In the indigo hours before the dawn, Wings, having arisen briefly and then returned, informed me that the temperature was seven degrees below zero. I didn’t even bother to ask about the wind chill.
Now, as a faint glow limns the pale winter sky, we are up to a balmy minus-two.
The calendar year seems determined to meet its end in a cruelly ferocious cold. The new year will be birthed in a fury of snow.
It’s fitting, perhaps; this year has, after all, been merely a continuation of the national abomination of the previous one, one that has disclosed, with each passing day, a plumbing of new depths of political and societal degeneracy. The recent deaths of indigenous children seeking sanctuary, deaths laid squarely at the door of this colonial government and its agents, are proof enough of that.
I am not much for the banalities of “love and light,” a phrase weaponized by faux-liberal colonizers in an effort to steal traditional ways and identities. In our experience, those who prattle on in such [definitively non-Indigenous] platitudes are among the most violent — in character, in behavior, in their interactions with our peoples. We have no use for the authoritarianism or evangelism of cult-like behavior. It’s why you’ll never hear either of us use that particular phrase in any way outside of the most acidic sarcasm; we have been on the receiving end of its deliberately-inflicted harm for far too long.
Still, our ways honor both concepts, “love” and “light,” individually, and also recognize the link between them that manifests as wisdom and service. Unlike the dominant culture’s interpretation of such motifs, in our way, they have nothing to do with the pablum of the “authentic” or “heart-centered” “self,” and everything to do with seeking knowledge of how best to serve our communities as a whole, and then acting upon it.
The religion of the original colonizers insists that faith without works is dead. Our peoples have always known that pretty words are meaningless — worse, overtly destructive — when not backed by the proper actions.
And so, as the year of the colonial calendar draws to a close in a spiral of bitter cold and snow, a time when warmth and light are at a premium, when love and joy are held hostage to the necessities of immediate survival, it seems a good time to reevaluate our position relative to the year to come: a time to formulate goals, individual and collective alike; a time to envision a better world, to decide how best to bring that world into being, and to commit ourselves to doing it.
In our way, that may require ceremony; it may include feasting; it may find expression in the drum and in dance. It unquestionably requires a deep and abiding love for the people, for the ancestors and the spirits, for history and identity and tradition, for culture and language and lifeways. It also requires a willingness to seek the light in terms both loftily metaphorical and intensely practical: an openness to the call and command of visions and dreams, and a devotion to doing the work in those brief hours while the sun shines.
Today, the skies are perfectly clear, the world perfectly cold. In two days, some of the people will dance, irrespective of the heavy snow now forecast. Such traditional celebrations are an expression of love at the very heart of Indigenous belief. They are a welcoming prayer, a singing of the sun across the sky, a dancing in the light.
Today’s featured work by Wings, one of my personal favorites, embodies exactly these motifs. From its description in the Earrings Gallery here on the site:
Love Dancing Earrings
The spirits go love dancing in the light of a Pueblo sky. Wings summons their form and shape in these new earrings, coppery-red hearts wrapped in turquoise robes. Head and torso are formed of a matched pair of hearts as full and red as the iconic love they represent: red agate cabochons in the color of the metallic micaceous earth indigenous to this land, yet translucent as the glow of a Pueblo sunrise. Each is set into a scalloped hand-made bezel, with an organic tab extended at the top to hold delicate silver wires, and a jump ring attached at the lower point. Via a second set of jump rings, the lower body hangs suspended from the hearts: brilliant sky-blue triangular turquoise cabochons aswirl with coppery matrix as red as the hearts, each set into its own scalloped bezel and set adance in the light. Earrings hang 2.25″ in overall length (excluding wires); red agate heart cabochons are 5/8″ long by 9/16″ across at the widest point; turquoise cabochons are 1″ long by 9/16″ across at the widest point (dimensions approximate).
Sterling silver; red agate; natural blue turquoise (probably Royston)
$825 + shipping, handling, and insurance
Outside the window, an impossibly clear sky manifests, just as impossibly, in the colors of these drops: a perfect turquoise vault fanning out overhead above a coral glow near the earth’s heart at the horizon. The only dancers at the moment are the wild birds, swooping and soaring, stopping to land upon the snow, then rise again into the icy air. The birds live by the light, seeking illumination in the most natural of ways. They set an example for us in other ways, too — speaking, singing, dancing . . . and always at work on behalf of community and clan.
That should be our goal for this year, too: a commitment not merely to words but to action, not in pursuit of “self,” but for the good of all. It should also remind us that there are many ways to seek wisdom and to show love for the people. For the birth of a new calendar year, a dancing in the light is a good place to start.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2018; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.
