Dawn is pale orange, pushing back the night for what seem the cloudy blues of day. It’s not clouds, of course, but smoke, sufficient to shroud the treeline at the base of the peaks, faint ghosts in an erstwhile fog. We are approaching the time when the spirits walk, but that day is not yet.
Still, the elemental spirits are uneasy now, and they are telegraphing their discomfort daily now. If a rising sun, still hopeful for the day, allows its face to veiled by the smoke, by sunset it has grown tired and angry, in its declining moments breaking through the pall to show itself in shades of pure flame.
And in the hours between, we find our resolve tested by the obstacles it adds: to work, to existence, to the simple act of breathing.
As a metaphor, it’s more than apt; it’s entirely of a piece with this year, now hurtling toward an early and dangerous end. For this year will not end with solstice or season, but with the artificial calendar imposed by colonial politics, and there is no assurance that what is born of its ashes will be liveable.
We are surrounded on all sides now by the flames, but the ones that matter are the ones we find within. As the ancestors knew and the teachings tell us still, a brave spirit is born of a fire in the heart.
And we all need to be brave now.
Today’s featured work embodies both: the fire we need and the courage it sets free in our souls. From its description in the relevant section of the Bracelets Gallery here on the site:
A Fire In the Heart Cuff Bracelet
A fire in the heart keeps body and spirit warm. Wings creates a tribute to the flames of love and devotion with a pair of precious metals and one’s crimson castoffs. The heart cabochon is wrought from the pure fire of molten gold, cooled and hardened into the glossy material known as Rosarita (gold slag). It sits in the embrace of a scalloped bezel, the better to set off its domed surface; both rest atop a heart-shaped backing, cut freehand with a jeweler’s saw, that extends just beyond the bezel’s edges to limn the stone in silver. The setting rests atop the center of a slender band of solid sterling silver, heavy-gauge and highly polished on the surface, with a silken Florentine finish on the inner band. The cuff is 6″ long by 5/16″ across; the setting is 7/8″ high between highest and lowest points by 7/8″ across at the widest point; the heart-shaped cabochon is 3/4″ high between highest and lowest points by 3/4″ across at the widest point (dimensions approximate). Additional views shown below.
Sterling silver; Rosarita (gold slag)
$1,025 + shipping, handling, and insurance
This piece seems especially apt for the challenges we face daily now. Rosarita (named for the mining region on South America where, if its phenomenon was not first noted, at any rate has produced some extraordinary specimens) is a perfect example of the beauty and substance that comes of tempering by fire. It is the glossy crimson byproduct of the gold refining process — gold slag, yes, but nothing of the slag heap about it. It manifests in the red glow of the flames that birthed it, a molten strong as the fire itself.
It’s what we need to ignite within our own hearts, it’s who we need to become as a people now.
Whatever colonialism believes that it holds in store, we know that the world needs a better way, and it needs it now. We need to shore up our own brave spirits, and that begins with a fire in the heart.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2020; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.
