The Winter Solstice.
I sit in still-darkened room, the only glow from the fires in the woodstoves and the bulbs on the tree. This is the shortest day of the year; it is tonight, strangely, that will mark the sun’s return. Out the window, a violet sky slowly cedes space to the day, the southeastern sky newly awash in shades of amber, the dawn unfolding behind the peaks like the wings of some winter butterfly.
It’s a contradictory yet oddly fitting image, that: Like the Solstice that falls in the dark hours of night, this imagined winged being of the clear cold winter skies is a spirit to lead us back to the light.
Today’s featured work is the literal embodiment of both spirit and act, one created with the intention to mark this night’s opposite: the Summer Solstice, when the outside world finally deigns to greet the summer, but when our world already begins its inexorable shift away from the sun. It fits just as well as for this cold bright day. From its description in the Belts Gallery here on the site:
Solstice Light Butterfly Concha Belt
The solstice light is a transcendent gift, as transformational as any chrysalis, as graceful and gentle as the butterfly’s wings. Wings brings together turning point, spirit, and light in a work of power and medicine that takes the form of a true butterfly concha belt: no metaphors here, but a work of genuine hand-cut butterflies floating along the length of the leather. Each concha, like the buckle, is cut freehand of sterling silver, body and antennae articulated, wings scalloped at their edges by hand via meticulous ajouré saw-work. The stampwork spreads gracefully across each wing, veins like gossamer branches embracing tiny hoops in a style that evokes the fine flowing lines of Art Nouveau, and each scalloped wing edge is accented with the hand-stamped rays of a rising sun. At the center of each concha sits an oval tiger’s eye cabochon, each hand-picked for its spectacular chatoyance to rest in a scalloped bezel. The focal point of the buckle, a larger butterfly wrought similarly freehand and set into a scalloped bezel trimmed with delicate twisted silver, is a large inverted teardrop of genuine Dominican blue amber, the surface naturally textured to refract the light, the interior full of equally natural inclusions that look like tiny strands of embedded jewels floating in the light. Conchas and buckle are all lightly domed, repoussé-fashion, and each butterfly hovers atop its own bouquet via the sterling silver loops on the reverse, each hand-cut, hand-shaped, and hand-milled in a wildflower design. Each silver piece is buffed to a soft polish slightly brighter than Florentine. The belt is made of heavy black leather, hand-cut and hand-beveled, with medicine motifs in the form of bear-paw prints hand-stamped down its entire length in a repeating pattern; keeper ties are slender but sturdy braided black leather. The leather belt is 11/16″ high; the conchas are 2.25″ across at the widest point by 2″ high at the highest point; tiger’s eye cabochons are 1/2″ high by 3/8″ across; buckle is 3.5″ across at the widest point by 2.5″ high at the highest point; visible portion of the Dominican blue amber cabochon is 15/16″ high by 5/8″ across at the widest point (all dimensions approximate). Other views shown below. Note: Not designed for jeans, trousers, or any apparel with belt loops; this particular work is designed to be worn externally over shirts, blouses, or dresses.
Sterling silver; Dominican blue amber; tiger’s eye; black leather
$5,500 + shipping, handling, and insurance
Notes: Requires special handling; extra shipping charges apply.
The leather belt is a standard length; a hand-made belt in a specialty size may be ordered
(either shorter or longer) for an additional $325 charge.
We talk much, on this day every year, of “the return of the light,” and yet the light has not gone anywhere; only we, bound to earth, have traveled away from it. And while it is the way in which this world survives, it seems like a cautionary metaphor for our peoples, and indeed, for humanity as a whole. The elders counsel about what is required of us to live life well, in a good way that will grant our children a better world than our own; the ancestors lives, their lived experience, they left as an example and as their legacy to us. The spirits show us the way.
And yet, humanity finds it so easy to stray from the path. Self-interest and convenience are chief distractions, and it is these far more than so-called good intentions that pave the road to a colonial hell. But these have a way of transmuting, like some toxic chrysalis, into darker things: into resentment, envy, simple and dangerous greed. We have seen its effects; we live daily in that world now, one darkened not by any literal absence of light, but by a lack of good hearts and brave spirits.
And so it seems the best of days to focus on our own role: not in the passive awaiting of the light’s return, but in our own active turning toward the light.
No, there are no butterflies here now; they will not return until the cold season is well past. But just as their bodies transcend the bonds of their birth, so, too, do their spirits transcend lines of space and time; by their very existence, at any season, they share with us the lightness, the warmth and brilliance, of warmer winds. Their own glow lives year-round in hart and memory, and in a little thing not with feathers but with wings all the same: the thing called hope.
On this day, when our world begins its smallest turn back toward the sun, it’s a time to look inward: to find a spirit to lead us back to the light.
~ 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.
