It’s cold.
That alone would not be unusual for this time of year — indeed, it would pass for “normal” — but we have gone from a high of sixty-one to wind chills below zero in the space of a day.
That, too, is not unheard-of here, but it still comes as a shock to the system. As much as we want the cold for a winter appropriate to the local ecosystem, our aging bodies get accustomed to the dangerous warmth all too easily.
This, though, is a drastic enough shift that eve the animals are noticing it. Only the birds seem untroubled — not surprising, since their bodies are little incubators by design. They seem able to withstand nearly any shift in temperature or wind, at least as long as they have a refuge like this where food and water are readily available to them. Whether their migratory cousins are faring so well is another question entirely.
The cold has preserved the last of the dusting of snow that adorns the peaks and slopes now. Down here at their feet, what little remains is mostly that which spends the day in shadow. The earth is still more damp than not, soft and gently springy underfoot, but there is still too much of all the wrong kinds of green and not enough of the right kinds now.
Perhaps the former, at least, will be done until spring after this night passes; the temperature itself is anticipated to plunge below zero here, with wind chills much lower still — the season’s first truly hard freeze, the kind that arrives with a sense of finality about it, more than a month late now.
None of these developments, of course, have done a thing to remediate the water situation: The twelve-hundred-year drought is still in full and deadly effect, no matter what the chattering classes and talking heads might try to pretend. They are, after all, invested entirely in such pretense; their devotion to colonialism demands it. And so they become not merely accessories but active co-conspirators to the active killing of the land, of the air and waters too.
It is a philosophy, a worldview, that has taken the most sacred of gifts and spurned it, scorned it, desecrated it, gleefully wounded it mortally and then just as happily consigned it to the nearest trash heap. Humanity was given a world designed explicitly to support our existence, to save our lives and let us thrive, and it has treated that gift with a damnable contempt.
Our peoples know better than most how urgently humanity, collectively, needs to recommit itself to the stewardship of this planet. We know what a gift it is and has always been; know, too, the role of gratitude in forming our commitment to its care in the first place (and now, to its healing and repair). And perhaps that s the element that is absent most of all from the outside world: gratitude, the kind of appreciation that carries with it a sense not merely of obligation but of honor — of reciprocity, yes, but also community and humanity and simple responsibility.
Today’s featured work is at once the embodiment of this gift and thee reminder of our own relationships and responsibilities to it. It’s a work wrought in the form and shape of Grandmother Turtle, she who gave, according to some traditions, the First People a world to call their own, thereby also giving this land mass its name, Turtle Island. It’s a story that evokes the image of a green and thriving world, irrespective of season, weather, and time, and here, it’s manifest in all the shades of lush earth, abundant seas, and the rich evergreen that sustains the land even in winter. From its description in the Necklaces Gallery here on the site:
Turtle Island Necklace
Algonquin Woodland peoples know the ancient story of how the First People were saved by the gift of Grandmother Turtle’s shell, which is how this land mass came to be called Turtle Island. Wings honors not just her gift but her very being and spirit with this necklace, featuring articulated head, legs, tail, and beautifully marbled shell all bound together and cascading from a strand of jeweled beads in the shades of earth and water, sky and silvery light. Her head is formed of a beautifully complex cabochon of chrysocolla, emerald and seafoam greens arising from earthy black matrix and accented with flashes of indigo, bezel-set and trimmed with twisted silver. Her body is a truly remarkable cabochon made of a single slice of natural pinecone, wafer-thin and embedded in a layer of resin aswirl in shades of translucent emerald green and black. Sterling silver pattern wire in a molded floral pattern with echoes of Art Nouveau styling create her legs, arched outward form her body and ready to move, while her tail, like the slider-style bail from which she hangs, is a flared triangle of sterling silver, stamped freehand. She dances from a cascade of ultra-high-grade gemstone beads, two old natural chrysocolla cabochons bisected by a single orb of iron pyrite at the center, flowing into spheres of highly polished ocean jasper in two sizes, flanked by long jet barrels and alternating with sterling silver and iron pyrite accents. Moving upward, the beads form a gradients of greens and blues, electric green chrome diopside and softer jade flowing into blue spiderweb turquoise in two sizes, all set off by iron pyrite flanked by sterling silver, with tiny diamond-cut sterling silver anchors at either end. Beads are strung on ultra-strong tri-ply foxtail coated in silver for color and held with sterling silver findings. Bead strand hangs 23″ long, excluding findings; pendant including bail is 3-5/8″ long; without bail, 3″ long by 1-7/8″ across at the widest point; bail itself is 5/8″ long by 5/8″ across at the widest point; round setting is 1-7/16″ across with a cabochon of 1-3/16″ across; oval setting is 1-3/16″ long by 1sts 5/16″ across at the widest, with a cabochon of 1″ long by 3/4″ across at the widest point; turtle’s pattern-wire “legs” are 1/8″ across (all dimensions approximate). Close-up and full views of pendant shown above, below, and at the link.
Pendant: Sterling silver; chrysocolla; pinecone in resin
Beads: Old ultra-high-grade chrysocolla; iron pyrite; jet; Pietersite; ocean jasper; sterling silver;
chrome diopside; jade; blue spiderweb turquoise; diamond-cut sterling silver
$1,400 + shipping, handling, and insurance
I love the way this piece pulls together all the elements of an earth in good health and harmony: the mix of mountains and seas that seems to inhabit the chrysocolla that forms Turtle’s head; the literal pine cone in the body that, blended as it is with shades of green and black, evokes an alpine, perhaps even a boreal forest, the single greatest source of carbon capture on the planet; the beads that seem to blend earth and sky, water and light, all in a shimmering cascade of rich colors and textures.
And then, of course, there is the silverwork that gives form and shape to the spirit of Grandmother Turtle that animates the entire work. Hers is a humble spirit, and that aspect of her character is one that is part of my own people’s essential teachings for how to live our lives in a good way. And it reminds us that we all have a role to play; the world needs us as surely as we need it.
As I write, those puffy white clouds that have been drifting behind the ridgeline to north and east are now delivering a new dusting of snow to those peaks. it won’t be a lot, but it’s something — a little more moisture to dd to the seasonal snowpack, and given its ongoing erosion over recent years, that is a gift indeed.
But it’s more than a gift, or a blessing — it’s medicine, one that a wounded world needs now more than ever, even if once it was simple and immanent power. And it’s a reminder of what it takes to a sustain a green and thriving world, a task that requires our contributions now.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2023; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.
