Sunday, near month’s end, and we are digging out.
Roughly two feet of snow fell in space of eighteen hours from late Friday afternoon to late yesterday morning, and even with today’s bright and too-warm sun, there are drifts in some places still standing nearly four feet high. Every surface is buried, although yesterday afternoon’s sun, coupled with today’s brilliant warmth, have already precipitated a stunning rate of melt. Before dusk, the gabled roof of the hay barn was mostly clear, a pair of fifteen-inch-high glaciers having calved and split between peak and eastern edge; now, it’s entirely clear.
Every day of the coming two weeks, we are told to expect highs well into the forties. Soon, instead of treading between ploughed and drifted walls of snow, we will be navigating between rivers of mud.
I said last week that winter is the mother of the waters. She has become especially fertile this season — after last year’s deadly drought, a great if occasionally inconvenient gift. Last year was one of hardship, a perhaps-needed reminder to us all that, even here, we have too long taken prosperity for granted.
Other spirits have visited us now, and, even in these waning days of winter, this is a time for abundance.
Today’s featured work embodies one of those spirits: symbol of a prospering world, born of the deepest of waters, bearing lush green and brilliant light. From its description in the relevant section of the Bracelets Gallery here on the site:
A Prospering World Cuff Bracelet
The spirits honor hard work and a life well lived in the old way by answering prayers for a prospering world. Wings evokes one of these spirits of prosperity in silver and stone by way of his own signature style: a hand-split cuff in the cold shape of Serpent, he who bears good fortune. This version of the snake is the same one who lends his talents to Medicine, a rattler bearing jewels of the earth in rich fertile colors. The band is formed of a single piece of sterling silver, hand-split so that head and tail extend in opposite directions to coil around the wrist. Small hand-stamped points form his eyes; tiny hoops, his snout and heavily layered rattle; lodge symbols adorn the two intermediate ends of the uniquely-styled band. He is that fierce member of his clan, the diamondback, with tiny hand-stamped versions of the pattern alternating between the gemstones he bears along his back, ten small round bezel-set cabochons of jade and tiger’s eye. Band is 6″ long by 7/16″ across; cabochons are 5/16″ across (dimensions approximate); the band has significant flexibility, but is designed for a smaller wrist (6.5″ or less). Other views shown below.
Sterling silver; jade; tiger’s eye
$1,025 + shipping, handling, and insurance
At the moment, the only gold visible is that of the weeping willow branches, stark against a gray-blue sky. Such green as already exists — not the evergreens, but actual blades of grass that have survived the cold even now — remain shrouded beneath a heavy white blanket.
In a matter of days, all that will change, the snowdrifts parting beneath the gaze of the sun to reveal the rich brown earth again. Few more weeks, and the calendar will have turned its pages more formally to spring. For us, now begins the planning season — evaluating the water supply, determining how much time we have and what the temperatures and weather conditions are likely to be — all in the service of the planting season. We are both looking forward to having gardens again after a year so utterly without.
Threshold season, late winter merging with the flows of early spring, and the season drawing to a close has already given birth to much of this year’s offspring, although there will be more to come. The waters are waiting, their spirits growing and gathering.
It is still winter, yes . . . and still a time for abundance.
~ Aji
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