Late winter is as much a Trickster as spring. After highs well into the fifties yesterday, we have a blizzard today.
Unlike those parts of Turtle Island where all of March is already fully spring, this will do our nascent green no damage. True, there is a full blanket of white across the earth this morning, but in relative terms, it is a very thin one: just over an inch thus far. The same fierce winds, defiantly horizontal, that have blown the storm in will blow it out beyond the peaks in similar fashion, if not before end of day then at least before tomorrow’s dawn.
Beneath that blanket, a greening earth awakens.
In this final week of official winter, the mercury will rise again very soon. And while winter and spring will contend for weeks yet over this patch of earth — even our current extended forecast predicts more snow on consecutive days some ten days hence — time is its own unstoppable force, carrying spring with it like a rushing current.
Today’s featured work, one of my current favorites, captures this dynamic perfectly. And it is dynamic, both noun and verb, phenomenon and act at once. The work is, too, a piece of flowering green and silver light. From its description in the relevant section of the Bracelets Gallery here on the site:
The Greening of the Earth Cuff Bracelet
The greening of the Earth finds full expression in summer, a manifestation of fertility and gift of renewal. Wings honors season and spirit with this bold new cuff of solid sterling silver, hand-milled in a flowering pattern and set with five spectacular green turquoise stones. The high-grade freeform center cabochon, likely from Colorado’s Evans Mining District, manifests in a rich green the color of a great deep lake studded with small coppery islands of red-gold earth; it rests in a scalloped bezel trimmed with twisted silver. The center cabochon is flanked by a matched pair of deep teal-green rectangular cabochons, lightly domed, beveled at the corners, intensely-hued and traced with faint white webbing and traces of inky purple matrix, both also resting in scalloped bezels and trimmed with twisted silver. At either end sits a single small round cabochon of turquoise, each in mixed teal blues and greens with matrices of moss green and violet and ivory, each set into a simple low-profile bezel. All stand boldly above the band, brightly polished silver with the floral millwork thrown into sharp relief and highly textured to the touch. The band is 6″ long by 1″ across; the center cabochon is 7/8″ high at the highest point by 5/8″ across at the widest point; the rectangular cabochons are 9/16″ long by 3/8″ across; and the round cabochons are 3/8″ across (dimensions approximate). Designed jointly by Wings and Aji. Other views shown above and below.
Sterling silver; natural teal-green American turquoise (likely from the
Colorado Evans Mine and Nevada’s Pilot Mountain and Royston Mines)
$1,995 + shipping, handling, and insurance
This piece was created in the earliest days of summer, when the green was still new, not yet wholly actualized. It was a work of hope and promise, of faith that a greening earth, awakened, would mature into the full lushness of its capacity. Now, as we bid farewell to formal winter, it’s a reminder that, even in the face and fangs of the latest blizzard, the green returns: defiant, determined.
If tiny blades of grass can persist so completely? So can we.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2019; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.
