable violence, of the persistence and power that marks our existence: like our own spirits, a blossom strong and red beneath the sun, always renewed and renewing, always here.
On days such as these, that’s a truth worth keeping firmly in mind.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2021; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.
