It’s snowing.
It’s been snowing since about 2:30 this morning, actually, very small, very fine flakes that take hours to accumulate and that we associate more with colder, dryer winter weather. It’s warm today, relatively speaking, and the clouds have not parted since well before dawn, only the occasional trailing bands of darker gray weaving their way through a sky otherwise as white as the earth now.
It won’t be a lot, but it will be a blessing — upon the land, and thus upon us as well.
At this moment, the whole world is white; the wind is rising, blowing the snow horizontally outside the window. While this is likely the fiercest part of the storm, the forecast suggests another three or four days of intermittent snow, and at last, it feels as though our world is getting down to the business of winter.
One thing that long-term forecast guarantees is a prolonging of last week’s sweetgrass sky: that beautifully braided effect of nascent stormclouds moving in to intertwine themselves with the deep bright blue of the turquoise winter skies here. That, too, is a gift, a medicine that seems more of the water than of the light, but as the Skystone itself knows, water is an essential part of the equation — evaporation turned vapor turned condensation, the processes by which the skies deliver water to a thirsty land even in the absence of the rain.
Or the snow.
Today’s featured work is this gift distilled from the ethereal to the tangible, a braid of water and a wintry sky in wearable form. From its description in the relevant section of the Bracelets Gallery here on the site:
Sweetgrass Sky Cuff Bracelet
We live beneath the braided hoop of a sweetgrass sky, flowering blue and scented with the smoke from our prayers. Wings summons the symbolism of them all into a hoop of Skystone and silver with this cuff, an extraordinary arc of paired and braided sterling pattern wire set with an outsized cabochon of finely webbed turquoise in the embrace of ingot blossoms created by hand. The band is formed by two separate strands of heavy-gauge pattern wire in a scored design with a geometric Art Deco feel, the lines criss-crossed with ribbons that create a braided effect. The strands are soldered together at either end, then gently spread apart by hand to create the separation at center that holds the focal setting in perfect balance. The cabochon is a specimen of ultra-high-grade Black Web Kingman turquoise of incredible size, the inky matrix underlit with faints hints of red webbing throughout. It rests in a scalloped bezel trimmed with twisted silver, flowering at top and bottom like the buds of the fresh sweetgrass plant — four hand-made sterling silver ingot blossoms, for a total of eight blooms altogether. Band is 6″ long by 1-1/8″ across at the widest (center) point; each strand of the band is 5/16″ across; focal setting is 1-7/8″ long by 1-1/16″ across; cabochon is 1-1/8″ long by 7/8″ across; ingot stars are each 1/4″ across (all dimensions approximate). Other views shown above, below, and at the link.
Sterling silver; ultra-high-grade Black Web Kingman turquoise
$1,675 + shipping, handling and insurance
I have long been surprised that this work has not yet found its home; its spirit is so powerful that I had expected it to be snapped up almost immediately. But that is the way of Wings’s work: He has always said that it is Spirit who guides his hands as he creates each piece, and Spirit who intends each one for a specific wearer.
Sometimes, wearer and work take a while to find each other.
In the meantime, this remains one of my own personal favorites in current inventory, the sort of piece that dares you to take it out of the case and hold it, look at it, touch the band and stroke the extraordinary stone at its center. The stone, coupled with the woven appearance of the band, are what gave the piece its name: that ultra-fine webbing of the matrix in an electric sky-blue expanse, no doming but some slight beveling of the four corners of the sky, a braid of medicine throughout and beneath it.
Indeed, it resembles our skies of yesterday, intense blue woven with clouds riding the very arc of the light. It was a braid of water and a wintry sky that brought us today’s gift of the snow . Now it’s a time to burn a little sweetgrass as an offering, sending prayers of gratitude spiraling upward, entwined with its soft healing scent.
Medicine, as thanks for medicine.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2023; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.
