It may be the weekend, but it’s been a day all the same.
Part of it is simply a matter of trying to catch up with everything missed during the week. Part of it is navigating this newly deep and bitter cold with aging joints.
And part of it is getting anything accomplished in a world battered by brutal trickster winds now.
Overnight lows have been near or below zero lately, with wind chills well below it. Today’s winds, which seemed to slow a bit before sunset, have revived themselves, changing direction to drive in hard and fast from the north/northeast — the coldest wind of them all.
It’s a good thing we have had the fires in the woodstoves all day, and earlier, the glow of the sun, however intermittently. For this has been a day that begins in storm and light together, that which is cold and gray balanced by the fiery glow of the rising and setting sun, and the contrast reminds us that the First Medicines remain with us now.
The snow, of course, has been mostly on the peaks, nothing down here at their feet, but the forecast insists that we shall be granted a flurry or two tomorrow night. Regardless, the mountains need the snow as desperately as we do, and their health enables our own. And the gray of the storm has been balanced at both ends of this day by the sun’s golden glow, if not to warm the body then at least the spirit.
Today’s featured works, a quintet of them, allow us to end the week as we began it, in shades of gray and gold, of storm and shadow and light adance together. It’s five pairs of earrings, each of them wrought in an eminently traditional style, but each distinctive, with its own form and shape and animating spirit. There are three pairs set with the grays of the winter storm, two with the fiery gold of the low winter sun, and all are extraordinary, classic specimens of traditional Indigenous silverwork.
All are found, of course, in the Earrings Gallery here on the site. They’re presented here in alternating shades — gray, gold, gray, gold, gray, the snowy storm and shadow of gray moonstone and Labradorite framing the warm golden flames of tiger’s eye. We begin with perhaps the coolest of the grays, a pair aptly named for the Little Winter moons of the early cold season. From its description:
Little Winter Moons Earrings
The nights when autumn dances with the chill of early dark is the season of the Little Winter moons, an ethereal drift of magical light across a cold clear sky. With these earrings, Wings honors the shimmering orbs that light the first fall of the small snow, large and close and whispering of the real winter to come. Each dangling drop is saw-cut freehand of sterling silver in an old traditional form that evokes both rays of cold light and the Eyes of Spirit that watch over our world. Top and bottom are scored, stamped, and scalloped freehand in a radiant pattern adorned with tiny hoops. At center, a pair of stamped half moons embrace the icy otherworldly glow of round gray moonstones, their chatoyance catching and refracting external light. Hand-drilled organic tabs at the top hold them suspended from sterling silver coil-and-ball-bead French wires. Earrings are 2″ long excluding wires, and 1″ across at the widest point; cabochons are 3/8″ across (all dimensions approximate).
Sterling silver; gray moonstone
$525 + shipping, handling, and insurance
This pair is a personal favorite, both for the vintage-style shape of the setting, evoking at once feathers and rays and the Eye of Spirit, too, and for the soft, gentle glow of the moonstones at their center. These are not rainbow moonstones, nor even white ones, but incredibly chatoyant specimens manifest in the shades of the mourning dove’s wings, their glow at once rich and somehow velvety, too. They’re longer than they seem in the photo, big and bold but not heavy, just pure gray and silver elegance.
The second pair of today’s featured works is the first set with the sun’s golden fire. These are named for the solar flares that have this past year delivered the light show of the Aurora Borealis to regions usually outside its reach, including our own. Each drop is a classic oval concha wrought with Wings’s traditional freehand stampwork, tightly bound and nested to create a clear sense of orbital formation. From this pair’s description:
Solar Flares Earrings
Solar flares deliver to us the medicine of a mystical light, igniting the aurora borealis and setting our skies alight with color and fire. With these traditional concha earrings. Wings pays tribute to the sun that is their source, to the untamed energy they emit, and to the extraordinary forms of illumination they create. Each drop is saw-cut freehand in a classic oval shape, domed lightly from the reverse using repoussé techniques. The stampwork pattern, also wrought entirely freehand, consists of two concentric ovals: all around the outer edge, a repeating patterns of radiant arcs nested within each other, each earring’s edge representing scores of strikes of the jeweler’s hammer. the inner oval is adorned with peaked sunrise motifs facing inward, like the flames of the sun rising and falling as they flare and dance. At the center of each sits the sun itself, a round, highly domed cabochon of fabulously chatoyant tiger’s eye, rich bronzed browns sunlit from within by lightning bolts of golden fire. Small sterling silver jump rings extend from the reverse at the top of each drop, and sterling silver coil-and-ball-bead French earring wires are threaded through them. Domed, earrings hang 1-1/2″ long, excluding wires, by 1-3/8″ across at the widest point; cabochons are 3/8″ across (dimensions approximate).
Sterling silver; tiger’s eye
$525 + shipping, handling, and insurance
This pair, too, is a personal favorite. Unlike the pair above, these are very traditional conchas, oval shaped and lightly domed by hand, the brilliant bolts of sunlight at the stones’ centers framed by inward-facing radiant arcs ringed by that extraordinary orbital pattern. All of this stampwork is freehand, as always, no stencils and no power tools, just Wings hands and eye and creative spark collectively wielding the heavy jeweler’s hammer on single stamps. These are gently sweeping arcs, crescents formed of scale-like patterns, chased repeatedly all the way each oval’s edge, so tightly and consistently that it feels as though you’re actually witnessing our world’s own orbit around the sun.
Of course, that illumination that sun and moon provide is a gift, even medicine, but it’s all too easy to take it for granted for much of the year. In these winter days of a low and limited sun, these dark nights that last so long and grow so deeply cold, it’s much easier to appreciate the fact that by the gifts of these distant orbs are we held in the light. The third of today’s featured works is Wings’s stylized version of the traditional naja, adapted for earrings and combined with the power of a figurative spirit, evoking the otherworldly beauty of Grandmother Moon’s embrace. From its description:
Held In the Light Naja-Style Earrings
However dark the night, Grandmother Moon ensures always that we are held in the light. With these vintage-style naja earrings, Wings honors our Grandmother’s power and medicine, the hoop-like nature of her embrace, and the silvery light that she casts upon our earth in the darkest hours. Each bold drop is saw-cut freehand in a stylized naja shape, a crescent that almost meets at either end, but not quite. As is traditional with this symbol, a pendant form extends from the center of the inner hoop, here to hold a single bright round cabochon of spectacularly chatoyant gray moonstone, stones that appear almost opalescent in natural light, glow silver indoors, and turn deep twilit gray in shadow, yet still lit from within, like the spirit for whom they are named. The top of each earring extends into a gently rounded tab, the back of which holds a single centered sterling silver jump ring. Through the rings are threaded sterling silver coil-and-ball-bead earring wires. Earrings hang 2″ long, excluding wires, by 2-5/16″ across at the widest point; cabochons are 3/8″ across (dimensions approximate). This shot was captured indoors, using a flash with plenty of natural light; views showing the stones in other forms of light, the first without and the second with a flash, are shown at the link.
Sterling silver; gray moonstone
$575 + shipping, handling, and insurance
This pair is special. They’re wrought in vintage style, all simple quick outlines and single stones. But the shape seems to meld the naja’s traditional arc with a figurative spirit, as though head and arms enclose us along with the light. And that light, in this instance, is equally phenomenal: more of that gorgeous gray moonstone, but here, in settings that show off the light shift that animates them. Click through the link above to see how the color and texture of the stones seem to change, depending on whether they’re viewed in natural light indoors, outdoors, or with a flash. Each is equally rich as the next, but very distinctive, too.
Of course, not all light is so muted or soft, and even softer light can be something powerful [and not always comforting]. Here, we tend to consider fire a phenomenon of summer, but in these days of twelve-hundred-year drought and climate collapse, it’s a danger that now lives with us year-round. Just this week, courtesy of the terrible conflagrations two states west of us, we have had traces of hazy particulate matter in these midwinter skies, the rising and setting of smoky suns bookending our days and turning the light into something as ethereal as it is emblematic of unfolding tragedy. Our peoples, though, can recall a time when fire was a less deadly proposition, when, between the dance of lightning bolt and monsoonal rains, supplemented by ancestral practices of land stewardship, the blazes were limited and harnessed for their use in keeping the land in good health and harmony. The fourth of today’s featured works evokes such better days even as it acknowledges our current deadlier truths in deliberately distinctive fashion; from this pair’s description:
The Rising and Setting of Smoky Suns Earrings
Early summer is the season of the rising and setting of smoky suns, of dustlight orbs at dawn and dusk glowing behind a veil of pollen, cloud, and smoke. With these earrings, Wings pays tribute to the bronze-limned glow of a golden sun, and to an earth awash in its silvery rays in the twilight moments that bookend each day. Each dangling drop is a traditional concha, saw-cut and domed by hand in the classic style. Each is scored and stamped freehand in a radiant pattern that is almost, but not quite, identical: on the left, the wider rays of the dawn emanating from behind the tiger’s eye’s chatoyant glow to end in sweeping arcs of light; on the right, the more tightly gathered rays that dodge and dance with remnant clouds, with wind and dust and smoke, the deeply incised scorework ending in steeper, tighter arcs, as befits the shortened light of dusk. Each is set at the center with a round, highly domed tiger’s eye cabochon, shades of gold and amber bisecting the bronzed earthy shades like lightning. Each hangs from a flat sterling silver jump ring that serves as a bail; sterling silver coil-and-ball-bead earring wires are threaded through them. Earrings hang 1-3/4″ long including bail (excluding wires); conchas are 1.5″ long by 1.5″ wide; cabochons are 5/16″ across (all dimensions approximate).
Sterling silver; tiger’s eye
$425 + shipping, handling, and insurance
Yes, the stampwork seems the same at first glance, but a second look shows just how distinctive each earring’s scorework is. These, too, are traditional conchas, round in shape and domed by hand, scored freehand in radiant arcs that emanate from the jeweled suns at their centers . . . but the one shown here on the left features the wider, more sweeping rays of the dawn, before clouds and particulate matter have infiltrated their space and divided them into more tightly bound lines between earth and sky. We have seen those narrower, more numerous rays at sunset often lately, as the clouds and the smoke that gives the western sky its haunting rose glow on recent nights combine to create long diagonals that touch the horizon.
Fifth and finally among today’s featured works are a pair wrought in a very different traditional style, one to honor the Four Sacred Directions. It’s a pair of earrings set with the soft and gentle grays of the night sky, the time when the moon rests on a blanket of stars, yet still capturing the colorful fire of sun and rich blues of sky as well, refracting it all back out to the world. from its description:
The Moon Rests On a Blanket of Stars Earrings
The moon rests on a blanket of stars spread to the four directions. With these earrings, Wings places a jeweled version of Grandmother at the center of her sky, with silvered stars shooting along their heavenly trajectory beneath her. Each bold dangling drop is hand-milled in a line-and-dot motif hat seems to follow the path of an ancient light, then cut freehand into the old traditional four-spoked geometry that represents the winds and the sacred directions. The beautifully high-domed Labradorite cabochons at the center are deep and mysteriously whorled with the moondust of refracted color. Sterling silver jump rings at the top allow them to hang securely from sterling silver earring wires. Earrings hang 2-1/8″ long, excluding wires, by 3/4″ across at the widest point; cabochons are 7/16″ across (dimensions approximate).
Sterling silver; Labradorite
$625 + shipping, handling, and insurance
And lastly, of course, we have a pair particularly apt for the full moon due two days hence: a pair saw-cut freehand in an old-style Four Sacred Directions pattern. It suits Grandmother Moon in her fuller phase, because in a place such as this, and in the perfect clarity of deep cold such as this, no matter her position in the sky, her light illuminates all the lies below her. It’s possible, at times such as this, to walk out of doors at night without aid of a flashlight; once one’s eyes adjust, the ground’s every rut and stone become clear. And while her light does seem to dwarf those of the stars nearest her position, theirs are ancient lights, distant and strong, and they show themselves to us anyway, adding yet more light to a darkened earth.
When the wind cuts as deeply as it is in recent days and nights, when the cold sinks its fangs into one’s bones, it’s hard to remember what a gift this season can be. But these are the days we need, when it gets cold enough to snow, and enough cloud cover forms to make it possible.
Today, it just might be possible.
This has been a day that begins and ends in storm and light, beauty and illumination for the spirit, and maybe, just maybe, a little medicine for a thirsty earth, as well.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2025; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.
