As August draws to a close, so, too, do a number of other seasons that are a part of this time of year: growing season, mudding season, raining season, gathering season. Oh, there will be more of each in September, yes, but they will be less encompassing, more confined to specific times and contexts and events.
This is another season, too: the praying season, one marked by supplication to the spirits . . . and, one hopes, marked in return by their answers. Those answers very often come in the form of messengers, small beings whose task it is, far beyond their ordinary role in our ecosystems, to deliver messages from beings more powerful than ourselves.
It’s role embodied perfectly, at this time of year, in the monarch butterfly.
On a much broader scale, the monarch represents the hopes and prayers of an entire world, a world dependent upon its capacities for pollination, and equally dependent upon its status as an early standard-bearer in what survives, and what does not, as climate change accelerates.
Here, they are spirits of the late summer, putting in only the occasional appearance in June, July, and the first weeks of August, then becoming constant companions from the end of this month into September. In an ordinary year, they are gone well before October, but last year was no ordinary year, and thus far, this one is not, either. For now, our resident monarch and her occasional companion spend their days spiraling around the aspens and willows, darting from flower to flower in pollinating fervor, extending the growing season by just enough, perhaps, to make a difference in the harvest.
For many people here, that difference alone will be an answer to heartfelt prayers.
And so, in these waning days of the last full month of summer, it is perhaps fitting to recognize such a messenger spirit, one whose song is too often unnoticed and unheard, but whose work gives our world nothing less than the gift of life. It’s also fitting, then, that this work should be named for some among the female of her species. From its description in the Accessories Gallery here on the site:
Matriarch Barrette
Our ways honor women, and the cycles of the natural world. Wings pays tribute to both, and to the small powerful spirits who serve as the royalty of the winds, the monarch butterfly: she who undergoes a process of metamorphosis to become an avatar, a leader of her kind. It begins with a pair of sterling silver wings, cut freehand with lightly scalloped edges, flanking a small round head and pair of graceful antennae. Her body is formed of a marquise-cut onyx cabochon, set into a saw-toothed bezel and overlaid at the center. Her tricolor upper wings are formed from a pair of oval snowflake obsidian stones, four brilliant orange round amber cabochons, and two smaller round rainbow moonstones. Her lower wings bear a pair of oval onyx cabs edged by alternating pairs of round citrine and rainbow moonstone cabochons, scattered above hand-stamped flowering images and sacred hoops accenting the bottom of her wings. Her whole being is slightly curved to follow the line of the French clip on the reverse. The barrette stretches 3.25″ across at the widest point and stands 2.5″ high at the highest point; center cabochon is 1.25″ long (dimensions approximate).
Sterling silver; snowflake obsidian; onyx; amber; rainbow moonstone; citrine
$1,600 + shipping, handling, and insurance
SOLD
She is a beautiful spirit, and a fragile one, and yet, like her namesake, stronger than the world appreciates Her kind is threatened now, an existential threat of the sort our peoples know so well. And yet she persists: perseveres in her task of pollinating the world, in fulfilling her mandate as messenger of the spirits. Her role is one of gathering, in both senses of the word: Soon she and her kind will gather together en masse in lands far to the south, there to ensure her kind’s survival. Here, she is a gatherer, of messages and of life.
And in so doing, she helps to ensure our kind’s survival, as well.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2017; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owners.
