So much to do before winter; so little time left before the snow flies.
This is our dilemma every year, but we feel the urgency unusually early now. Mid-September, following a decent rainy season, and there are so few blossoms left. All that remains is a little green, a little gold, and we know much colder winds are coming.
The forecast predicts rain — for today, for tonight, for tomorrow. We have already gone from highs in the nineties in the week before last to, in the space of a day, highs a full ten degrees cooler for the week just ended yesterday. Today’s high is expected to be ten degrees lower yet, and if the rain continues overnight, it could get very much colder indeed. It will certainly bring snow to the peaks and the highest slopes, long before the aspen line has begun to turn. We may find that autumn looks much as it did last year, albeit for different reasons; instead of a drought so dire that the trees began to brown in June and July, an early snow could bring leaves as brown, and fallen as prematurely, as last year.
If that occurs, we will be denied the flames of fall, and our only option will be to set our sights on the silvery rime of winter.
And if the elders’ experience holds, this will be a hard one.
It becomes ever more important to appreciate such warmth and color as we have now: not only for the space it provides us to prepare for the long cold dark of winter, but also for the bright beauty that must hold us half a year until spring takes hold again. Today’s featured work honors these last days — if we’re lucky, perhaps weeks — of a world adorned by late summer wildflowers, of leaves yet green and petals still gold. From its description in the Accessories Gallery here on the site:
Summer Wildflowers Barrette
Summer wildflowers rise from green-tipped stalks to blossom and dance in the light. Wings summons these spirits of warmer winds in this barrette, hand-milled in a random profusion of silvery petals across a gently arcing rectangle of medium-gauge sterling silver. In the center of the barrette, a single round citrine rests in a saw-toothed bezel, a small wild sunflower amid the larger blossoms. The “stalk” is formed of an elegant silver pick made of sterling silver half-round wire, hand-stamped in a repeating pattern of directional arrows alternating with tiny sacred hoops down its length. At one end, the pick is anchored by an elegant oval peridot cabochon, beautifully translucent in the color of summer greenery, set securely into a saw-toothed bezel. The barrette is 3-5/16″ long by 1-3/4″ high; the citrine cabochon is 1/4″ across; the pick is 3-7/8″ long by 3/16″ across (save at the bezel); the peridot cabochon is 3/8″ long by 1/4″ across at the widest point (dimensions approximate). Another view shown at top.
Sterling silver; citrine; peridot
$775 + shipping, handling, and insurance
This barrette is relatively simple, the stones small, modest . . . and yet, it is a work of unusual brightness, of the joy of summer wildflowers dancing beneath the distant golden glow of the sun, reveling in the lush green of grass and stalk and leaf. On these days when the wild sunflowers lose their petals with increasing rapidity, when there is more yellow among the willow branches than on their swaying stalks, it’s a reminder to us to hold their beauty and brilliance firmly in memory.
In such winters as we have here, long, cold, deep, and dark, bright colors are a blessing. And when the world goes white, it is a gift to be able to wear, even then, a little green, a little gold, a little sun and wildflower spirit.
~ 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.
