The weekend forecast has fizzled once more, what was hyped as amounting to several inches of accumulation turning out to be nothing more than a rime of overnight sleet and a few dozen flakes this morning that melted before touching the ground. In the early hours, the sun was bright against the violet clouds, the air impossibly warm and inviting. Now, the clouds have largely closed in again, still playing hide-and-seek with the blue, while the faintest of breezes has introduced a bone-deep chill.
And outside the window, the earth is a visible mosaic of dead silvered leaves and muddy brown earth and new green shoots striving toward the sun.
We hover at a threshold now, once that allegedly separates winter from spring, although in truth, as our peoples have always known, the dividing line is neither so clear nor even a line at all, but rather a slushy, sludgy mottling of temperature and weather and time. Some of the wild birds of spring instead have wintered with us this year; others that are winter residents have failed to appear entirely. We have already had flies and one mosquito and plenty of pollen.
The spirits of abundance will now not be far behind.
The identities of these spirits change with cultural norms and traditions and identities. Not far from here are Indigenous peoples for whom today’s featured work would be entirely taboo, something to be avoided at all costs because of the role it plays and what it represents in their particular cosmology.
For Wings, it’s a powerful expression of abundance.
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 above and at the link.
Sterling silver; jade; tiger’s eye
$1,025 + shipping, handling, and insurance
Here, serpent is powerful in his own right, but not in the sense of medicine or ceremony, as it is with some other cultures elsewhere across this land. Here, there is a healthy recognition of, and respect for, his essential power — as with any power, one that can produce destructive effects at least as easily as beneficial ones. But symbolically, he is regarded as an avatar of abundance, the physical embodiment of prosperity. And so when one crosses our path here, it is mostly left to its own devices, allowed to travel his own winding path. Only rattlers are removed, and they are removed alive to a distant field where they and the dogs will not encounter each other.
We always welcome the first sighting of a serpent. It’s an indication that warmer weather is mostly here to stay, and a sign of hope for the near future: a translating of seasons and time that links the wet chill of winter to the warming winds of spring, and holds out the promise of a good harvest in autumn, provided we put in the work required now. And he is a sign of work, too; his initial appearance nearly always coincides with the point at which it’s time to begin thinking about the land’s first irrigation of the year, true labor done the old way here.
With this kind of unseasonal warmth, I suspect the Serpent may show himself unusually early this year. By then, we will need to have shifted gears already, translating our own work of winter into that of spring.
We shall need to be ready.
~ Aji
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