Dawn breaks daily now in a pale haze of orange and gray. The sun shines and the knife-edge of autumn is on the wind, but it’s hard to call the air clear. Such little rain as we have been granted is not enough to tamp down the pall of smoke drifting in steadily from the west, but the vicious east wind that accompanied yesterday’s shower tore through the garden, flattening much of the corn.
These are hard days.
In a different year, even with the drought, there would still be the usual markers of time and season and ceremony, events more regular than the boxes on any calendar, a reminder to the world that some traditions survive whatever external forces may bring. The pandemic has managed the unthinkable, halting events that have never gone unobserved in Wings’s lifetime, perhaps never at all. And in a different year, that would be significant, remarkable, not a little worrying.
In a year when summer dies around us in real time, and the land with it, it feels ominous.
And so the challenge becomes finding ways to recognize, acknowledge, honor, and celebrate survival even as the usual markers disintegrate before our eyes. At this season, normally the lushest, greenest part of the year, it would be easy to find signs of abundance and prosperity: corn standing tall and swaying in the breeze, beans on the vine and multiple varieties of squash ripe for the picking, small pumpkins still green but growing fast, in preparation for a fall harvest. And while the land was in first flower back in the late days of spring, there would still be more first flowers yet to come, as the wild species that blanket the land here find their footing as we approach summer’s end.
Most of those patterns are gone entirely, and we watch the skies with some trepidation as we wait to see whether this month or either of the two to come herald the first flowering of El Niño, the weather system that brings the rains even in the face of climate change. So far, it doesn’t look good; official predictions expect its drought-burdened sister, La Niña, to be reborn between now and October.
And yet, there is cause for hope. There are a few wild sunflowers yet to bloom, a few smaller wild blossoms ready to open, and for others that failed to thrive, the seeds still have been laid down for next year. Just as the ceremonies will return, so, too, will the petals and the fruits, a flowering certainty born of the twinned assurances of ancient prophecy and long experience.
Today’s featured masterwork was originally wrought to embody the literal first flower of spring, that earliest of markers in the annual cycle of renewal and rebirth. But this piece, ablaze with the fiery shades of autumn in this place, reminds us that there are other first flowers to anticipate, too, to appreciate and honor with our own markers of prayer and gratitude. From its description in the Necklaces Gallery here on the site:
First Flower Necklace
A single sunlit dewdrop summons the new buds to open in first flower. In this wildflower season, Wings brings sun and dew to the newest petals in this necklace wrought in shades of rose and gold and sterling silver. It begins with the pendant, a stunning giant teardrop of mookaite, a perfect bud of dusty roses petals edged in sunny gold, just ready to open for the first time. This extraordinary cabochon is set into a scalloped bezel trimmed with twisted silver, and topped by a tiny round bezel-set citrine cabochon, sun filtered through the dew at dawn. It all hangs from a hand-wrought bail of flared sterling silver, stamped front and back with a single hand-stamped flowering sunburst. The bail hangs over a pair of tiny round ocean jasper beads flanked by small faceted mookaite alternating with ridged barrel beads of bright golden citrine, interspersed throughout the length of the strand with large, silky doughnut rondel and barrel beads of mookaite in mulberry and rose and gold. Each end of the strand is anchored with four round ocean jasper beads flowing into sterling silver findings. Bead strand is 20″ long, excluding findings; pendant, including bail, is another 2.5″ long by 1-3/16″ across at the widest point; visible portion of mookaite cabochon is 3/4″ long; citrine cabochon is 3/16″ across; bail hangs 1/4″ long by 3/8″ across at the widest point (dimensions approximate). Close-up view of pendant shown below.
Sterling silver; mookaite; citrine; ocean jasper
$1,750 + shipping, handling, and insurance
This work has been one of my favorites from the moment of its creation. It began with that extraordinary focal cabochon, one that could never be anything but what it so clearly is, a bud about to open in first flower. Wings took it one extra step, adding the sunlit dewdrop to its tip: two first medicines combined, water and light. And the bejeweled bead strand accents it perfectly, with elemental shades of sun and storm, fire and light, earth and water all in one textured cascade of blossoming color, more buds and more dewdrops conspiring in the dawn light.
There was precious little dew to be found outside at dawn this day, and the sun was filtered through a smoky haze. But the colors remain: the reds and golds and violets of an earth turning now to autumn, yet so many of its spirits still stubbornly in first flower. Perhaps they, like us, remember past years; perhaps it gives them strength and faith to face the winter to come and plan for next year.
But we, like our ancestors, like the land and its children, have known hardship before, and we are still here. We know the old prophecies, and we are comfortable with the work. And we believe in the building of a better world. It is our work, after all, that will allow more powerful forces to turn it from memories and dreams into a flowering certainty.
~ 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.
