For the first time in days, dawn has brought us still air and cloudless skies. Even the graying earth shines silver in the sunlight.
After its day-long battering by yesterday’s ferocious wind, that earth seems grateful for the quiet. It has become, by accident of weather and time, a day of rest in the truest sense.
The winds of the last week have driven nearly every leaf from the trees now. The aspens stand tall in silvered skeletal form; the weeping willows, long since bent to the shape of the breeze, are as golden as the light of the sun itself.
But the land remains dry, and water is needed.
The long-range forecast holds out little hope of precipitation now, but we know that can change in the beat of a bird’s wing here. If hope is impractical, prayer is not, and so we continue to honor land and spirits alike. Even in winter, even in drought, there is much that flowers here, metaphorically speaking. It’s what the keeps the mountains green year-round here (unless covered with welcome snow): piñon and soldier pine, juniper and cedar, spruce and fir. Part of what makes it possible is the local watersheds, a collection of wild rivers and blue lakes, but it is the snow in winter that keeps our whole small alive year-round here. If it is true that from sacred waters all life flows, in this place, snow is truly a gift of the spirits, a medicine of and for the cold season, and all the others, too.
Today’s featured work is the embodiment of this gift, of the waters fed by the snow and of the life that flows and flowers from them. From its description in the relevant section of the Bracelets Gallery here on the site:
From Sacred Waters Cuff Bracelet
From sacred waters medicine flows and grows. In this place, both the lake and the rain and snow that feed it are sacred: the first medicine, the one that allows all others to flourish. Wings honors them all with this cuff bracelet wrought in the shapes and shades of water and light and all that flowers beside them. At the center sits an extraordinary free-form cabochon of ultra-high-grade water-web Kingman turquoise, a perfect blend of robin’s-egg and sky blues with a tight, inky spiderweb matrix. It’s set into a scalloped bezel and trimmed with twisted silver, then set upon a wide yet lightweight sterling silver band cut freehand into four sparkling strands, each stamped in a two separate, facing rows of flowering medicine. The four strands remain united at the ends of the band, each end stamped deeply and cleanly with flowing water and wildflowers dancing between compass motifs, their spokes and corners pointing to the Sacred Directions. Across the inner band are scattered a few stamped hearts, symbols of the love the spirits show in providing us with the water, with the plants, with life itself. The band is 6″ long by 1-1/2″ across, with each of the four individual strands measuring 3/16″ across; the turquoise cabochon is 1-3/4″ long by 1-3/16″ across at the widest point (dimensions approximate). Other views shown below.
Sterling silver; ultra-high-grade water-web Kingman turquoise
$1,750 + shipping, handling, and insurance
Locally, the drought has meant that even the evergreens are less green, and less eternal, than usual. One juniper is thriving, the other remains unfruited; two of the spruces are lush and blue, while the others are browning from within. A still-small Ponderosa pin is struggling, and a few of the piñon have already lost their fight for survival.
Our whole small world here needs healing — but for that, they need the First Medicine, the water.
And so we pray for the cold, and for the snow. In recent years, our snowpack has diminished to a level only a third or less of its more usual norms. Groundwater levels have diminished, too, the levels of lakes and rivers dangerously low. We need a medicine of and for the cold season, for all the seasons to follow, for our whole world now.
~ Aji
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