At long last, rain.
Not rain as in a hundred scattered drops from a shower being blown out past the peaks on a trickster wind. Not rain as in a violent eruption of clouds, flooding a land too dry to absorb it.
No, this was a real rain, a long, steady, soaking rain.
It lasted a good share of the dark hours, and if the current skies are any indication, today’s forecast for more is about to come to pass. For once, the winds are silent — almost perfectly still, as though they, too, appreciate the wonder of what’s to come.
After a season of wildfire born (and borne) on a trickster wind, that is a welcome development indeed.
Of course, none of this is a magic bullet, no cure-all nor even capable of being called a healing. Too many years of drought and subsequent aridification, too many wildfires and too much dust and smoke have ensured that. But healing begins with medicine, and this is medicine.
It is also, possibly, the beginnings of the Earth’s own rising once more, a taking up of every drop and putting it to use in opposition to all the colonialism has inflicted upon it: from the ashes, a prospering world, and a defiant abundance.
Today’s featured work, one of my own personal favorites, embodies both — named for such a world, manifest in its refusal to succumb. From its description in the relevant section of the Bracelets Gallery here on the site:
A Prospering World Cuff Bracelet
The spirits honor hard work and a life well lived in the old way by answering prayers for a prospering world. Wings evokes one of these spirits of prosperity in silver and stone by way of his own signature style: a hand-split cuff in the coiled shape of Serpent, he who bears good fortune. This version of the snake is the same one who lends his talents to Medicine, a rattler bearing jewels of the earth in rich fertile colors. The band is formed of a single piece of sterling silver, hand-split so that head and tail extend in opposite directions to coil around the wrist. Small hand-stamped points form his eyes; tiny hoops, his snout and heavily layered rattle; lodge symbols adorn the two intermediate ends of the uniquely-styled band. He is that fierce member of his clan, the diamondback, with tiny hand-stamped versions of the pattern alternating between the gemstones he bears along his back, ten small round bezel-set cabochons of jade and tiger’s eye. Band is 6″ long by 7/16″ across; cabochons are 5/16″ across (dimensions approximate); the band has significant flexibility, but is designed for a smaller wrist (6.5″ or less). Other views shown above, below, and at the link.
Sterling silver; jade; tiger’s eye
$1,025 + shipping, handling, and insurance
This is one of Wings’s own signature designs from long ago. The first of its kind was solid silver, a little stampwork to adorn it, but no jewels of any sort.
Now, he has re-envisioned it for a world that needs the reminders of beauty and prosperity that its spirits holds, even when externalities suppress them. IN this iteration, it’s a combination of earth and light: rich soil lit by a golden sun contrasting with the deep jade green os the summer grass.
Colors, both, that appear in its real-life archetype, what is, to Wings, a symbol of prosperity itself:
This is a bull snake, one of our local residents (this one from 2014, but we have had them this year, too) that seeks shelter here from the sun. In return, it keeps the rodent population at bay, and in a land where both plague and hantavirus are rampant, that is a service beyond price.
This being is often mistaken for a rattler, and it’s true that we get those, too; both have similar markings, and the bull snake is known to shake its rattleless tail when it feels threatened, a way of confusing and repelling would-be predators. For some Indigenous peoples’ traditions, these beings are taboo; for others, they are spirits of medicine, probably in part because they are linked in some cultures with their larger and more powerful relative, the Water Serpent, who lives immersed in the First Medicine.
I have not seen one of these in recent weeks, although I have suspected a couple of times, based on the behavior of the chickens, that our local one has returned to the shade of the warrens beneath the coop. They tolerate each other, fully aware of each other’s existence, each giving the other plenty of space.
Now, as I write, the skies have darkened still further; the sun is completely hidden by a wall of clouds. The air is still, yet electric, and our whole small world seem to wait, breath held, for the first drops to fall.
This is why we keep at the work: A defiant abundance is possible.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2022; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.
